No Is Not Enough

I will almost certainly never read another book by Naomi Klein. She is infuriating, pompous, condescending, opinionated (a very bad trait in someone who calls herself a journalist), and self-aggrandizing. I expected this book to be mostly a re-hash of all the horrible things we know about Trump, and it was. But Klein's gratuitous swipes at Hillary Clinton were pointless. She whines that people like her have been blamed for Clinton's loss, and well they should be. Sure Sanders had some good ideas and aired some important issues, but he was essentially a one-dimensional candidate, just as Klein is a one-dimensional writer. Capitalism is evil. End of story for her. Except, no it isn't, and her recipe to fix it won't work. It is also infuriating when certain labels are co-opted. Progressives good, Pragmatists bad. And then she defines neo-liberal one way and then applies the label another. Why can she–and other purists–not understand that no candidate is all one thing or another. Sanders wasn't all progressive (his position on guns and women's rights were weak, as was his position on the environment, firm belief in climate change notwithstanding). And Clinton may be a Pragmatist, but on issue after issue she was actually to the left of Sanders. Even Trump isn't all conservative or all Republican. The labels are sloppy. Enough. No more Naomi Klein, please.

As horrific as it is to have Trump as President, Klein shows how his election is part of the pattern of corporate dominance of the governing of the country, going back many years. This is a highly enlightening analysis. She also relates the shock politics (get everyone focused on a crisis, then make the changes to benefit corporations and the rich) currently used to past uses of these techniques. While the section on what to do is uplifting and hopeful, it leaves a lot yet to be figured out. Passionate leadership to harness people to take back their government is needed and no one seems to have figured out how to make that happen or stepped up to lead.