Rachel Maddow is a cable television talking head who is a fierce and relentless critic of Donald Trump. In many ways, she answers the obstinate and shameless defense of a President who hides behind a narrative that is the definition of “fake news.” It is perpetrated and magnified by Fox News and conservative talk radio, podcasts and blogs. Her nightly program penetrates the noise, dismantling the specious cover-ups, the fatuous denials, and absurd distractions. These fallacious efforts fail to “protect” the President’s wrecking-ball tweets and helicopter “press conferences” from the truth; which is apparent to anyone not trapped in the Cult of Trump.

What I had not understood until now is that Maddow graduated from Stanford and then earned a masters and PhD from Oxford University. Add to that, she’s a Rhodes Scholar.

She is known for her rigorous research and boundless curiosity. She has an uncanny ability to make complicated issues, well, comprehensible.

When I heard she’d written another book, it triggered my interest. Checking out the reviews, I learned about her academic credentials and gave my free sample e-Book a spin.

The Book

Blowout is a comprehensive look at the ubiquitous global oil and gas industry. Meticulously researched and jammed verifiable detail, Maddow unpacks a narrative that is at first, familiar; then deeply disturbing. We all know that we are exceedingly, perilously dependent on fossil fuels. The abundance of those fuels contained in the contours of our fragile planet is downright staggering, but finite. The resources devoted to find and extract every available drop in the most remote depths and corners is also staggering. The players at the top of the industry’s food chain are extraordinarily rich and powerful – corporate executives, oligarchs, third-world despots, Frackers and Mid-western barons – and operate by a different set of rules than the rest of us. Efforts to contain, restrict, or confine are met with fervent resistance. Maddow details the ominous results. It isn’t pretty.

As I often do, I downloaded that teaser of the book to read the first thirty pages or so in order to decide if I’ll purchase and read the entire volume. This time, thirty pages later, I was all in. To the end, I couldn’t put her book down.  It’s an intelligent, thought-provoking page turner.

Maddow’s education, both undergraduate and graduate, focused on politics. In her latest book, she masterfully weaves together the complex web of corporations, governments, continents; at sea, on the ground, in remote desert and artic regions with the political drama with which we are all too familiar.

Thanks to a free press, access to information and credible sources, we know that our American President has a shocking fondness for dictators, autocrats and despots around the world. He prefers authoritarian tyrants to the USA’s long-standing alliances with democratic leaders and nations. He’s convinced his base that the “Deep State” and the “Fake News Media” can’t be trusted. He’d rather hang with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, the Supreme Leader of North Korea and the President of Russia than the dreary (in his opinion) collection of Europeans at a NATO Summit.

Reflections

Maddow helped me understand where this all comes from. She doesn’t spend much time exposing the efforts of Trump, Inc. to host Miss America contests in Moscow or to build a gleaming tower with the name TRUMP emblazoned just below the sky-scraping penthouse. But she does introduce us to – and trace the key role played by – an American corporate giant, now with name recognition. He understood and exploited Putin’s reliance on Russia’s supply of oil and gas. Maddow documents Putin’s overt strategy to gain control of his nation’s reserves and production – not so much for the good of the nation, but to make himself one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world.

From his office, deals could be made and financed, and no one understood this better than the high-profile CEO of ExxonMobile: Rex Tillerson.

It turns out the man who would become Trump’s Secretary of State courted Putin for years, making massive deals with contracts that enriched them both exponentially. Ukraine is at war with Russia. Their goal has been to become a favored nation in the European Union (the E.U.), a goal loathed by Vladimir Putin. So, Putin goes to war, and for the first time since WWII, forcibly takes control of the Crimean Peninsula, home to vast oil reserves. The US has supported Ukraine’s move toward independence for a long time; but Trump’s affection for Putin flies in the face of US policy; and who would have guessed? Tillerson prefers Putin, too. If Trump needed a rationale, Rex Tillerson was at the ready.

It’s a mess. As I read Maddow’s in-depth account, I wondered if perhaps the outcome may have been different if she had written the Mueller Report. Maybe more would have read it.

As I write, the Impeachment hearings proceed apace. It’s generally known as partisan, largely because the Republican Party is held hostage by the White House, whose stonewalling makes the Nixon cover-ups look like a schoolboy raiding the candy counter over at the local 7/11.

Thank you, Rachel Maddow, for filling in the detail.