{"id":1866,"date":"2016-11-27T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-27T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=1866"},"modified":"2025-09-29T18:55:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T18:55:15","slug":"the-book-donald-trump-read-that-must-have-shaped-his-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=1866","title":{"rendered":"The book Trump read &#8211; that shaped his campaign &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"http:\/\/tomfaranda.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00d834525a2f69e201b7c8b3ef4e970b-pi\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Trump campaigning\" class=\"asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834525a2f69e201b7c8b3ef4e970b img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/tomfaranda.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00d834525a2f69e201b7c8b3ef4e970b-150wi\" style=\"width: 140px;\" title=\"Trump campaigning\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Yes I know plenty of people think he&#39;s a dumbbell. This is quite interesting &#8211; Below is something off the Newsweek website (I thought Newsweek was completely defunct, but I guess not) which I found linked on <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ann_Althouse\">Ann Althouse<\/a> blog. I read her blog several times a week.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/2016\/11\/25\/donald-trump-presidential-campaign-521145.html\">Donald Trump has read a book<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">In 2012, [Rick Santorum] was the runner-up to Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential primaries. Ensconced since then in a Washington, D.C., law firm, Santorum had written a book that attracted little attention: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1621572390?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=althouse09-20&amp;camp=1789&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;creativeASIN=1621572390\"><em>Blue Collar Conservatives, Recommitting to an America That Works<\/em><\/a>. But Trump had read the book, very carefully, in fact, and was intrigued. He called Santorum and asked if he would come to Trump Tower for a visit&#8230;..<\/p>\n<p> Santorum agreed, of course\u2014he was thinking of making another run at the White House, using that playbook. (He did, but got bum-rushed early in the primaries.) Trump then surprised Santorum even more by questioning him on details of his book and economic policy in general. What could be done with trade policy to help the working class? Was there any way to turn around the massive bilateral trade imbalance with Beijing? Could the White House be used as a bully pulpit to pressure American companies to stop sending manufacturing offshore? On and on they went, and Santorum left the meeting wondering what might happen if you mixed the power of celebrity with a blue-collar tent revival.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">We now know the answer. Trump\u2019s improbable run to the presidency\u2014which was nearly derailed on several occasions by his lack of discipline\u2014was guided by a conviction that he could, as political consultant and longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone said last year, \u201crewrite the [electoral] map\u201d by smashing the \u201cgreat blue wall\u201d of Midwestern Democratic states. And smash it he did.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">&#0160;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yes I know plenty of people think he&#39;s a dumbbell. This is quite interesting &#8211; Below is something off the Newsweek website (I thought Newsweek was completely defunct, but I guess not) which I found linked on Ann Althouse blog. I read her blog several times a week. Donald Trump has read a book: In [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7943,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866\/revisions\/7943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}