What if she offered a book and nobody showed up?

Actually, there’s no need to speculate; this is essentially what occurred on October 4, when Missouri Democrat Rep. Cori Bush’s political biography was released.

According to an NPD BookScan analysis quoted by the New York Post, “The Forerunner: A Story of Pain and Perseverance in America” only sold 729 copies in its first week. Isn’t there nowhere to go but up?

Wrong. It sold 288 copies in its second week, bringing its total sales to 1,017. That works out to less than two copies each day in each state, and I’m ready to guess that she didn’t make a single sale in many states, given that I believe most of the few copies they did manage to sell were to consumers in D.C. or Bush’s home state of Missouri.

Bring on the sad trombone.

There are several conceivable explanations for the book’s failure to debut, but the most obvious and likely one is also the simplest: nobody cares.

“It’s not the book. It’s just there’s a lack of interest in her,” one unnamed “progressive” who has worked with Bush told the Post. “She just hasn’t built a strong enough brand to sell books yet.”

I mean, I do this for a career, and I had to remind myself that Bush was a member of The Squad, given that she is a former Black Lives Matter activist (and presumably still considers herself one) and one of the most overtly anti-American radicals in Congress.

The Post reports that Bush wrote about her experience as a protester in Missouri following the 2014 justifiable killing of Michael Brown, alleging that the circumstances of that period led her to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

“When I wasn’t in Ferguson, I would still see armored vehicles, even when they were not there,” she wrote. “At random moments in the day, I would smell tear gas, even when none had been sprayed.”

That was all the book that the Post piece was interested in quoting, and to be honest, it seems sufficient.

Her illusions reportedly did not end with armored vehicles and tear gas, since she allegedly perceived an audience for her life narrative when none existed.

More on this story via The Western Journal:

The Post said that industry insiders considered it “unlikely” that publisher Knopf would make back the $50,001 – $100,000 it paid Bush as an advance on the book. The exact amount of the payment was unreported, but Bush listed the advance on a House financial disclosure form as falling within that range.

For Knopf’s sake, I hope it was at the lower end of that range. On the other hand, they should have known better, so I guess any loss they suffer is on them. CONTINUE READING…