Since I started working for Twitchy three years ago, my attention span has not exactly improved, considering most of what I read and write about is usually no longer than 280 characters. But I gotta tell you guys; I loved Kimberley Strassel’s new book, “Resistance (At All Costs).”
Loved it.
So much.
If I’m being honest, it’s probably the first book I’ve actually finished all the way through in a good, long while, mainly because Strassel keyed in on so much of what I see on social media not only as an editor but as a conservative as well. So many people on the Left, like our good, delicate, tolerant friends in the media, Hollywood, and Democrats themselves, seem to spend every waking moment screeching at the top of their lungs about how Trump is going to ruin this country without even once noticing the very real damage they themselves have done.
And Strassel does an amazing job of shining a light on their behavior and what it really means for America throughout the entire book.
It’s a scary thing when a president rules by executive order, ignores the law, threatens the 50 states, trains the federal bureaucracy on political opponents, and politicizes justice. And indeed, that Barack Obama dude was one scary president.
Donald Trump, not so much.
The most consistent and aggressive criticism of Trump is that he is a threat to American Democracy – a budding autocrat who is destroying our most basic values and institutions.
Perhaps the best part of the book is Strassel’s ability to walk the reader through all of the crazy investigations and ‘Deep State’ insanity that President Trump has been targeted with since basically the day he won the presidency. Usually, this stuff reads like stereo instructions written backward in Mandarin while the writer was being chased by a pack of wild dogs; in other words, it’s incredibly confusing and even overwhelming.
‘If Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Washington has no fury like a civil servant defied. Trump has no need to travel to a Resistance rally to meet his opponents; they work for him.
Trump and his circle have their own term for this particular group of resisters – the ‘deep state’.
… By ‘deep state,’ Trump is referring to any current or former federal employee who works to undermine him.
Strassel spends some time specifically tackling the ‘Press Gang,’ aka the media, and their inability to cover any story without showing their bias. In fact, she calls out their willingness to act on bias alone:
What’s a bigger problem has been the press’ willingness to act on its bias. The past few years have seen the greatest disintegration of press standards in the modern history of the industry. The media has published evidence-free accusations, a new alarming low. It has sourced its stories from people with clear political axes to grind, even as it has worked to hide those motivations from its readers.
Throughout the entire book, Strassel manages to keep her sense of humor as well, which makes the ‘read’ feel personal, almost like she’s sitting down with you, drinking coffee, and telling you a story, a story we’ve been trying to get our heads around for nearly three years now, and she manages to do it in a manageable 222 pages; which even this Twitchy editor with the attention span of a hummingbird was able to get all the way through.
Did I mention this book rocks? Unless, of course, you’re a resister…
