Last year's US election often made me think of Thompson's brilliant book "Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail '72", in which he mainly followed George McGovern's campaign, running against Nixon (Nixon ended up winning in a landslide). McGovern's campaign chief Frank Mankiewicz called it "the least factual, most accurate account" of the election... this quote in particular stood out:

"This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it — that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable. The tragedy of all this is that George McGovern, for all his mistakes... understands what a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of the human race this country might have been, if we could have kept it out of the hands of greedy little hustlers like Richard Nixon. McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose... Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?"

Felt I should add this in a second comment, but I want to really recommend (if you haven't read him already) Matt Taibbi.

He formerly wrote for an English language expatriate newspaper in Russia during the chaos of post-Soviet society in the 90's (edit: and early 2000's), and now writes for a few magazines in the US. He's covered Trump in a more clearheaded take on HST's writing style.

ex: -------------------------

"En route to taking this crucial first beachhead in his invasion of the capital, Trump did what he always does: stoked chaos, created hurricanes of misdirection, ignored rules and dared the system of checks and balances to stop him.

By conventional standards, the system held up fairly well. But this is not a conventional president. He was a new kind of candidate and now is a new kind of leader: one who stumbles like a drunk up Capitol Hill, but manages even in defeat to continually pull the country in his direction, transforming not our laws but our consciousness, one shrivelling brain cell at a time."

Replying because I can't edit. I just found the quote I wanted to share to showcase some of his style. It's not on Trump, but rather from his writing on the recent crash into recession.

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His July 2009 Rolling Stone article "The Great American Bubble Machine" described Goldman Sachs as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money" [1][2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Taibbi [2] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american...

Thanks for the recommendation - and I'll have to check out "Where the Buffalo Roam" too.

Regarding the 1972 election, Timothy Crouse's "The Boys on the Bus" (published around the same time as HST's book) is also worth reading. It's about the reporters on the road reporting on the campaign ("one of the first treatises on pack journalism" sez Wikipedia) and includes various colorful characters, including of course HST, who also wrote the foreword.

Never heard of it! Thanks for the recommendation. It will help frame what else I know about the time.

Prior to really coming into the public eye with his coverage of the 2007 financial crisis he wrote a book about American politics called "The Great Derangement". He covers his interactions with 9/11 Truthers as well as going undercover in a conservative religious group.

I'm sure I am missing some other topics that he covers since it has been years since I read it but I would certainly suggest checking it out.

Never heard of that one, thanks for the info. I didn't know he ever did any undercover work -- that sounds really interesting.

I also forgot to mention his former co-editor Mark Ames who's also very good!

Absolutely! It was almost uncanny.

I highly recommend the film "Where the Buffalo Roam" with Bill Murray and Peter Boyle. It' split into thirds with a frame of HST writing in his cabin. The campaign trail is cut to a short for one third of the film.

Murray filmed it right around the time of, or before, Caddyshack. It kind of frames his character in the latter for me. He was spending a LOT of time with HST.

Not like I know the guy, but Johnny Depp doesn't seem to have been the same person after spending so much time with HST as well.

I think thats a pretty accurate observation. He seemed to have an affect on people he spent a substantial amount of time around. John Cusack was another.

It's almost like a benevolent pseudo-mystic-nihilism... I don't know what else I could call it. There was definitely a change, though.

For the record, HST hated the film.

Yeah, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying it. He hated a lot of things.

Interesting you say that. I've been telling my wife ever since the election that only HST could report properly on this fiasco.

HST's obituary of Nixon is a phenomenal read.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/07/he-was-...

It really is. Anybody who crosses this comment should read it. I was thinking of exactly this when I made my comment.