This is a polemic for our time.

Naomi Klein makes a compelling argument that the Trump presidency is a direct result of his making himself into a brand rather than a politician. People voted for the brand. After setting out the arguments as to why this is true, Klein also helpfully provides a type of handbook for people who want to resist the Trump brand.

The book is well done, although it does seemed rushed in places (probably to get it in print as quickly as possible after the election). 

It is a polemic for our time, but it is also thoroughly depressing, which reflects the world we live in at the moment, unfortunately.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers who gave me a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Klein’s intelligence and sharpness of vision don’t waver throughout this book. I was completely sucked into it. Everything she writes makes such deep and everlasting sense, including the urgency with which this book has made its way into the world. She writes with great clarity and, despite a desperate subject matter, the reader comes away with glimmers of hope sparking.

The book calls us to attention. Klein is concerned that we do not look away and allow ourselves to be distracted. She begins the book with an extremely interesting description of Trump (and the USA and the path/vision the world appears to be taking) before he came to power. She points out that before Trump we already lived in a world that treated people and the planet like garbage so we need to root out how we got here (quickly) and get on with the change. Our leaders have been profiting from war, climate change and natural disasters for a long time and we need to be aware of that, we also need to know that the worse is yet to come.

Klein delves into material she has written in the past (‘No Logo’ and ‘Shock Economy’ both books which unfortunately predict the future we find ourselves in) and projects her ideas onto the present. She discusses the new phenomenon of human megabrands and just why the Trumps seem to be immune to scandal. Comprehending the immigration problem today from Klein’s point of view was also extremely revealing. 

However, this is not just a book of scary foreboding (it is not that at all). Klein is not simply angry (this is not tone of the book); her book is powered by the urgency of climate change (Klein whipped this book together in a matter of a few months). She warns us that Trump and his administration represent a great danger to our climate because their motivations are driven by greed and self grandeur and it is this that poses the worst threat to us (and the consequences of climate change; war and immigration). 

Klein ends this book talking about the Leap Manifesto that she collaborated in putting together in Canada. These are admirable rules and regulations by which we should all try to live by; it is a call for change and revolutionising the way we live in order to respect humanity and the planet. 

I appreciated the fact that this is not only a book about politics and the twist and turns in the path that nationalism and greed have taken us. This is a book that provides us with very realistic and grounded solutions that make the reader soar with hope and sparks us into action.

I had not read anything by Naomi Klein before reading this book but it is clear to me now that I must read everything she has ever written! I'm already a fan. 

This book is a short but compelling analysis of how President Trump is the culmination of the trends she has discussed in her previous books, including the rise of branding and neoliberalism's use of shock tactics and disaster capitalism to drive further disparity between the classes. One of this book's strengths is that while it is brief and concise, it is also comprehensive. Klein easily makes so much sense of the chaos and I definitely have a much fuller understanding not just of how President Trump came to be but also of the current political climate and what is truly at stake here. 

This book made me so angry. The more I understood, the more angry and frustrated I became, and the more necessary I saw it was to fight for the world we want to see. Another strength of this book, however, is that, while it is certainly a depressing read in places, Klein doesn't leave you feeling desolate or powerless; this book is a call to arms, a call for a more progressive alliance that will radically change the way we live and the way we treat the world and each other. In her discussion of Canada's Leap Movement and presentation of the Leap Manifesto she offers a comprehensive plan that will aid us in reaching a better future for us all than the one currently in sight. 

A must-read for our times. I will be heartily recommending this book to everyone.

I found No is not enough frustrating at times, but it is worth persisting with. Naomi Klein’s best work occurs when she creates an argument illustrated with fresh, compelling evidence. No Logo, for example, which was right about the emerging gig economy even if it drew the wrong conclusions about whether brands could be called to account, contains vivid stories which I remember a decade and a half later. This book may or may not have the same sticking power, but it is nothing if not ambitious.

Klein begins No is not enough by applying the analytical framework she has developed in her previous books to Donald Trump’s development of his brand. There is some useful insight: for example Klein notes that Trump’s TV experience enabled him to differentiate between being the best ‘contestant’ for the presidency rather than the best ‘candidate’. Similarly (although this is not a new thought) Trump understands the need to provide fresh spectacle (on wrestling entertainment principles), knowing that policy specifics are no longer adequately examined by the popular media.

