Unhinged by Omarosa Manigault Newman

Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House by Omarosa Manigault Newman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is mostly Omarosa’s memoir with a focus on her business and personal relationship with Donald Trump over the years.

The first half the book was well-written and compelling. The second half was basically a laundry list of the things that we all know Trump did. In general, it didn’t contain a lot of new information, but it seemed as neutral as anyone could possibly be on the topic of the 2016 Election and subsequent Trump administration. Omarosa was also on the Ready for Hilary campaign- and Trump himself was fairly recently a Democrat. At the same time, Omarosa was really game on for the Trump campaign (more on that later) so she's as neutral a reporter as we could hope for.

The biggest complaint a lot of readers have that I agree with is that Omarosa didn’t take enough responsibility for her role in the campaign. I'm not an Apprentice-watcher so I'm not familiar with her television alter-ego. I am familiar with her political leanings and volunteer work. I met her a few times in person. I have little doubt that she is basically a good religious person but with a big healthy dose of ambition. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being ambitious regardless of whether you're a man or woman. The problem is when ambition causes you to do things contrary to ethics/the golden rule for the sake of that ambition. I'm an attorney, don't tell me you have to sometimes to get ahead. There's nowhere worth getting that badly. It is possible, as she claims, that she was a little gaslighted into her position due to her long-term friendly and professional relationship with Trump, but even so, she should really take responsibility for her (albeit small) role in reaping destruction on the country. Absolutely everyone on his campaign should take responsibility. Absolutely everyone that voted for him should. Absolutely everyone that didn't vote should take responsibility. Absolutely everyone in his family that didn't try to steer him to a retirement home instead should take responsibility. But what I didn't enjoy reading was how it wasn't really Omarosa's fault because she didn't really do anything wrong. I mean, for one thing, I already read that one- the Comey book.

Don’t read this if you’re looking for new information. Don’t read it if you have some irrational hatred for Omarosa because then nothing will sink in anyway. Read it if you’re curious how an intelligent person with a relatively neutral political stance viewed the events in real time.

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