60 weeks inside Trump's second circus

BOOK REVIEW :

Donald Trump’s return to the White House has produced no shortage of drama. But in Trumpiana: The Wrecking Machine, veteran journalist Arun Kumar attempts something more difficult than merely keeping score: he turns 60 weeks of Trump 2.0 into a readable record of an American presidency that often resembles political theatre.

Compiled from Kumar’s popular weekly column, the ebook follows the second Trump administration through tariff battles, tensions involving Iran, immigration anxieties, the president’s fascination with the Nobel Peace Prize, artificial intelligence and the continuing disruption of US-India ties. The book is particularly relevant to Indian readers, given the uncertainty surrounding H-1B visas and the shifting relationship between Washington and New Delhi.

Kumar’s advantage is experience. A veteran of the Press Trust of India, he spent eight years as the agency’s sole Indian correspondent in Pakistan and China and has followed America for two decades. That background gives the book an unusual perspective: close enough to understand Washington, but sufficiently removed to recognize its absurdities.

Language is where Trumpiana truly distinguishes itself. Kumar uses puns, alliteration, popular culture and wordplay to capture developments that conventional political prose can make painfully dry. “Howdy Modi, Namaste Trump, Bye Dosti, Hi Grump!” neatly compresses the volatility of India-US relations, while titles such as “Magnolia, MAGAnolia, megalomania!” reveal his gift for political satire.

The book’s most memorable theme may be Trump’s transformation of the cabinet meeting into something resembling a televised royal durbar. Ministers praise the president as he presides over proceedings, creating a spectacle that Kumar observes without needing to lecture the reader about its implications.

There is substance beneath the humour. Kumar examines tariffs, the acronym TACO — “Trump Always Chickens Out” — H-1B uncertainty, AI “slopaganda” and Trump’s instinct for unscripted political theatre. Trumpiana works best not as a conventional political biography, but as a running diary of an extraordinary presidency — sharp, irreverent and, at times, genuinely funny.

- Kaleem Ur Rahman