Part of Klein’s central argument is that, monstrous though Trump and his senior team may be, it is not enough to want to return to the Obama years as thought they were some kind of golden age, especially with regards to the environment. She describes the horrific deterioration of the Great Barrier Reef. Things need to be better than Obama gave us, and better than Hillary Clinton promised, she says. Klein is, shall we say, unenthusiastic about the Democratic 2016 nominee for the presidency, and backs up her unenthusiasm and this is a reasonable position to take. But although Klein argues that to have voted for Trump takes the voter into a dubious moral area, she does (later) argue that Bernie Sanders would have been a more electable candidate and she hurls the ‘neoliberal’ tag at the parts of the Democratic party that didn’t back Bernie. I find that this veers a bit towards a Boris Johnson-like cake-and-eat-it position, even if Klein – unlike many of the new left – does take care to spell out a working definition of neoliberalism.

So about half way through the book, I’m finding myself angered about Trump (and let’s face it, to be angered about Trump is a daily occurrence even if Klein provides material that is new to me) and also irritated about an ideological purity that sees the centre and left of centre as too decadent to be part of a solution. It’s the promise of the blueprint of change that keeps me going at that point.

The section on shock tactics by anti-democratic forces provides useful detail on the role of Mike Pence among conservative thought leaders, and reminds us that for all Trump’s unfitness for office, his preening inadequacies probably shield the world from an equally ideological, but potentially competent administration.

And I find Klein especially strong and compelling when she warns that the notion of a shared humanity, with everyone regarded of equal status, with equal rights and deserving of equal dignity, is under threat from a ‘dominance-based logic that treats so many people…as disposable.’

But it begins to look as though Klein is proposing protest, resistance and solidarity as the answer, as though these are new and of themselves sufficient. She is right to suggest that renewal comes from outside the party system (that works both ways: remember the Tea Party and the alt-right) – but doesn’t deal with the messy stakeholder jostling which inevitably arises. The atmosphere within the ‘Leap’ movement sounds ideal and but also idealistic and unrealistic. Who is to judge whose needs take precedence, or who is more legitimate or representative of the ‘real’ citizen? We’re just a few small steps from Matthew d’Ancona and the ‘marketplace of ideas’. Klein herself makes statements about who might be the ‘right’ owner of energy sources, citing ‘farmers’ as an example – a class that ranges from the smallholder to Big Agriculture.

The ideas put forward in the Leap are very interesting, especially the proposal to redefine what is meant by a ‘green job’ and the rejection of blind nostalgia is very appealing in Brexit Britain; but some of the specific proposals seem small, especially when compared against Klein’s own, inspiring call to think creatively about a new vision. And as those proposals are adopted by parties and integrated into a policy framework it’s possible that some of the shine will be tarnished by compromise.

This book is at its best when it is analysing what has gone wrong and kicks us to get off the mat. It is weaker on realistic answers and that’s fair enough because they need to come from all of us. No is not enough is not enough. But it’s a start.

Thanks to Penguin Books for the review copy.

Book supplied by Netgalley for an honest review.

My rating: 4 out of 5

I should be the ideal audience for Naomi Klein's "No is Not Enough" - I'm very much a liberal, very much opposed to all the things Trump, and a strong believer in the positives of immigration. However, I did struggle with this book, and in the end found myself skimming pages towards the end.

Naomi Klein is incredibly articulate and very informed on all these topics, the book is clearly well researched. My problem is that it reads like a tedious activist's manifesto. Her arguments, and I apologise for this, can be broken down to: unions good, business bad.

She bemoans Trump for negotiating a killer deal on a NYC hotel that he bought in the 70s, depriving NYC of $350 million dollars of future taxes, but doesn't criticise those who made the sale. Trump is a business man, of course he wants the best deal he can, the problem here is not him, but the muppets who sold him the property on such a bad deal for the city and the state.

Likewise, I disagree with her support of Anticorporate street demonstrations, the ones to be expected now at all G8/G20/etc meetings. She writes about how the protesters receive unfair bad press, while acknowledging “yes, there had been battles with the police and broken store windows”, but there’s no criticism of this violent behaviour, of masked protesters vandalising property and terrifying residents, just disapproval that the press are hostile to the cause.

