Donald Trump Still Looms in the American Psyche: Revisiting This Year’s Excerpts

Obama’s Charleston Speech • From the COVID Front Lines • Biden’s Troubled Transition

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Donald Trump Still Looms in the American Psyche: Revisiting This Year’s Excerpts

As we head into the New Year, Donald Trump may be losing his grip on the Republican Party, making it a good time to reflect on just how corrosive a force he’s been on American democracy. To start, consider Vanity Fair’s October excerpt from Chris Whipple’s latest book, which recounts the remarkable, behind-the-scenes drama that played out during Joe Biden’s transition into power. It’s also a perfect time to revisit Sarah Kendzior’s They Knew, which covers the parallels between Trump and Norman Baker, one of America’s oldest hucksters.

If you’re looking for something more uplifting, we’d recommend diving back into our excerpt of Grace by Cody Keenan, a former Obama speechwriter who chronicled the trials and tribulations of getting the former president’s famous speech in Charleston, South Carolina, just right. And if that’s not enough, take another look at Marie Brenner’s on-the-ground dispatch from the front lines of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, when thousands of New York health care workers were risking their lives every day.

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“America Is a Ghost Story”: How Donald Trump Follows in the Footsteps of a Notorious Con Artist

From Norman Baker to Jeffrey Epstein, Iran-Contra to January 6, Sarah Kendzior’s forthcoming book, They Knew, deftly separates fact from fiction in a conspiracy-addled nation.

“If It Feels Right, I Might Sing It”: How Obama’s Most Famous Speech Almost Didn’t Happen

The 2015 church massacre in Charleston would precipitate Obama giving a poignant eulogy. But behind the scenes, speechwriter Cody Keenan recalls in his new book, Grace, Obama doubted whether he could bring himself to say anything at all.

COVID’s Ground Zero, Spring 2020: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Traumatized New York

In an excerpt from her book The Desperate Hours, the author went inside the ICU and into the mindsets of frontline heroes during the early days of the pandemic.