New Delhi, Sept. 4 -- Regime Change. By Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Simon & Schuster; 496 pages; $34 and £28

Pundits often say that Trump World resembles "Game of Thrones" because it is a place where horrid people do horrid things in pursuit of power. Fiddlesticks. The main reason why Trump World is like a dragons-and-zombies saga is that its protagonists live in a land of make-believe.

Especially President Donald Trump, whose understanding of reality seems to be based on snippets he once heard and wishes were true. "Regime Change", an account of his second term by two New York Times journalists, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, brims with examples.

America was at its richest "from 1870 to 1913", when it was "a tariff cou...