Similarly, she claims that the IMF’s goal was the "abject humiliation" of Greece in return for bailouts. This wasn't the case, Greece was heavily over spending on public services while not collecting income through taxes and needed to reform. As an example, public servants could retire at 50; the IMF's requests were only to put the country inline with other EU members. Without those reforms, Greece would be continually asking for further EU/IMF bailouts, which would be unfair on the other European tax payers who didn't have such great terms themselves.

And finally, all good books should include all the information to paint a true picture, not just the facts that suit the author's argument. This was done extremely well by Matthew D’Ancona’s in his recent Post-Truth. Naomi, as I said before, reads like an activist, strong-arming all her opinions as the only truth. While I deplore Trump, I can understand that he gained voters turned off by some of the liberal agenda - if you're about to lose your job and your house, you don't care what symbols are used on toilet doors, you don't care about reparations for slavery that happened 300 years before you were born, you just want to see fixes for your problems, steps to improve your life. The argument in this book is that if you voted for Trump, you can't see how the dots are connected like us smart liberals can, you can't see that you're being taken for a ride, like us smart liberals can.

I never write reviews this long, but this book frustrated me so much in that it missed such a wonderful opportunity. But all people who voted for Trump don't walk around with their knuckles dragging on the floor, the average salary for a Trump voter was £60k (quoted on a recent Intelligence Squared podcast). And I do feel that this liberal we're-smarter-than-you mantra does more harm than good, you don't win an argument by telling the other side that they're stupid. That's one of the reasons why the UK voted to leave the EU.

Still, disagreeing with an author's view is healthy, especially an author who I respect so much. So, 4 out of 5, a well-researched read, with some interesting points made.

Insightful as always, Naomi Klein’s reaction to Trump’s presidency is both thought-provoking and provocative. Written in just months after the election it’s a powerful call-to-arms and a synthesis of much of her earlier work, in particular The Shock Doctrine, where she analysed the use of crises to further political agendas. In No Is Not Enough she brings together all her previous targets (brands, corporate hegemony, climate change and so on) and warns the reader that we should be aware of and vigilant about the shock tactics employed by Trump in which he exploits crises in order to impose his policies. She points out that Trump’s victory shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone as it was the logical conclusion to America’s love affair with celebrity and wealth. But just saying no is not enough, merely resisting is not enough. The opposition needs a viable agenda to fight back and in the latter part of the book she expounds her vision of what a united opposition with clear and achievable policies could do for our world. I found this an absorbing and convincing book and even took away from it a shred of hope for the future. Maybe all is not completely lost. A must-read for anyone who cares about the mess we seem to be in and who wants to do something about it.

Not having a very strong interest in American Politics, I was  nevertheless shocked when Donald Trump was elected as President of the United States. How could the American people possibly want this man as their leader? Klein's book describes very clearly and in a manner I found  really riveting how this political moment came about. In a way it was a history lesson for me and one I needed in order to be able to understand the present situation and relate it not just to the US but to the world.
At times I found Trump's shock politics frightening but Klein not only emphasises the present damage that Trump and his followers are causing, particularly with regard to the environment and human suffering,  but shows us a way forward to counteract this. If we do more than just say "no" .  We can claim our world back from the bullies.
Thought provoking and inspirational.

Fantastic, educational, realistic, uplifting, life changing.

Bit of a scary read in this day and age but a good one nonetheless.

This book disappointed me for two main reasons. Firstly, it feels rushed. Maybe not that shocking, a book that talks about President Trump that is circulating so soon into his presidency probably had a degree of speed in its production. Secondly, I came away feeling it paid too little attention to its own title.

The latter is more of a problem for me so let's start there. "No Is Not Enough" suggested to me we'd be talking about yes. And the opening pages agreed with that theory. The idea that political arguments are far stronger when you don't just say no but include a yes too. It's a powerful message and one that the right has adopted, and Trump used well to get win the election. So why didn't we get more of it? I came to this book full of hope that I would be reading about hope based politics on the left, and I ended up with a fleeting mention at the start and end.

