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On Jan. 20, 2021, only the most die-hard fans of President Donald Trump tuned in to watch the outgoing chief executive’s farewell address from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, but those who did will surely remember the coup de theatre with which it ended: As Air Force One whisked Trump & Co. away to Mar-a-Lago, speakers boomed a recording of Frank Sinatra singing “My Way.”
Sinatra and Me: In the Wee Small Hours, by Tony Oppedisano with Mary Jane Ross. Scribner, 308 pp., $30.00.
Perhaps the song was intended as an unapologetic ode to Trump’s governing style. Maybe it was nothing more than a reflection of the former president’s inimitable musical tastes. But deeper meanings suggested themselves. One wondered, in the pairing of Sinatra’s song with the image of the plane disappearing into the horizon, whether one was watching the sunset of a certain kind of go-it-alone manliness, the sort typified by these two brash, hard-charging New Yorkers.