Every week we ask interesting people what they think President Trump should read. In the past, we’ve talked with Harvey Mansfield and Ben Shapiro, among others. This week we spoke with Charles J. Sykes, best-selling author of How the Right Lost Its Mind.
This interview was edited for clarity and length.
Adam Rubenstein: So, what do you think the president should read?
Charles J. Sykes: Well, first of all, this is obviously a trick question since the president does not read and it’s not clear that he has read a book through in the last 40 or 50 years. So actually, this is a hard one. You actually ruined my weekend because I spent it trying to come up with a list of books that I would like him to read, only to be afraid he would misinterpret or misuse them. That’s part of the problem. I guess I would break it into a couple of different categories. You know, I want the president to have some sense of history and of the majesty of the office he holds. So, I would start with a biography of George Washington, largely because he embodied the dignity of the office. I would also—this sounds very counterintuitive— but because he doesn’t have a long attention span, I actually think Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations might be helpful for him. You could convince him to read it by saying that Aurelius was a fabulously wealthy and powerful Roman emperor and that it makes for short reading. It might actually encourage—this sounds so naïve—perhaps a little bit of modesty and philosophy in an immodest and unphilosophical president.
AR: So you’d recommend, primarily, something on Stoic philosophy?
CS: Well, also, just having some sense of humility, some sense of the limitations of your power. You know, the extraordinary thing about Meditations is that you have the most powerful man in the world who was able to put his life and his role into some perspective—something Donald Trump is so far incapable of doing. Another book that I’d recommend, but which may be categorized as naïve in thinking that he’d actually read it, is Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly. I think everybody in a position of power should read it to get some sense of how things can go badly wrong.
AR: So on The March of Folly: You’d like the president to read about other leaders’ bad decisions?
CS: Yes. Exactly. And then also the consequences of bad decisions. You know, the thing most frightening about Donald Trump is he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, and doesn’t seem to care about what he doesn’t know, and as a result of that, he doesn’t know what the consequences of his actions might be.
AR: So Donald Rumsfeld’s famous “unknown unknowns” rings true still—certainly as a restatement of epistemology—but more, that, well, we should hope leaders are less impulsive in light of constraints of knowledge; it should be moderating?
CS: That’s exactly right. While Rumsfeld’s quote is basically an acknowledgment of the limitations of knowledge and why there should be a certain moderation in decision-makers, Trump is kind of the polar opposite of that. He doesn’t appear to give a damn about what he doesn’t know.
AR: Do you think that he’s just uninterested in discovering that which he doesn’t know? Or is disregard, in your view, just purely a calculation of utility?
CS: Both, I think both of those are the case. This is why the books I was thinking of would at least, you know, perhaps, slow you down to think about the magnitude of the decisions you make, but my big punt on your question—because I actually did think about what should Donald Trump read—I’m going to borrow something from what Ben Shapiro told you, which is that you’re never going to be able to actually get him to read anything, but you might actually be able to slip in some wisdom by having him watch a movie.
AR: Great! What would you have him watch? What about?
CS: I really wish he would see Mr. Smith Goes to Washington—the Jimmy Stewart film where a naïve young man goes to Washington—and becomes an idealistic senator and has to confront corruption. It’s a purely idealistic movie that actually he might find, as somebody who wants to “drain the swamp,” relatable. But more fundamentally, the film is about honesty and decency. A second movie for him to watch is To Kill A Mockingbird, which has also the overall themes of fairness, decency, and compassion, all of which he could use.
And finally, I think that it’s desperately important that Donald Trump learn something about American history and American values and what they are. I know that we will never succeed in getting him to read the Federalist papers—he will never read a book about the Founding Fathers, which is why I would list the movie 1776, which has the added advantage of being a musical, which might actually keep his attention for 20 minutes or more.
AR: What do you think the president should read in terms of news, other than, of course, THE WEEKLY STANDARD? You describe what you call the “Perpetual Outrage Machine” of news media in your first chapter. You write about Americans’ unhealthy diet of news consumption. So, succinctly: What news do you think he should be reading? What, if any, should he watch?
CS: Well, that is a great question, and I think the answer is, you know, that in an ideal world, he would turn off the television pretty much altogether, put aside his Twitter feed, and take advantage of the fact that he’s now the President of the United States and has access to the best intelligence, best research, and the best information on the planet. He can draw upon in any form he likes, he can draw upon the best, most well-vetted, most objective information, that any of us could even ever hope for. I’m not going to recommend he change the channel because I don’t think that that would, that that actually solves the problem. This is part of the problem with the president, is that he apparently does not like to read. He wants everything in a visual format. He wants to be told everything. So, you know, he has access to the daily intelligence briefing. If he wants to find out what’s going on in the world, he has every opportunity to have his staff glean the best information, the best reporting, the best analysis, from multiple sources, but I don’t think he wants that. I think that he wants to stay within his bubble. I think he wants to stay within his safe space, but he certainly has the opportunity to draw upon lots sources.
AR: Do you think he gets his information from cable news rather than from expert opinion? That seems like a pretty concerning proposition that the commander in chief is the commander in chief, a la Sean Hannity’s opinions.
CS: Yes, and I think that it’s perhaps the most alarming piece of datum that we have. He does appear to get his information from, you know, Fox & Friends, from Sean Hannity, and from some of the darker corners of the Internet. It’s genuinely frightening to think that you have a president that’s being fed a constant dose of misinformation, paranoia from people like Judge Jeanine or Alex Jones or some of the hosts on Fox. It’s genuinely remarkable that a man who has access to the best information on the planet actually turns to some of the least reliable sources imaginable.
AR: And you, especially in your latest book How the Right Lost Its Mind, take particular issue with the media and find it culpable for the dissemination of ideas that have “dumbed us down.”
CS: Well, I think the media failed in two dramatic respects. Actually, let me just start with two. There are actually many more ways it has failed than two, but number one: The decline of actually talking about ideas and issues in the mainstream media, particularly when we’re talking about the major nightly networks, was just dramatic. And then, of course, there was the decision to give massive unedited air time to Donald Trump, basically surrendering any sort of editorial discretion to airing his speeches and his rallies, you know, from beginning to end, which was an extraordinary abdication of responsibility. But see, here’s the thing. We live in an era right now where this is so much information. When we talk about the media, there are so many different elements of the media right now, and there are so many different sources of information, but the problem is that our capacity to absorb and understand information has not increased as much as the information. So, the more the information increases, the more attention becomes a scarce resource, and unfortunately what our politics has done is rather than becoming wiser and more savvy with this explosion of information, we have retreated to our corners and have actually become less thoughtful and less open to ideas. Which is of course a tragedy, a threat to our democracy, and the reason we got Donald Trump.