In truth, this is a book about intersectional messages. Don't get me wrong, that's a very important message too, and it in no way excludes messages of yes, but it's not the main thing I came here for. That's the problem a title and blurb like this deliver; when you arrive expecting one thing and get another in its place, no matter how good the replacement is you're always hankering after what enticed you in the first place. I think the two aspects complement each other well and can co-exist, but I still wanted the bias towards the message of yes.

For everything else, Klien massively disappoints on the value of yes in the current political climate. She talks of Republican intentions to overturn Obamacare but fails to note the rallying cry has always been "repeal and replace" - the latter half is what won people over. As we're seeing in the kickback to the proposed replacements under this new administration people wanted healthcare all along, they voted Republican not because they were saying no to Obamacare, but they were saying yes to something supposedly better. That is what engaged voters.

Trump didn't just say "No more coal mining jobs lost", he said, "Yes, we'll bring coal mining jobs back." He understood the value of a positive. So many people are tired of negative politics that when someone says yes people get excited.

Klien touches on Brexit and the focus on immigration, but little is mentioned of the "promise" to reinvest £350m into the NHS. Of course, it's foolish to pretend that xenophobia played no part in the Brexit result, but ignoring the appeal of a message of hope that the Leave campaign ran on is also to ignore a not insignificant consideration for many voters.

That's my bugbear with this book. It completely ignores the fact that the left has been taking a beating because the right offer messages of hope, no matter how far-fetched and unrealistic they may be. It's hard to say the right really offer optimism because, as Klien rightly discusses, they also rely on shock. Or possibly more bluntly, they are happy to use fear. And that one-two combination allows them a lot of control over the conversation. Shock people with fear, and then offer hope of avoiding the troubles you just introduced them to.

Even the inclusion of the famous Leap Manifesto doesn't really help convey that message of hope. Yes, Leap is a good start in that it does talk about some positive alternatives to the negatives it wants to see removed, but it is an appendix to the book. The main inclusion of Leap within the book is Klein's personal involvement in the intersectional discussions that led to Leap.

And that leads somewhat into the other issue, the rushed feel of the writing. Klien brings a lot to the table, and there are big chunks of good political commentary. However, there are also chunks that will turn people off. Unfortunately, they mainly also seem to be times when Klein is allowed a little self-indulgence. "I won't spend time here rehashing how the Democratic National Committee sabotaged Bernie's campaign," shows her personal view on those events, and fair enough. However, the run on "exchanging information and strategy with the Clinton camp to serve that purpose." shows that she will spend a bit of time reinforcing her opinion. As do subsequent asides on the subject. That's one of a handful of topics when Klein shows some contradiction. Topics where, unfortunately, it could be said she adopts s lightly holier than thou stance before revealing a slightly more normal reality.

It feels as if these areas needed more refining in the editing stage. It's as if it was read once and tweaked but nobody then read the revised manuscript, allowing this little issues to creep in. I would've happily had a shorter book that could've had more time spent on polishing if the time was truly that restricted. This is a book when clarity is important.

Overall the book is okay. In the whole, it reads fairly well and it's  got some good content. However, I can't get over the fact that it's not the book I felt I was promised. There's little analysis of Trump's victory, including some glaring omissions. More painfully though, there's very little devoted to the central tenet that no should be followed by yes when talking politics.

Fascinating insights, a real contemporary read to be informed about today's events.

Good, sometimes rallying sometimes a bit bleak. Not to sure about the whole Bernie Sanders thing..

A book of two halves i suppose.

The first section is good , very thorough about the condition of the world not as deep or as savage on any section as other writers but a great primer on the state of the world from a left perspective.

The second section is the reason this book is good , Klein says these are the problem and lays down a roadmap showing how the world can escape the position it is in . It is well written beautifully argued and inspiring which is not always the case in books from the left about the world today .

As a Trump obsessive, this was a no-brainer for me; I devour everything I can on him because I am appalled that he has managed to rise so high and always interested to find out why. Klein does a creditable job here of investigating the manifold reasons for Trump's presidency and since I hadn't read her previous writings on shock doctrine and corporations, it was all quite new and informative. 

She presents her material in a really user-friendly way for people who are intelligent but not necessarily well-versed in geopolitics, or at least who weren't until Trump! Well-researched, wide-ranging and very topical, of course, it will be fascinating to see how many of her predictions come true in the next few years. 

