Book review: 'How the Hell did this Happen?' aims to give insight into Trump's victory

Author PJ O’Rourke’s armchair dulls his political insight, writes Tymon Smith

In the '70s and '80s PJ O'Rourke made his career as a kind of gonzo Hunter S Thompson of the conservative establishment.

Travelling around the world and wryly laughing at what he saw as the stupidity of the left, O'Rourke was popular not just with Reagan conservatives who appreciated having a humorist on their side but even begrudgingly with the left who appreciated his sharp sense of humour while not agreeing with his political sentiments.

Now 69-years-old O'Rourke has in recent years retreated to his armchair in his New England home and nothing has made him more perplexed than the events of last year's US election, a campaign so mind-boggling that he eventually publicly declared his reluctant support for Hillary Clinton as the only means of retaining any sanity.

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How the Hell did this Happen? collects pieces that O'Rourke wrote during the election and reminds us that Donald Trump was only one of a long list of potential Republican nominees who were all seemingly ridiculous candidates for the world's No1 job.

He takes down everyone from Jebb Bush to Chris Christie, Ben Carson and Scott Walker and has a soft spot only for libertarian geek Rand Paul, who fell on his sword early in the race.

O'Rourke still has the ability to pull out the smart one-liners and he's full of scorn for the see-sawing of political pundits but the book suffers from his unwillingness to get off his chair and go see for himself what was happening on the ground with the voters who eventually created the mess.

There's also too much time spent on dissecting every one of the nominees which, while it might make for some chortles at their expense, doesn't really help answer the question of how the hell Trump won.

The O'Rourke of old would have been on the trail, interviewing Trump supporters, trying to understand what made them tick rather than simply sitting in his lounge with his deaf and half-blind father-in-law watching the Republican debates and wishing he had a gun.

US readers may appreciate his dedication to the task of analysing the forgotten minutiae of the Trump campaign but for others it will be hard to care at this stage and they may find themselves disappointed by the failure of a once-perceptive satirist to offer an answer to a question we'd all like clarity on.

The book is certainly not without its chuckles and moments of sheer WTF, but it's not the guide to navigating the increasingly insane world of the Trump era that even the most obstinate conservative can turn to for answers.

• 'How the Hell did This Happen?' by PJ O'Rourke is published by Grove Press.