Three books—Rory Cormac’s How to Stage a Coup, Ece Temelkuran’s How to Lose a Country, and Maria Ressa’s How to Stand Up to a Dictator—can help Americans prepare for what comes next.
Glad I stumbled upon your post. I’ll be stumbling into Powell’s tomorrow as I need all of these.
Question for you, and please bear with me.
My father moved in with me last year; 78, wheelchair dependent, marine veteran (blown up in Vietnam), retired police officer, fully retired at 33 years old, a judgy catholic, and a staunch Trump supporter. He is a walking contradiction.
Needless to say, I am struggling.
In your opinion, which of these titles might hold the attention of a strictly ‘by the book’ but only if I (or my buddy, trump) wrote the book kind of a guy? So many descriptive words to choose from but you know the type, I’m sure.
I’m leaning towards How to Stage a Coup; however, if the author negatively references trump, it’ll be the last words he reads.
Hmm. So - "How to lose a country" and "How to stand up to a dictator" are both factual biographical accounts, one from 2019 and one from 2022, so in the Trump era but not about him - but they do mention him iirc in the sense of 'facebook came to the Phillipines and hurt our democracy this was which was also later seen with trump" or "Erdogan did this, a tactic then also used by Brexit and Trump campaign." But it doesn't kick off like that, so maybe by that stage of the book if he is invested in it, that could be an epiphany type moment. How to stage a Coup was 2022 too, a lot of it is historical about how the US staged coups in other countries from the 50s but if I remember right also introduces Russian disinformation. I think any book like this now is going to mention trump unfavourably. If he likes history and the cold war then maybe "active measures" - a history of disinformation, it has a lot of exiting russian and CIA history through the 20th century, then leads up naturally to the Russian interference in 2016. So it's not getting to the trump bit until the end and he's invested, if that makes sense. I'd also look at "How Democracies Die" by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, but that does specifically mention Trump.
Thanks for this - I will be restacking it. It was so obvious why Musk bought Twitter. And it is now quite funny how he has poisoned his own brand (Tesla). And I think that holds the key to these people's downfall. Their own greed and hubris brings them down.
Let me know any books in a similar vein you would recommend.
And probably wise to get a hard copy, as the electronic/Kindle version could be easily "disappeared." Because over at Amazon, Trump's got a guy.
Glad I stumbled upon your post. I’ll be stumbling into Powell’s tomorrow as I need all of these.
Question for you, and please bear with me.
My father moved in with me last year; 78, wheelchair dependent, marine veteran (blown up in Vietnam), retired police officer, fully retired at 33 years old, a judgy catholic, and a staunch Trump supporter. He is a walking contradiction.
Needless to say, I am struggling.
In your opinion, which of these titles might hold the attention of a strictly ‘by the book’ but only if I (or my buddy, trump) wrote the book kind of a guy? So many descriptive words to choose from but you know the type, I’m sure.
I’m leaning towards How to Stage a Coup; however, if the author negatively references trump, it’ll be the last words he reads.
Thoughts?
Hmm. So - "How to lose a country" and "How to stand up to a dictator" are both factual biographical accounts, one from 2019 and one from 2022, so in the Trump era but not about him - but they do mention him iirc in the sense of 'facebook came to the Phillipines and hurt our democracy this was which was also later seen with trump" or "Erdogan did this, a tactic then also used by Brexit and Trump campaign." But it doesn't kick off like that, so maybe by that stage of the book if he is invested in it, that could be an epiphany type moment. How to stage a Coup was 2022 too, a lot of it is historical about how the US staged coups in other countries from the 50s but if I remember right also introduces Russian disinformation. I think any book like this now is going to mention trump unfavourably. If he likes history and the cold war then maybe "active measures" - a history of disinformation, it has a lot of exiting russian and CIA history through the 20th century, then leads up naturally to the Russian interference in 2016. So it's not getting to the trump bit until the end and he's invested, if that makes sense. I'd also look at "How Democracies Die" by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, but that does specifically mention Trump.
Thank you for the suggestions.
I appreciate you taking the time! Looking forward to reading these myself.
Cheers!
Thank you for these suggestions!
Very welcome, and thank you for restacking!
Thanks for this - I will be restacking it. It was so obvious why Musk bought Twitter. And it is now quite funny how he has poisoned his own brand (Tesla). And I think that holds the key to these people's downfall. Their own greed and hubris brings them down.