The trouble is, hardly anyone who needs to read this, will do so, any more than I will read the Milo Yiannopolis book. Klein talks about echo chambers and silo politics, and I agree with her,  but despite my interest in learning about what's going on in the US right now, I can't seem to make myself read 'the other side'. Until I do, I can't imagine 'the other side' will read 'ours'.

The politics of the West is in shambles precisely because we suffer ourselves to be less informed and more nonchalant while embracing a 'fast food' bite size mentality culture. This book explains why we need to be definite not only in what we don't want but in what we do want. We need to be active and engaged. It's a clear, straight forward and powerful.message which should be read by everyone.

Naomi Klein wrote this book very quickly, in just five months, because she wanted to come out before any major crisis hits the United States, although Trump himself and his administration can really be considered as a major crisis. In No its not enough, Klein summarises her previous works, No Logo, and The Shock Doctrine, to explain how Trump exploited the conventions of reality TV, along with his personal brand, to become the president of the United States. Trump is not a leader, he is a promoter and protector of a brand at America’s expense.

As disastrous as the Trump policies are so far, the worst is yet to come, says Naomi Klein. He and the people around him are very open of what they want to do, in terms of human rights, immigration, crime, health, and climate change. We have already seen Trump’s respond to the London and Manchester attacks. We need to get ready for shock politics, argues Klein.

No It Is Not Enough, was marketed as a blueprint for resistance. I think is much more. It is a call for a progressive alliance, a call for collaboration and cooperation against, not a person (Trump), but a system (Trumpism). I was particularly intrigued by Canada’s Leap Movement, the values, positiveness, inclusiveness, diversity, and the hope it brings.

Despite the writing rush and the repetition of some of the themes, it is an excellent and useful book.

a good sign of how much I engaged with this book is that I highlighted about 7 million passages while reading. Reading it, I realised I was nodding violently approximately every 3 pages. This is quite an embarrassing habit, actually, and one which I hadn't planned on developing until I was at least 80.

Klein gets into some deep topics, from the roots of Trump's populist success, to the shady backgrounds of the man himself and his equally dubious Cabinet; the section on how members of Trump's inner circle manipulated and benefited from the effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, for example, makes for quite chilling reading.

There are some truly awful details here about Trump and his buddies, like his gloating soon after 9/11 about his tower now being the tallest in New York, while both Mike Pence and Rex Tillerson are skewered for their profiteering and general lack of humanity. One particularly galling piece of information mentioned by Klein is that Tillerson's retirement package from ExxonMobil runs to $180million. So that will make him nice and unbiased about oil then. 
Since last year and the various political upheavals of Brexit here in the UK and Trump's victory in the US, I've been reading more and more about neoliberalism and the political conflicts that have led us to where we are now, and No Is Not Enough was the perfect read for me in this respect; Klein's agenda largely reflects my own political views and the content of the book served to add to what I already know as well as adding new, horrifying information. What's important to note is that, while Klein highlights occasionally terrifying details, the aim of the book is a positive one; building on the current climate of protest marches and an empowered opposition, No Is Not Enough encourages engagement and the seeking of positive changes. It's an eye-opening read but not a depressing one.

Obviously, No Is Not Enough will not appeal to anyone who isn't interested in politics or, you know, the planet. Klein is putting forward a specific political viewpoint and raising the idea of a liberal agenda, opposing neoliberalism and arguing for firm action on climate change. If these aren't your views, this probably isn't the book for you. It's an unambiguously anti-conservative message, which fits entirely with my own views, so I found No Is Not Enough invigorating and vital. I've not read Klein before, but I will be rectifying that shortly. 

