I’m routinely gobsmacked by how many people — including influential Democrats — tell me that they can’t imagine a victory by Donald Trump in November. I’m even more astounded by their reasoning.
Most of them don’t parse the economy and augur an end to the “vibecession” that’s distorting assessments of the country’s welfare under Joe Biden. They don’t talk about abortion rights and women’s votes.
They say some version of this:
Americans won’t be that reckless with the country’s future and won’t stoop that crudely and cruelly low. When it’s finally time to cast ballots — when the full weight of that decision hits them — they’ll realize that whatever their disappointment in the current president, it’s no match for the disgust that the former one elicits. They’ll recognize, however grudgingly, that Trump is an unserious person, unfit for a serious country.
You could file that perspective under idealism.
I call it amnesia.
It’s a dangerous reprise of the (greater) confidence that Democrats felt about Hillary Clinton back in 2016. And look how that turned out.
I understand that this time is different, in no small part because of Trump’s conviction last week. He’s a bona fide felon now. Back in 2016, it was somewhat easier for Americans itching to cast a protest vote to see the vilest of Trump’s behavior and the most vicious of his remarks as theatrical provocations, as a flamboyant show of defiance that wouldn’t amount to all that much. The line between mischief and malice could be blurry, at least if you didn’t care to look closely.
Eight years later? There’s nothing blurry about Trump. There’s no mistaking or minimizing the Nazi echoes in his talk of immigrants poisoning the blood of the country or his reference to his critics on the left as vermin. There’s no shrugging off his invitation to Vladimir Putin to invade NATO allies who didn’t pay their dues and his pledge to use the presidency to take revenge on his enemies.
In an article in Axios on Wednesday morning, Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei quoted Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, saying that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg would be at the top of that hit list and that he “should be — and will be — jailed.” In an article in The Times also published on Wednesday morning, Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman and Charlie Savage surveyed like-spirited statements by other Trump backers, writing that the “open desire for using the criminal justice system against Democrats after the verdict surpasses anything seen before in Mr. Trump’s tumultuous years in national politics.”
There’s also no ignoring the amorality of Trump’s associates. After Trump’s guilty verdicts, the popular sports talk radio host Colin Cowherd, who’s not a usual Trump critic, treated his listeners to an inventory of the criminals around Trump: “His campaign chairman was a felon. So is his deputy campaign manager, his personal lawyer, his chief strategist, his national security adviser, his trade adviser, his foreign policy adviser, his campaign fixer and his company C.F.O. They’re all felons. Judged by the company you keep. It’s a cabal of convicts.”
What’s more, Trump had four years to prove his presidential mettle. That was when he mused about treating Covid by injecting bleach; behaved so imperiously, ignorantly and erratically that many cabinet members and aides ran for the hills; and topped it all off by rejecting the outcome of the 2020 election and trying to subvert it, including with his role in inciting the violence of Jan. 6, 2021.
So, yes, the possibility of Americans signing up for more of that can seem fantastical.
But I’d point out that when he lost in 2020, we were mid-pandemic — that surely hurt him — and Biden was the one who represented change. Now, weirdly, Trump does.
I’d point out that to go by opinion polls, more voters have reservations about Biden’s age (81) than about Trump’s (77 until next week). And those reservations are deep.
I’d point out that while Biden received roughly seven million more votes than Trump did four years ago, about 45,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin were the difference between Biden’s victory in the Electoral College and a tie with Trump. Those states — along with Pennsylvania, Nevada and a few others — could be decided as closely this time around.
Last, I’d point out that many of the voters who will give Biden or Trump his margin of victory aren’t attuned to the scariest and most negative details about Trump that I’ve just laid out. And in a fragmented and chaotic news environment, they may be supping on information entirely different from what the crowd who cannot envision Trump’s election consumes.
These shallowly and sporadically engaged voters might just gasp at the prices of groceries and houses, dismiss the verbal crossfire between Biden and Trump as a more intense version of familiar political warfare and choose Trump. Not acknowledging the very real possibility of that is dangerously complacent, and it fails to recognize how forcefully Biden and his supporters need to make the argument for him. The case against Trump is indisputably damning — but it may not be enough.
For the Love of Sentences
In The Times, Maureen Dowd sized up many Republican politicians’ meltdown over Donald Trump’s conviction: “The party of law and order evidently doesn’t like any law it didn’t order.” (Thanks to Rob Fitzpatrick of West Orange, N.J., and Kay Windsor of Winston-Salem, N.C., among many others, for nominating this.)
Also in The Times, A.O. Scott evaluated Trump’s reality-free remarks about the trial and verdict: “Some witnesses were ‘literally crucified’ by the judge, Juan Merchan, ‘who looks like an angel, but he’s really a devil.’ As a longtime journalist (and lifelong pedant), I’m compelled to point out that nobody was literally crucified. And as a student of Renaissance love poetry, I’m tempted to linger over Mr. Trump’s oddly tender description of the ‘highly conflicted’ judge: ‘He looks so nice and soft.’” (Lisa Smith, Sacramento)
William K. Rashbaum provided a peek into the room where the Trump jurors deliberated: “The walls are painted a hue best described as municipal.” (Sally Quigley, Richmond, Va., and Jane Yahr Shepard, Madison, Wis.)
And Gail Collins cracked the strategy and appeal of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a buff fitness buff: “If voters decide they want a president who can welcome foreign dignitaries at the White House naked from the waist up, he’s definitely your guy.” (Trish Hooven Brown, Philadelphia, and Helen C. Gagel, Evanston, Ill.)
