Trump’s decision to reverse his most significant economic policy decision is not news any more than it is “news” that he doesn’t actually care about workers, declining or stagnant wages, mass unemployment, the financialization of the economy, the disappearance of the working and middle classes, or any of the other high ideals crafted for him by his learned apologists. His good ideas (pulling out of TPP and, if possible, NAFTA, single-payer health care, raising taxes on the rich, spending trillions on infrastructure, not rushing into wars in the Middle East on the basis of flimsy or non-existent evidence), his bad ones (building a 2,000 mile-long wall across our southern border, kicking out the DREAMers), and his absurd ones (giving teachers guns to shoot their students) were not really ideas. He was never going to leave Social Security or food stamps alone or pass anything that makes the Affordable Care Act better, much less replace it with Medicare-for-all; he was never going to build the Wall; he was always going to bomb Syria and commit us to at least another decade in Afghanistan.

For three years now columnists and feature writers have labored in vain to explain the so-called Trump phenomenon. He was, we said, adjusting our spectacles, a different kind of Republican, a reactionary populist, an Eisenhower moderate, a Nixonian paternalist, a fascist — whatever. We were all wasting our breath. The scribblers who did potted lit-crit numbers on The Art of the Deal in search of the answer to the Trumpean riddle were the only ones who got anywhere near the mark. This 372-page ghosted memoir cum management tips bestseller is the Necronomicon of the Trump Tower Horror.