The Washington Establishment’s increasing angst and opposition to billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy is predicated on the notion that his highly-quotable catchphrases—“Take the oil!” or “Build a wall!”—lack substantive policy prescriptions to back them up. In short, the RINO caucus’ knock on Trump is that his solutions are unserious, unmeasured, quixotic.
Yet if the chattering class fears Trump’s recent surge in the polls, they will go into panic-filled paroxysms when they read Trump’s smart and serious bestseller, Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again.
Among Trump’s many bestselling, anecdote-filled books, Time to Get Tough (originally published in 2011) stands out as his most penetrating, serious, and detailed enunciation of his political philosophy and policy views. Trump says it’s the “best book I’ve ever written” and is “better than The Art of the Deal.” Trump added, “It’s the hardest I’ve ever worked on a book. And it’s the most thought I’ve ever put into a book.”
It’s easy to see why. Backed up with nearly 250 endnotes, citing everything from Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports to Sherman Antitrust Act amendments to the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Trump’s book clearly lays out serious policy solutions to vexing U.S. problems. Welfare reform, cyberwarfare, energy, illegal immigration and crime, taxes, healthcare, national defense—you name it, Trump offers his plans, often including specific bills and amendments. Best of all, Trump does it all in his refreshingly blunt and authentic voice—the very voice now resonating with a citizenry fed up with the Political Class and its conceits.
Indeed, vestiges of the GOP Establishment, like Karl Rove aide Peter Wehner, have slyly chosen to aim the bulk of their barbs against Trump at his bumpersticker-style catchphrases or decades-old statements, not the factual policy discussions he offers in Time to Get Tough.
Detailed, innovative, and smart, Time to Get Tough rivals all other GOP presidential candidates’ books in both specificity and serious policy proposals. It’s a book to be read by conservatives and feared by Trump’s detractors.