Our guest on ST is James Poniewozik, the chief TV critic at The New York Times. He joins us to discuss his widely hailed new book, "Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America." As was noted of this incisive work of cultural criticism and American history in the pages of Bookforum: "The smartest, most original, most unexpectedly definitive account of the rise of Trump and Trumpism we've had so far. It's also the best book yet written about the bride-of-Frankenstein mating of American politics and American pop culture, a wedding practically nobody saw coming until Trump provided the shotgun.... [This is an] uncommonly rich and stimulating book." And further, from Gary Shteyngart in The New York Times Book Review: "Illuminating.... Poniewozik is a funny, acerbic, and observant writer.... [He] uses his ample comedic gifts in the service of describing a slow-boil tragedy. If humor is the rocket of his ICBM, the last three years of our lives are the destructive payload.... Poniewozik brings a new microscope with which to analyze the drug-resistant bacterium that is our president. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of 'Audience of One' is that it makes Trump's presidency seem almost inevitable."
The Rise of Our Nation's TV-Character-in-Chief: Critic James Poniewozik Offers "Audience of One"