Review to be published at wildeonmyside.wordpress.com

Thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher, Penguin Books UK-Allen Lane, for providing me with an ARC e-copy of this book that I freely chose to review.
I have a long list of books to read and I am trying to organise it somehow, mostly in order of acquisition, but this book arrived just as I had finished reading another book and it stuck in my mind. It is a very current and momentous book, so it was for the best that I read it promptly.
I am familiar with the name of Naomi Klein and I have seen many of her books and read about her and her ideas, but this is the first book I have read by her (I have read some short articles but although I kept seeing books by her that sounded interesting, it was usually when I was doing research on an unrelated topic or at a time when I could not read them and this time I grabbed the opportunity).
The book builds on much of her previous work, particularly on the issue of brands and how they have come to dominate our lives (the subject of No Logo) and also how politics and politicians exploit any disasters and shocks to impose ever harsher neo-liberal economic policies (that she discusses in The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism) and applies it to the current situation, particularly to Trump’s election and his policies since.
I started highlighting text through the book, to the point that sometimes I would be doing something and listening to the text to speech version and would have to stop to highlight something. This happened very often and I realised Klein was saying many of the things I had been thinking and some that I had not thought of but I recognised and agreed with as I read them. Her reflections about Trump as a brand and his presidency as the latest feather to add to this brand made sense (I learned new things about him and was reminded of others that had long forgotten but helped to build up a clear picture). It was curious that she referred to his time in the Apprentice and his appearances in WWE (televised professional wrestling) as (in a certain way) training for what was to come. She noted that some of his behaviours during the campaign were very similar to those of the fighters in WWE. And lo and behold, a few hours after I had read that part of the book, Trump tweeted the doctored video of one of his appearances in the WWE putting the CNN logo instead of the head of Vince McMahon, whom he was pretending to punch. And if I had already thought that was a very convincing comparison when I read it, even more so now.
The book is well-written, easy to read (well, or not, depending on what your point of view and your political leanings are), and develops the thesis that although many are shocked by Trump’s rise to power (and Brexit), it was not a total surprise, and there are people, organisations, and even whole countries who have resisted the move towards materialism and brands where only things, money, and profits matter, and where fingers are pointed at sectors of the population (immigrants, asylum seekers, ethnic minorities, women, environmentalists…)  who become the scapegoats for a situation they are the victims of. Klein looks at many of these groups and populations and how they have resisted the situation and taken a stand but she also notes that something else is required. Resisting and saying no is important, and it does not matter how big or small we are, we can all do it, but we need to find something to aim for, something that can unite us and something we can fight together for.
She discusses in detail the importance of trying to find common ground, rather than working for small goals, and states that the way the political centre has tried to introduce minor changes will not suffice. As an example of what could be done she focuses on the meeting that took place in Canada, bringing many groups together (unions, environmentalists, indigenous people, women’s groups, groups working towards racial equality…) and that produced the Leap Manifesto, because they think a leap is required to truly change things. We must leap towards hope and dare to embrace a revolutionary way of changing the world.
She notices the rise of dystopian fiction (and films) and the ever growing popularity of some classics (Orwell’s 1984) that she observes are a warning (not necessarily a prediction) and says we need more utopias; we need to be able to think of a better future. And she writes (and as she quotes a big favourite of mine, Oscar Wilde, I could not resist sharing it):
Because, as Oscar Wilde wrote in 1891, “a map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail.”
I read some of the comments on the book, and they are separated along ideological lines. I agree that perhaps she uses examples that might not be as simply black or white as she makes them sound, and I also agree (and thought the same as I read it), that perhaps the Leap Manifesto falls short of going as far as it should (as it offers and statement of good intentions but not much in the way of implementation) although it is an attempt at reaching an agreement and a compromise between very different groups, so it is not surprising that it is not all that radical. I must clarify that I read an ARC copy and therefore did not have access to what I have read are very extensive notes at the end of the final version of the book. Without the notes, it is not a very long book. 
The book made me think of an essay we had to write, when I was studying American Literature at the University of Sussex, discussing what could have been done, or rather, what could be done in the present, to somehow repair the gap between whites and African Americans in the US that comes from the time of slavery and was discussed after the Civil War and the freeing of all slaves, a gap that has never been fully resolved (as we all know). At the time of the Reconstruction, the suggestion had been that each freed slave be given 40 acres of land (therefore redistributing the slave owners’ property) and a mule (if you’ve ever wondered why Spike Lee’s production company is called that and never checked, now you know) so they could build up a life for themselves. Of course, that did not happen (or only in few cases) but I remember that after talking to the professor I did write a somewhat utopic essay that he could not fault for its reach, although he could not see how any government would go down that route. (I’ve been looking for it but I think it must have been in one of the floppy disks that disintegrated, although I might have a paper copy. I’ll investigate).  It also made me think about how much emphasis on brands is made, even in the world of writing, and how a lot of the advice to sell anything (a physical product or anything else) is to create a brand and market yourself (rather than the product). As she notes, if you are swimming in the world of media, in whatever capacity, it is very difficult not to be swamped by the allure of branding and its fraught logic. This is something that I have been thinking more and more about recently, and something that I care for less and less. Yes, perhaps this book arrives at the right moment, at least for me, but hopefully for many others too. 
As I said, I highlighted a lot of content, and of course, I cannot share it all. But I could not resist and had to share a few bits. 
First, one that shows her wit (and that made me write: olé! as a comment)
The truth, which doesn’t sound nearly as glamorous, is that the Trump brand stands for wealth itself or, to put it more crassly, money. That’s why its aesthetics are Dynasty-meets-Louis XIV. It’s why Trump’s relationship to gold is the inverse of Superman’s relationship to kryptonite: Trump crumples when he is more than three feet away from something big and shiny.
This one I think will give you an idea of what the book is about, in her own words:
We have to question not only Trump but the stories that ineluctably produced him. It’s not enough to superficially challenge him as an individual, foul and alarmingly ignorant though he may be. We have to confront the deep-seated trends that rewarded him and exalted him until he became the most powerful person in the world.  The values that have been sold to us through reality TV, get-rich-quick books, billionaire saviors, philanthrocapitalists. The same values that have been playing out in destroyed safety nets, exploding prison numbers, normalized rape culture, democracy-destroying trade deals, rising seas and privatized disaster response, and in a world of Green Zones and Red Zones.
And I love the way she ends the book (do not worry, it is not a spoiler):
 My deepest thanks are for patient little Toma, who missed his mom over these last months, but feels strongly that, “Donald Trump is too rude to be president.
This book is not for everybody and if you really like Trump and what he stands for, or do not care about climate change and other issues such as the rights of women, equality, diversity, the rights of indigenous people… I’d advise you not to read it. If you don’t, I’d recommend you check a sample of the writing and see if it speaks to you. I now know why she is so well-known and respected. A compelling writer, whatever one’s political views.

