A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, David Cay Johnston maps the weakening of the federal government and democratic institutions as a result of the various actions, and inaction, of the Trump administration.
When the American people, their collective wisdom reclaimed, finally tally the accounts on this president, the rather scary facts that Johnston marshals are likely to loom large in the verdict ... Without tabloid fireworks, Johnston succinctly distills the character and track record of the man who has described himself as 'the world’s greatest person' ... Johnston’s most important contributions to the growing Trump corpus emerge from his thoroughly researched commentary on the current administration’s chilling adventures in Federal policy-making and day-to-day practice ... This book provides a clear-eyed rundown of the president’s attempts to undercut the role of government in our lives, both through senior Cabinet appointments and through his appointees’ blatant inaction in staffing up the departments they now administer.
What Worse does is essential — it tracks the actual policies of the Trump administration and tallies the cost of those policies to date. It holds Trump accountable for all his lies. It looks at everything that has happened, and lays it out in plain English ... I hope Johnston will publish a book every January, so that those marching in the streets can remember everything that has been done to their country, and so that those who eventually vote Trump out of office can figure out how to restore or replace all the damage that his administration has done to the country.
'The Trump administration deposited political termites throughout the structure of our government,' Johnston argues ...
Johnston sets out to shine a bright light on these termites ... Other times, Johnston seems out of his depth, particularly when he strays from domestic politics ... Although Johnston has been writing about Trump for almost three decades, he doesn’t offer any new or keen insights into Trump’s psychology and character ... Indeed, It’s Even Worse Than You Think winds up making the opposite point of the one Johnston intends: In the realm of policy, what the Trump administration is doing to America, so far at least, is not as horrible as you feared.
