... quite revealing. First, it captures the frenetic atmosphere of the rallies ... Second, it offers a good sense of the attendees ... Third, the book gives Hoffman an opportunity to celebrate blue-collar life and the teamwork and brotherhood of many workers ... A sobering, scarifying account that leaves the reader exhausted and in awe at the author’s endurance during these ritual gatherings of the MAGA tribe.
Hoffman, who never hides his journalism credentials, is an affable skeptic who finds most rally-goers welcoming and eager to convince him that Trump is 'heaven-sent.' He puts into context quotes from MAGA-goers and Trump himself with observations from sociologists and historians ... Liar's Circus is an illuminating and weirdly entertaining addition to the slew of books currently in print about President Trump, offering a well-documented, personal look at the people who placed him in power.
Hoffman often shakes his head in wonderment but rarely condescends, and he approaches his subject with scholarly vigor, sometimes quoting from heady philosophical and sociological sources while retaining a sense of fraught adventure ... What he discovered speaks volumes about economic uncertainty, racism...xenophobia, fundamentalism, and other populist dog whistles ... A valuable portrait of authoritarianism in action and its more-than-willing adherents.
... [a] vivid yet somewhat shallow sociological study ... Hoffman has a keen sense for such ironies as the blaring of Village People songs 'in an arena of fundamentalist Christians who thought homosexuality a sin,' and enriches his descriptions of the rallies with incisive sketches of rural American towns ... Yet interviews with attendees...reveal little of substance ... The result is both an intriguing portrait of a political phenomenon and a missed opportunity to go beyond the stereotypes of Trump loyalists.
