The Toddler in Chief

What Donald Trump Teaches Us about the Modern Presidency

By: Daniel W. Drezner

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

Every president faces criticism and caricature. Donald Trump, however, is unique in that he is routinely characterized in ways more suitable for a toddler. What's more, it is not just Democrats, pundits, or protesters who compare the president to a child; Trump's staffers, subordinates, and allies on Capitol Hill also describe Trump like a small, badly behaved preschooler.

In April 2017, Daniel W. Drezner began curating every example he could find of a Trump ally describing the president like a toddler. So far, he's collected more than one thousand tweets - a rate of more than one a day. In The Toddler-in-Chief, Drezner draws on these examples to take listeners through the different dimensions of Trump's infantile behavior, from temper tantrums to poor impulse control to the possibility that the President has had too much screen time. How much damage can really be done by a giant man-baby? Quite a lot, Drezner argues, due to the winnowing away of presidential checks and balances over the past 50 years. In this book, Drezner follows his theme - the specific ways in which sharing some of the traits of a toddler makes a person ill-suited to the presidency-to show the lasting, deleterious impact the Trump administration will have on American foreign policy and democracy.

©2020 The University of Chicago (P)2020 Tantor

Love it

This book reminds us what a terrible President Donald Trump was. How he humiliated the USA

On point

This is the best analysis of trump, best on what the presidents job is, amazing!

eye opening

clearly this was written with a bias. however it did have a ton of factual information that really made me think about the upcoming presidential election and if we really want this guy back in office again. good luck to anybody who reads this. #underhiseye

Informative

Some of the stories or things mentioned makes the person lack intelligence. How much of it is really true? I am not being biased person. I do find it believable

Points Well Made, Thesis is Proven and Proven and...

I think that for such a narrow scope, while meticulously documented and cited, is not a thrilling page turner. I'd absolutely recommend this to anyone who even marginally agrees with the title and tone of the title and the person being profiled. It's a fun read and there are some legitimate gems that come in multiple ways, and I was surprised and a little impressed with the style of presentation. But this is a one-off read. [I re-read almost every Audible title I have, at minimum 3 times, so I might be a different listener than most]. And I prefer *long* books, so I listened to this in a single day - so again, I might be an outlier. But, for an entertainment, easily digestible prose, and short nature really hits those criteria well. It's a nice schadenfreude break from the day to day news. Short, simple, well cited, and narrated well. A perfect one and done audio book.