Mark Leibovich Wants to Be Proud of His Country

The “Thank You For Your Servitude” author on his new book, those who empowered Donald Trump and whether we’re going to make it through this.

Mark Leibovich is the sort of journalist — and person — I admire and am inherently drawn to: He’s foundationally, constitutionally, No Bullshit. He’s a dean of the Washington press corps but also outside of it, a tapped-in reporter who’s a creature of the swamp while still being able to view it and comment on it with a rictus grin. His incredible book This Town remains the most vivid, darkly hilarious chronicle of a political establishment — and a political system — so removed from the world the rest of us live in that it at times reads like science fiction.

But his new book, Thank You For Your Servitude, has something new from Leibovich: palpable anger. It’s still funny, of course: Leibovich has the ear of a star reporter but the wit and prose stylings of a merciless satirist, Mort Sahl meets Ben Bagdikian — Hunter S. Thompson if he had his shit more together, knew his way around a green room and went to a ton of Red Sox games. But what’s different about this book is the outrage that creeps in around the edges of every page. Leibovich is appalled by Donald Trump, but moreso by the boot-lickers and careerist weasels who allowed him to rise to power … and may well do so again. And he thinks you should be too. After all: This is a nice country we have here, and we might just lose it.

I spoke to Leibovich about his book, what’s it’s like to try to interview Trump, the supposed Ron DeSantis challenge and whether we’re going to make it through all this or not.

I’ve found that people who hate Trump often have a different reason they’re most offended by him, and it’s often very personal. One friend hates his bullying because he was bullied in school. One journalist friend is most taken aback by his lying. A professor buddy hates how stupid he is. For some it’s the misogyny, or the racism, or the authoritarianism. Everybody has their thing. This book, as funny as it is, has some legitimate anger behind it. What’s your thing? What’s your primary Trump offense?