Discover more from Open Letters, from Anne Applebaum
Suddenly Trump Looks Older and More Deranged
Now the Republicans are the ones saddled with a candidate who can’t make a clear argument or finish a sentence.
From this morning’s Atlantic:
Four days after the end of the Republican National Convention, it suddenly looks like a very different event. I watched it intermittently, on television, along with perhaps 25 million other Americans (a relatively small number, though enough to matter). I focused on the highlights, like most viewers did. I read the analysis and thought I understood what had happened. But in the light of President Joe Biden’s brave and unprecedented decision to drop out of the race, my memory of what Donald Trump and his party were doing and saying has permanently shifted. I suspect this will be true for at least some of the other 25 million of us too.
Whatever happens next, the frame has altered. Now it is the Republicans who are saddled with the elderly candidate, the one who can’t make a clear argument or finish a sentence without veering off into anecdote. Now the Democrats are instead proposing something new. Now it is the many pundits who were already bored by the race and ready to wrap it up who look foolish.
Remember, if you still can: The Republican convention was a carefully curated, meticulously planned presentation. As my colleague Tim Alberta has said, the theme was “strength.” Strength was expressed by exaggerated, absurd, comic-book figures: Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock. The latter chanted “Fight, fight!” and “Trump, Trump!” while pumping his fist. Then he sang “American Bad Ass,” an unlistenable work of profound dissonance. Trump himself walked into the convention hall to the strains of James Brown’s famously misogynistic anthem “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.”
Strength was implied by the equally choreographed demonstrations of debasement. Nikki Haley, who had repeatedly questioned whether Trump is “mentally fit” to be president—and had declared that “the first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate” will win the election—offered her “strong endorsement.” The vice-presidential nominee, J. D. Vance, who had previously compared Trump to Hitler and described him as “cultural heroin,” performed a kind of kowtow, appearing at the convention in the form of supplicant, acolyte, prodigal son. Like so many other Republicans, he bowed to the power of Trump, to the vulgarity of Hulk Hogan, to a whole host of things he used to say he didn’t like, and maybe still doesn’t like. He even made a peculiar, strained attempt to link his children and his wife, the daughter of South Asian immigrants, to a cemetery in East Kentucky where he said they will be buried, as if none of this will make sense until all of us are dead….
Here’s a gift link to the rest of the story. Enjoy.
ALSO - if you have time to listen to something longer - this is my 90 minute podcast with Sam Harris. We discuss my new book, but also US politics. Recorded before Biden dropped out, but it’s mostly not about him:
AND FINALLY - Autocracy Inc is published tomorrow. More on that soon…
Thank you for this excellent recap of the RNC (which I could not stand to watch because my father was a vengeful, insane narcissist just like Trump) ... the view of the hole the MAGA GOP has dug for them... and your appreciation of the power and energy that comes from opening this door to a new chapter in American politics!
This will NOT be 2016 (when Hillary had the "but her emails" fake news story to contend with). This is 2024, when women and Black people know what Trump wants to do! And Kamala is a career prosecutor. I believe she has the skills to take Trump apart in what I see as the "American trial to end all trials"... with the American people as the jury... a trial Trump will not be able to postpone, unless (and I'd love to hear your take on this, Anne) the GOP's threat of lawsuits... Mike Johnson saying "The Democrats can't do this. We're gonna sue!" ... somehow finds is way to the SCOTUS.
But I swear if the SCOTUS were to say "Biden does not have the right to pass the baton to Harris" I think Hubert Humphrey would rise from the grave and say "That's not how things work!"
(1) It's not as if Kamala Harris is known for silver-tongued eloquence. The gears grind, the words go round and round, and what comes out is garnished with Thousand Islands dressing and croutons.
(2) After the scandalous coverup of Biden's mental and physical disintegration (in which Harris participated) it would be audacious of the Democrats to make an issue of Trump's age—to put the matter no more pointedly.
(3) Remember that most American voters are not like you. Hulk Hogan may seem a figure of fun, but professional wrestling brings in about three times the $$$ annually than Hollywood. Anyhow, the Democrats are not shy about tapping into celebrity culture. They'd crawl over hot coals to get Taylor Swift's endorsement.