Two phone calls and a blow to the head

November 3, 2024

The Crack the lets the Light in (November 2020)

Why Donald Trump and his violent movement deserve to lose

We’ve been at this for nearly a decade now—the Trump insurrection, led by a bombastic and malignant narcissist. It is a cultural/political movement like an insatiable carnivorous plant, one that wound up eating the party that nurtured it. Little Shop of Horrors, but without the music. Just ask Mitt Romney. Better still Liz Cheney.

Adam Serwer diagnosed it six years ago when he penned The Cruelty is the Point . To be sure, there is a boat parade frivolity among a quadrant of Donald Trump’s base supporters—as if it’s all just a big joke to own the libs. But the ceaseless incitement to grievance and divisiveness gives the movement a contagious, mean-spirited edge.

Where does the MAGA nastiness pageant come from? And how did it metastasize into a coalition of the crass, one that bends so easily to the most repulsive human traits and instincts—i.e. patriarchy, authoritarianism, racism, violence and misogyny? Sadly, the answer is in that part of our history we dread to revisit and are reluctant to teach—connecting to the ghoulish, carnival atmosphere common at lynchings as recently as a century ago, up through the fascist rally at Madison Square Garden, in 1939, that drew more than 20,000 Nazi sympathizers, many in storm trooper uniforms. The embers of Jim Crow racism remain and were hot to the touch as a confederate flag was carried into the capitol during the attempted coup in Jan. 2021. Then, no surprise, platters of grievance were served up during the MAGA swamp gas jamboree that made its way back to Madison Square Garden a week ago.

Tuesday’s election may solidify Trumpism. Or it may finally give a clearer voice and form to its repudiation.

I wouldn’t have written that four months ago, in the wake of Joe Biden’s listless debate performance in late June. Trump seemed invincible, even gathering political strength from his adverse court judgements—his civil adjudication for sexual assault and defamation in the E. Jean Carroll case, and his conviction on 34 felony counts in the Stormy Daniels hush money case. In TrumpWorld vice is virtue—the more heinous the threats, the louder the the applause.

My outlook improved shortly after Biden announced he was withdrawing and opening the door for Kamala Harris. Win or lose Harris has done a remarkable job, not just pulling even with Trump in the polls but articulating and prosecuting the profound differences between the two parties—one that subverts democratic governance and is predominantly concerned with seizing levers of power and one that, however imperfectly, at least tries to address economic inequality and existential issues like climate change.

Trump and his enablers celebrate the stacking of the Supreme Court as if it’s the legitimate trophy of minority rule. Some trophy. Prior to its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson in mid-2022 public approval of the court was at 70 percent. It’s now less than 50 percent. When Trump promised Republicans that “I alone can fix it” in 2016 he was insinuating that his familiarity with a corrupt political system would be put to use for the benefit of his blue collar supporters.

That’s not working out so well for women in Texas, Idaho and other Trump strongholds who’ve lost access to maternal care. By delivering on his pledge to appoint judges who would repeal Roe v. Wade, Trump has made life worse (sometimes fatally so) for women in Republican-controlled states where emergency room physicians may face criminal charges if they act too swiftly to abort a pregnancy that endangers the life of the mother.

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It’s not true that men don’t care about this. Some of us do. But polling predicts a substantial majority of men will vote for Trump this week. All I can add to this mind-blowing fact is thank god for women’s suffrage. The polls offer persuasive evidence that if it were solely up to men, collectively, Kamala Harris wouldn’t have a chance, even with Tim Walz, her former-football coach running mate.

There’s zero evidence that Trump voters care much at all about what I think. But if they did, I would first ask them to watch the Access Hollywood tape (and Trump’s translation of it that he offered to E. Jean Carroll’s attorney) and explain why someone who talks this way could be fit to be president, let alone hold any public office. Some would shrug. Some would answer that this is just the way men talk to each other. (For what it’s worth, it’s not the way men in my family talk to each other.)

If attention spans were not an issue, I would also ask those who support Trump to revisit the two well-documented phone calls that led to his two impeachments. I would ask them to imagine how they would react if Trump’s undisputed statements in the phone calls were made by his predecessor, Barack Obama. Would they vote to impeach Obama if he pressed the head of a vulnerable foreign country—one highly dependent upon U.S. military aid for its independence and sovereignty—to help him round up political dirt on Trump and his sons? Would they vote to impeach Obama if he leaned on the Secretary of State of a swing state to simply gin up 11,780 votes, so he could cheat his way to overturning an election?

Or is this just what they had in mind when Trump promised “I alone can fix it.”

On a more serious note, I will leave with this.

I think history will credit Nancy Pelosi for opening the door for Kamala Harris, to give Harris the opportunity to step into this moment. Pelosi is 84 years old, and though she still represents a Congressional district in California, she stepped aside as leader of the Democratic caucus in the House in January 2023.

Because she was Speaker of the House of Representative during Trump’s tenure, she was frequently the target of his wrath. And she continues to be targeted, verbally, by Trump. Just two weeks ago Trump went off on her and Rep. Adam Schiff, accusing them of being part of the “enemy from within” that he will presumably try to prosecute if he wins election next week. During Pelosi’s tenure as Speaker at least three men were arrested and convicted of making obscene physical threats against her.

Pelosi was obviously in danger when Trump delivered a MAGA riot to the Capitol on 1/6/21. She was fortunate to avoid an intended attack on her two years ago when a 42 year-old man armed with a hammer broke into her house near San Francisco. She wasn’t home at the time. But her then-82 year-old husband, Paul Pelosi, was. He was nearly killed. Before police could subdue DePape, he smashed Paul Pelosi’s skull—leaving him with a metal plate in his head, permanent nerve damage, and persisting psychological injuries. DePape was sentenced last week to life in prison.

Trump’s response to the near fatal attack on Pelosi’s husband was to make light of it. Not once, but twice. It’s not an accident. It’s a pattern. It’s a despicable method to intimidate public figures and public servants who oppose him, including the journalists who cover his rallies, whom he dismisses as “scum.”

I marvel at the way Trump supporters fashion a blind spot for the ways in which he denigrates and encourages violence against those who oppose him. I get angry when they laugh it off. It’s not just dehumanizing. It’s a repudiation of the civil society we simply have to insist upon if we are going to live together, and solve formidable problems together. Trump and his enablers have delivered a dark chapter in our history that needs to come to an end. The sooner the better.

—tjc