It feels a little unfair when politicians buy their books in bulk in order to vault them to the top of The New York Times best sellers list. Those spots are for people like Prince Harry, whose wealth and fame came about honestly and organically, through hundreds of years of diligent plunder. But former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo—who’s about as likely to be voted Miss Teen USA as he is president, assuming both contests agree to drop the anachronistic swimsuit competition—doesn’t care about fairness. He wants to create the illusion of being at least as popular as Chris Christie.
So Pompeo did what politicians often do: He bought numerous copies of his own memoir so it could fall just two spaces behind Pamela Anderson’s book on how endlessly mortifying the 1995 release of her sex tape has been. If only Pompeo had his own sex tape. If only it showed him in flagrante delicto with a Taliban fighter. It might finally explain why he negotiated that awful peace deal that led directly to the abrupt takeover of Afghanistan.
RELATED STORY: Republican orgs spent more than $1 mil buying GOP books to pad best-seller lists during 2020 election cycle
Mike Pompeo’s political action committee shelled out $42,000 on books the day his memoir hit bookshelves, according to a filing submitted to the Federal Election Commission on Monday.
“Never Give An Inch: Fighting for the America I Love” came out on Jan. 24. That same day, Champion American Values, a PAC that Pompeo chairs, paid Bulkbooks.com $42,000 for “mementos—books,” according to the filing.Pompeo’s memoir debuted at No. 3 on the New York Times best-seller list for hardcover nonfiction. Two weeks later, it remains on the rankings at No. 5. The Times notes that retailers reported bulk orders of “Never Give An Inch.”
Of course, this raises an urgent question: Exactly how many wobbly kitchen tables does Mike Pompeo’s mom have?
As Forbes notes, since Pompeo is not yet officially a candidate for president, it’s still legal for him to personally profit by using his donors’ funds to buy his own book. Having a big stash of funds one can use for such purchases also incentivizes publishers to pursue authors who have exactly nothing interesting to say.
For instance, our previous vice president’s memoir, Hangin’ With Mike Pence, sold $91,000 worth of books, even though its author has the personality of pulped turnips. And the Republican National Committee bought $100,000 worth of Donald Trump Jr.’s book, Triggered, which appears to have been ghostwritten by an actual deceased person—and tripled their spend for his next book.
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Another Republican book-buying binge, led by the Republican National Committee, accompanied the release of Trump Jr.’s book, “Triggered,” in 2019. It was followed in October by the RNC’s expenditure of more than $300,000 on a second Trump Jr. book, entitled “Liberal Privilege: Joe Biden and the Democrats’ Defense of the Indefensible.” In both cases, the RNC gave away copies in exchange for donations.
The first Trump Jr. book topped the New York Times bestseller list; the second rose and then quickly fell on Amazon’s chart.
This appears to be a largely Republican phenomenon. While at least seven Democratic senators published books during the past election cycle, neither the Democratic National Committee nor the party’s two congressional arms reported buying any of them in bulk quantities.
Democrats have occasionally boosted their sales by buying their own books, too, but the practice seems particularly widespread among conservatives. When your constituency is largely made up of nonreaders, you have to do something to get on best seller lists.
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It also doesn’t hurt to lie about what it actually means to be on The New York Times list. In a Facebook ad campaign, Pompeo boasted, “Even the New York Times admits that my new book is a must-read!” Though as Forbes notes, “The Times did not review Pompeo’s book, suggesting that Pompeo was referring to its position on the best-seller list.”
Ope!
And who could forget this?
Well, if anyone’s actually read Pompeo’s book, please review it here. I’d be willing to do it, if OSHA can somehow clear it—and I get sufficient hazard pay to make it worthwhile. If not, I’ll wait until Pompeo hits double digits in any presidential primary poll. In other words, until the heat death of the universe or Nikki Haley’s inauguration, whichever comes first.
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