In The Times of London, Hadley Freeman pondered the recent invisibility of Trump’s once-ubiquitous older daughter. “After the jury’s verdict was read out, Ivanka sent a message of love directly to her father — oh, wait, I stand corrected: She posted it on her Instagram Stories, which automatically delete after a day,” Freeman wrote. “Brings a tear to the eye, that. Perhaps she learned during her father’s trial that it’s best not to leave a paper trail.” (Sandra Notarangelo, London)
In The New Yorker, Rivka Galchen identified a group on which our political dysfunctions will have special impact: “Young people live on the highest floors of the teetering tower of our civilization, and they will be the last ones to leave the building. They have the most to lose if the stairwells start to crumble.” (Michael Schooler, Washington)
On NOLA.com, Clancy DuBos questioned the claims of a “mandate” by Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana by wondering if Landry knew the term’s meaning: “Given his obsession with anti-L.G.B.T.Q. legislation, one could even conceive that the first time he heard someone say ‘mandate,’ he thought it was two words — and recoiled in priggish disgust.” (Lorraine Gardella, New Orleans)
On Wirecutter, which is owned by The Times, Jon Chase marveled at the interior life of a newfangled washing machine: “After a month, an email appeared with usage statistics (how many cycles we’d used, what modes we favored) and — get this — a series of diagnostics confirming that the water supply, drain and all the various internal mechanicals were all in fine working order. This blew my mind: I can’t be bothered to get a physical on the reg, and now I’ve got a washer with its own Mayo Clinic built in.” (Judith Grey, Monhegan, Maine)
Last, in a post titled “Deep Reading Will Save Your Soul” in the newsletter Persuasion, William Deresiewicz described the motivations of applicants to a special learning project intended as an alternative to the superficialities of some college instruction today: “Beneath their talk of education, of unplugging from technology, of having time for creativity and solitude, I detected a desire to be free of forces and agendas: the university’s agenda of ‘relevance,’ the professoriate’s agenda of political mobilization, the market’s agenda of productivity, the internet’s agenda of surveillance and addiction. In short, the whole capitalistic algorithmic ideological hairball of coerced homogeneity. The desire is to not be recruited, to not be instrumentalized, to remain (or become) an individual, to resist regression toward the mean, or meme.” (Cornelia Schuh, Toronto)
To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here and include your name and place of residence.
What I’m Reading
You’ll find a smorgasbord of delicious sentences and some superb characterizations of our country’s mood and moment in James Parker’s article in The Atlantic about Theo Von, a comedian and podcaster who both is and isn’t cut from Joe Rogan’s cloth.
There are many good reasons to read my Times colleague Jessica Testa’s recent profile of Brooke Shields, but none better than the way in which Brooke’s mother, Teri Shields, is introduced. It’s deft and delightful. Do check it out.
After a rare sort of stroke in late 2017 robbed me of vision in my right eye, I spent many hours talking with Judge David S. Tatel, who was then serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. (He has since retired.) But our conversations weren’t about the law or his legal career, so distinguished that his name had once come up in relation to a possible appointment to the Supreme Court. They were about blindness. Tatel had lost sight in both eyes in his 30s — and had adjusted to that with such tenacity and nimbleness that many of his peers didn’t even know about his disability. He discussed it some with me for an Opinion essay I wrote in early 2018 and for my 2022 book, “The Beauty of Dusk.” He has now told his story in rich detail in a memoir of his own, “Vision,” to be released on Tuesday. It’s deeply moving and packed with wisdom, as this terrific recent article about the judge and his book by my Times colleague Adam Liptak made clear. The book has a bonus for us dog lovers: Tatel’s reflections on integrating a service dog, Vixen, into his life in 2019.
Speaking of dogs: I assume you’ve read my Times colleague Sam Anderson’s gorgeous tribute to Moby and Walnut, his family’s dachshunds. As best I can tell, it went deservedly viral, but in case you missed it, here it is, with splendid illustrations by Gaia Alari and a design (compliments to everyone involved!) that’s totally enchanting.
Bonus Regan Picture!
If we’re going to have such a doggy day, newsletter-wise, I’m letting Regan in on the action. Besides, it has been about a month and a half since I mentioned her, and many of you write in to chide me — sweetly — when I fail to provide new photos of her or fresh updates. Some of you even wonder if she’s OK. So here you have it: proof of life. Or, rather, proof of leisure. Proof of languidness. Proof that Regan enjoys the cushions, comfort and time for optimal relaxation. And that she takes full, splayed advantage of that.
On a Personal Note
My colleague Mike Baker wrote last week about a 20-year-old Seattle resident who on many nights drives around the city in his modified Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, the backfire from its tailpipes so loud that windows rattle and people reel. Making noise, breaking the speed limit and creating a nuisance-cum-spectacle are the point. He has more than 750,000 Instagram followers.
“For all the aggravated residents who view him with increasing disdain — ‘Entire neighborhoods are angry and sleep deprived,’ one resident wrote their local council member — many more are tracking his escapades on social media, celebrating a life unencumbered by self-consciousness or regret,” Mike reported.
I can’t get past that celebration. What this prankster’s fans see as freedom from self-consciousness can as easily be regarded as just plain selfishness. And in his amassing of admirers by rejecting common courtesy and flouting the law (what happens when he plows into someone because he can’t brake fast enough?), he reminds me of too many figures and dynamics in American life.
Like a certain politician poised to get the Republican presidential nomination.
Like Americans who treat any and every government edict as an affront to their liberty if not an insufferable injustice.
A sane society and a sustainable democracy are balancing acts between self-expression and respect for everyone else, between individualism (rugged or otherwise) and the common good. We’re unbalanced these days. And the hellion in his Hellcat isn’t just a rebel without a cause. He’s a rebel without a conscience.
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