Did you read Vanity of the Bonfires?
A conversation from 30-some years ago:
one of my favorite moments in archival CNN footage was Trump asked his favorite author on Crossfire in the 1980s pic.twitter.com/Ts7CqazPqV
— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) June 12, 2019
Via Paste Magazine for greater ease of reading:
Pat Buchanan: Who are your favorite authors?
Donald Trump: Well, I have a number of favorite authors. I think Tom Wolfe is excellent.
Pat Buchanan: Did you read Vanity of the the Bonfires?
Donald Trump: I did not.
Pat Buchanan: Bonfire of the Vanities, excuse me.
Tom Braden: What book are you reading now? [Crosstalk]
Donald Trump: I reading my own book again because I think it’s so fantastic Tom.
Pat Buchanan: What’s the best book you’ve read beside Art of the Deal?
Donald Trump: I really like Tom Wolfe last book. And I think he’s a great author. He’s done a beautiful job —
Pat Buchanan: Which book?
Donald Trump: His current book.
Pat Buchanan: Bonfire of the Vanities.
Donald Trump: Yes. And the man has done a very, very good job. And I really can’t hear with this earphone, by the way.
It’s interesting to note that his method of bullshitting his way through a lie was the same then as it is now – to cover total ignorance with empty generalities like “I think he’s a great author. He’s done a beautiful job, the man has done a very, very good job.”
Do we wonder why he chose that book to pretend he’d read? Nah, it’s obvious – he didn’t even choose the book, he chose Tom Wolfe, and he chose Tom Wolfe because it was a newsy name and easy to remember. Two syllables: Tom Wolf. Easy, and manly. He’d probably sat next to Tom Wolfe on a few talk show couches. He’d probably run into him while groping a few crotches at Elaine’s.
Right now he’s reading Frederick Douglass’s current book. He’s a great author. He’s done a beautiful job —He’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more.
What’s funny about it is how unnecessary it is. I know plenty of well-educated people who say “oh, I don’t have time to read for pleasure any more. Too busy with work and children and blah blah blah. I read so much for work anyway.” I think it’s weird, like saying “I breathe air all day at the office, can’t be bothered to do it at home.” But it’s utterly common. So Trump could easily have said, “oh, with all my businesses, I rarely have time to read for pleasure any more. Golf is my recreation,” and nobody would have batted an eye and the interviewer would have moved on.
But Trump is so pathologically incapable of admitting there’s something he isn’t an expert in, that he just couldn’t resist faking it, and Buchanan I think took a little pleasure in revealing it. (Especially since Buchanan probably considered Trump an ideological opponent in the 1980s.)
He must have been a little disappointed when Trump didn’t say yes he’d read Vanity of the Bonfires.
OT re Buchanan — I’ve consistently heard his name mentioned as being supposedly one of the nicest people on the DC/NY political media circuit. Always kind and polite to producers, interns, makeup technicians, limo drivers, etc. Of course, his political preferences would crush the rights of all of those people, especially the minorities. So I prefer to take that as another example of how you can’t equate “friendly and polite” with “good person.”
Hunnnh that’s interesting, because it works the other way around, too – you can have all the best political principles but be shitty to every underling you ever encounter.