Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

In which the Donald is recast as the don—as in Gotti, Corleone, et al. Former U.S. attorney McQuade knows corruption: She successfully prosecuted former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for racketeering, earning him a 28-year prison term. In office, President Trump commuted the sentence. What favor Trump earned for that, we don’t know, but McQuade assures us that the transactional president doesn’t do anything for anyone without expecting something in return. When he granted clemency for the convicted Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, for instance, he expected Cuellar to switch parties to the Republican side—tearing into Cuellar’s decision not to run and his “lack of LOYALTY.” In this, as in the opening ofThe Godfather, McQuade writes, Trump demands payback, maybe now, maybe later. By her account, Trump has made a specialty of using his office for his own enrichment: “And just like John Gotti, he was doing it in broad daylight. Trump seemed to know that, like a mob boss, the more he got away with, the more untouchable he appeared to be.” A president covers a lot more territory than a mafioso, of course: Trump’s dismantling of federal departments, razing DEI standards, and waging war without congressional approval are far beyond the purview of organized crime. Yet the cruelty and corruption that McQuade chronicles are of a piece, speaking to mob-style governance that leverages “public power for personal benefit.” To battle the lawlessness she perceives, she offers a multifaceted program of resistance, from turning out in number at events such as “No Kings” rallies to waging satire (“Laughing at a tyrant, of course, undermines his authority”), and, most important of all, voting and otherwise refusing to acquiesce. All of these are useful, but McQuade also suggests that the mobocracy will collapse under its own weight, brought down by corruption and sycophancy. A smart assessment of a presidency marked, the author argues, by blatant disregard for law, custom, and democracy. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.