Who would have thought that, 20 years after Pat Buchanan’s failed presidential bid, a billionaire New York real-estate developer and reality-television star would win the Republican presidential nomination running on the same issues Buchanan campaigned on in 1996, and with the same unifying theme of putting America (and Americans) first?  Yet it has happened.  Not only that, but this man has a solid chance of winning the general election (against the wife of the sitting president of 1996).  For the record, this reviewer believes he will win, and so does the author of this fiery and intellectually brilliant polemic.

This book burns with a pure and righteous rage.  It’s hilariously funny.  Its arguments are devastating to the p.c. pieties of our therapeutic elite.  And it smokes out the Republicans and their hangers-on—the pollsters, pundits, politicos, and “strategists”—revealing them to be a bunch of mercenary hacks whose only thought is “How much publicity and profit can I garner by telling lies and selling out my country and its people?”  The only group of Washingtonians that comes off worse in the book’s pages are the execrable “news” media, whose first principle seems to be “The truth is too dangerous to report, especially if it helps Trump.”  The media’s mendacity is on full display in this campaign.

In my opinion, In Trump We Trust is Ann Coulter’s best book, though I thought the same of her last book.  That can only mean one thing: Coulter is improving as a writer.  The two books are related, and not only thematically.  Trump is said to have watched Coulter debate Jorge Ramos of Univision in the spring of 2015 on the topic of Hispanic immigration, which Coulter had skewered in ¡Adios, America!  Trump was impressed enough to ask the author for a prerelease copy of her book.  Apparently, Trump learned from her that immigration was a winning political issue that no Republican had the intelligence, the independence of action, or the courage to run on.  Trump had all three.  Thus, he took on as an ally the 800-pound gorilla rampaging through the house, using the beast to tear his pusillanimous and packaged opponents limb from limb.

How could Trump have done it?  Here, according to Coulter, are the decisive factors.  First, Trump’s wealth and celebrity enabled him to reach the people, directly bypassing the gatekeepers of the news media and the political class.  Second, he raised the issues the voters were really concerned about—immigration, domestic terrorism, the loss of good jobs—and took popular positions on them: “Build a wall, bring back jobs, and avoid wars.”  Then, when he was predictably attacked by journalists and politicians for demagoguery, bigotry, and racism, he refused to apologize or back down.  That showed courage.  When these people attacked his supporters, he not only defended them but hit back.  That showed he was on their side.  The people had finally found a leader and a champion, and there was nothing the priests of political correctness could (or can) do about it.  That hasn’t stopped them from trying.

Coulter titles one of her last chapters “So Close: The Plan to Destroy America Was Almost Complete.”  She refers to the deliberate demographic deluge that the political elites are using to consolidate their power and privileges and protect them forever from the danger of a popular revolution.  Yet God has a way of frustrating the careful plans of men in the blink of an eye.  Of course, much would depend upon how Trump governs.  The plutocrats and pluralists are terrified because they believe Trump believes what he says, and will do what he promises.  Ann Coulter believes that he does and he will.  So do I.

 

In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!, by Ann Coulter (New York: Penguin Random House) [214 pp., $23.00]