What is the best book about America? Is it a journalist or an insider? Four different books about upcoming elections

Dutch books about America are published every year, but not when presidential elections are around the corner. Only then can American voters learn more from reasonable foreigners. This year’s harvest has come too soon to include the last two rounds of campaigning: an attack on Donald Trump and the more or less voluntary resignation of Joe Biden. No matter, the books are written expressly to place political history in a broader context. Ahead of the Democratic convention that begins next Monday, here’s an overview of the four categories.

Storyteller

‘Yes, here we are again. Still from my camper in the Rocky Mountains.’ Between 1986 and 2005, Charles Kronhuizen was a NOS correspondent in the US for thirteen years, and although he has long since been released, he does not want to budge. At a camp he still does stand-up and still explains to the audience how the country works. There are some insults on TV and social media, but the desire to continue to contribute (‘Kamala Harris is D66’s right wing’) is evident to every ex-reporter.

Have you worked for years to get hold of that great country and then you want to continue in the Netherlands? No way. That’s why Groenhuijsen writes a new America book every few years. Divided States of America More recent and he’s doing what he does in front of the camera in his camper: chatting.

That Groenhuijsen copied almost everything from American media and books (“Anyone who wants information about it can email me,” he says in his afterword) is disappointing. The fact that his ‘personal preference’ is with the Democrats doesn’t make the book any more surprising.

But the biggest drawback is the jargon of the omniscient narrator and the resulting sloppiness. For example, it looks like this: ‘In large parts of the country, the majority of students in education are already of color,’ writes Groenhuijsen. In seven states (…) people are already ‘majority minorities’. This is why many whites vote for right-wing politicians who want to overturn this. Voters are wondering where they all want to live. What will all this cost us? I’ll still keep my job.’

Here the author mixes racism and hatred of (illegal) immigration in an almost insulting manner; Which voters wonder where “colored” Americans should live? In addition, factual errors permeate the book (‘Black churches do not participate in this political game’), the result of Cronhuizen’s ‘personal preference’, carelessness and, above all, self-satisfaction as an American gossip.

Journalist

Steven de Fore has worked for over thirty years standard and came to America in 2001 to cover the aftermath of ‘September 11’. His book Vandals The cover made a startling promise: ‘How the Party of Lincoln Fell into the Party of Trump.’ This is a series of profiles of Americans who played a major role in the development of conservative politics that came to dominate the Republican Party to the point that dissidents left the party or were expelled. It begins with aviation hero Charles Lindbergh, with his unhealthy fascination with Nazi Germany, and ends with Trump, who De Foer thinks is important that he ‘doesn’t end up in the White House, incarcerated’.

Interesting and informative portraits, and at least De Foer uses his own observations as a reporter to bolster his argument. He certainly does not overlook the important influence of religion on American conservatism. Why devote a chapter to dictator Rush Limbaugh and not to Jerry Falwell? The TV preacher and his moral majority have to do with the economics column in the chapter on Ronald Reagan.

For all his useful and readable work, De Foer never lets up on his “how to come” promise. In the chapter on Trump, he believes that “at least eighty years should have shown that subversion of democracy is in the genes of this party.” Yes, he has shown that Trump is not the first destructive force within the Republican Party. Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, activist Pat Buchanan (“the inventor of Trumpism”), political saboteurs Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove, nihilistic senator Mitch McConnell – all of them have played a dark role in American politics in the last century. But it becomes clear after reading how the party prepared itself during that period for an autocratic leader. Vandals Don’t say.

According to de Foer, Trump’s rise to undisputed party leader after the lowest point of his popularity — the first days after the storming of the Capitol — was due to the cowardice of his fellow party members, the cult of personality surrounding Trump. and ‘confidence returned that he could win’. Where is the Republican gene pool on this list?

Historian

Frans Verhagen has turned America into a shop. He writes opinion pieces on it and on NRC, he publishes books on it. In the back of his latest book, President of the United StatesHe mentions no less than three of his own books under the heading ‘Further Reading’. Except for his latest book US presidency (2020), which actually has the same subtitle as his latest book: ‘The History of the World’s Most Powerful Office’.