Everything Trump Touches Dies
A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever
by Rick Wilson


(Click for Amazon book review)

I greeted this book with great enthusiasm -- but my enthusiasm was broken in the first chapter, and fully destroyed by the 4th chapter. Why my initial enthusiasm? One year into Trump's second term, here was a book written about one year into Trump's first term (published in Feb. 2019), from which OnTheIssues could excerpt all sorts of "lessons learned." And in particular, the author, Rick Wilson, was (and still is) a leader of the "Never Trump" movement -- conservative Republicans who oppose Trump's distortion of conservative values and Trump's takeover of the Republican Party.

My enthusiasm was broken because Wilson isn't interested in "lessons learned" at all. There's no policy analysis in the first chapter -- no strategies for mitigating the economic damage of tariffs nor recommendations for avoiding Trump mocking disabilities. (I choose those two topics because George W. Bush's presidency focused heavily on protectionist tariffs, and the previous Republican presidential nominee, Bob Dole, created the Americans with Disabilities Act as his signature legislation.) My enthusiasm was broken because Wilson didn't address those policy topics -- nor ANY policy topics -- it's just not there! I thought after the first chapter, "Oh, ok, it's just a catchy introduction full of inventive catchphrases, a political appetizer meant to rile up the reader to stick through the heavy meal of policy analysis." But nope -- the subsequent chapters just continued the "catchy politics."

The "inventive catchphrases" seem to be the primary purpose of this book. Wilson reminds the reader repeatedly that his expertise is negative advertising -- which means spending millions of dollars to distribute "inventive catchphrases" for the purpose of damaging a political opponent. Yes, Wilson is very good at "inventive catchphrases" -- if you love catchphrases, this book is great. If you care about policy substance, this book offers none. Some examples:

• Schadenfreude-a-palooza: If Rick Wilson coins a phrase like this, sure, it might become a catchphrase, if he put it in a national TV ad, and explained it a little (I guess it means "a festival celebrating other people's misfortunes").

• Not libertarian; not Fabian: I guess Wilson means "in the political center", which he cites in the context of declaring "fiscal probity" as a core conservative value. The potential policy discussion context was Ivanaka Trump's proposal on paid family leave, which Wilson calls "political apostasy". I agree with that "fiscal probity" is a core value, but I disagree with "apostasy" (i.e. there are plenty of conservatives who like family leave as supporting "family values"). I was left confused, and concluded that Wilson simply dislikes Ivanka Trump, and proposed "political apostasy" as another catchphrase.

• UK as our "Oldest Ally": Wilson makes an error of history here, which doesn't matter for TV catchphrases, but does matter with Wilson's credibility. Wilson seems to forget that the United Kingdom was the enemy of the United States in the War of 1812, and that we fought against the UK in 1776, with France as our ally and the first country to recognize the United States as independent. France is our "oldest ally" by at least 36 years -- which makes me distrust Wilson's other historical references, too.

• Hobbesian nest of vipers: Wilson says that Trump's Cabinet wasn't a "Team of Rivals", but instead a "raw, Hobbesian nest of vipers." Now, I love a mixed metaphor as much as the next grammarian, but that one mixes three different centuries! To decipher: "Team of Rivals" refers to Doris Kearns Goodwin's 2005 classic analysis of Abraham Lincoln's Cabinet, in which Lincoln intentionally included political rivals to encourage a lively discussion (in the 1860s). "Hobbesian" refers to Thomas Hobbes (1588 to 1679), who described humanity as operating in "continual fear" because "the life of man [is] nasty, brutish, and short." And "nest of vipers" comes from Matthew 3:7-9 and Matthew 12:34, from many centuries earlier. I could imagine a TV ad of a fictionalized raucous Trump Cabinet meeting with the scrolling text, "A Hobbesian nest of vipers" -- but how would that TV ad play in Peoria?

• Coalition of Adults: Wilson suggests that Trump's Cabinet started out as a "Coalition of Adults", to contrast the "Team of Rivals" of Lincoln's Cabinet. Wilson imagines the "Coalition of Adults" led by Jim Mattis (Trump's Secretary of Defense) and Rex Tillerson (Trump's Secretary of State), but then sees that coalition collapse. Wilson encouraged Mattis to "pull an Eisenhower" -- I can't figure out exactly what that means, but I guess something like "act responsibly like President Eisenhower did." Wilson approved of Rex Tillerson strongly, but sees his getting fired (for his actions in the Russian spy case) as the end of hope for a successful Trump presidency.

• Melania in a bar: Wilson likes fictionalizing scenarios, which readers might appreciate because Wilson IS an insider, and presumably his fictionalized scenarios are realistic (like a raucous Trump Cabinet meeting -- I've never seen one, but sure, I can imagine they're raucous). So Wilson offers many fictionalized scenarios, with "insider details" that make the reader feel that it's realistic fiction. Wilson fictionalizes a White House staffer going out to a bar -- a particular bar near the White House that he describes with realistic detail (I suppose). The staffer goes out drinking because he has realized that Trump is only for Trump, and that he will soon be part of the "everything" that dies when Trump touches it. There in the bar he spots Melania Trump, who consoles that the staffer that she feels the same. This is the point where I stopped reading this book -- because it threw away all pretext of reality. Does Melania go to bars? Alone? Near the White House? Of course not -- but does she acknowledge that she, too, is to be discarded by Donald Trump? I doubt it -- I guess that's Wilson's conclusion, that she WOULD -- but the scenario is so unrealistic that I question the conclusion.

--Jesse Gordon, OnTheIssues.org editor-in-chief, Dec. 2025

OnTheIssues.org excerpts:  (click on issues for details)

Principles & Values     Donald Trump: OpEd: Everything Trump Touches Dies.

Click for quotations from other sources by: Donald Trump