I liked this book because, mostly, it allowed me to understand as a non U.S. citizen, why trump won the election, but overall why democrats and Hillary loosed. The theme about huge multimillionaires companies and shock doctrine are also presents, as they have a big role in trump campaign (fake news etc.etc.) but there are also some sort of solutions or wannabe solutions to apply before it's too late. As usual, after reading one of her book, I'm pretty convinced it is already too late.

La cosa che piú mi é piaciuta di questo libro, é che mi ha permesso, da cittadina europea, di comprendere cosa ci sia dietro la vittoria di trump, o per dirla meglio, dietro la sconfitta dei democratici e di Hillary. Il temi delle multinazionali e della dottrina dello schock sono sempre presenti (e come potrebbe essere altrimenti considerate le fake news di trump), ma ci sono anche delle ipotesi di soluzioni che l'autrice auspica vengano messe in atto prima che sia troppo tardi. Come sempre mi capita dopo aver letto un suo libro, sono convinta che sia giá, ormai, troppo tardi.

THANKS TO NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!

Klein uses the concepts from her previous books (namely branding, the use of disasters to push through unpalatable agendas and climate change) to needle into Trump, examining his modus operandi and how how the conditions appeared for him to be President.  

It works really well and I agree with her central statements that Trump is a symptom of our broken system (which she constantly eviscerates - along with Clinton's/Centrists woeful attempts to offer anything other  a than the status quo) and figuratively cutting off his head through impeachment etc will just lead to another (probably less orange) one emerging.  Although he should still be called out and protested against, more time and energy needs to be ploughed into more general, progressive and community based programs to try to forge an image of a new future.  

Although too recent for her book to mention, Labour's recent success with a manifesto that doesn't sing from the usual neo-liberal hymnsheet and presents a politics of hope shows that more progressive ideas, often seen as political suicide, are actually popular and well received by the public when given a fair hearing.  Klein's book is recommended reading if you're feeling depressed by the state of things currently, times are bad but there's definitely seeds of hope.