A time for choosing again
— mike luckovich (@mluckovichajc) September 26, 2023
President Joe Biden routinely expresses a kinder, gentler American exceptionalism. “This is the United States of America!” Uncle Joe begins. He tells us there is nothing Americans cannot do if we do it together. How many of us in our accustomed cynicism roll our eyes at the naivete of it? But on the other hand….
Maybe Biden’s sunny vision reflects a defense mechanism that is now part of him. The working-class kid from Scranton who overcame his childhood stutter has confronted so much tragedy in his life, so much deep personal loss. Perhaps his Catholic faith tells Biden there has to be a plan. God has a deep purpose we cannot always see. We just have to have faith. Personally, and as a nation.
Biden’s most likely presidential opponent in 2024 has no faith, endured no sobering personal losses, never learned empathy. Donald Trump was born on third base with a sliver spoon up his ass. And a trust fund in the hundreds of millions. And a father who taught him to get further ahead by cutting ethical corners and standing on other people’s heads.
Trump’s mentor in young adulthood, Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy’s (R-Wis.) legal hit man, taught him ruthlessness: “1. Never settle, never surrender. 2. Counter-attack, counter-sue immediately. 3. No matter what happens, no matter how deeply into the muck you get, claim victory and never admit defeat.”
The Republican Party has since the late-twentieth century longed to return to an imagined golden age of the 1950s, the “great” in the “G” on the MAGA caps. It was a soft-focused time of Ozzie and Harriet, of Ward and June Cleaver. Men were breadwinners, women were housewives, the underclasses knew their places, and Mexicans were the McCoys’ non-threatening farmhand. The party knew what it believed: family values, small government, and a strong national defense (meaning to fend off the Russians).
That was then.
“Who are these people?”
Trump spoke on Friday to the California Republican Party convention in Anaheim. The Associated Press politely describes the speech as “occasionally dark and profane.” Marty McFly had to admit that his parents’ 1950s selves were not ready for guitar-shredding. The American press is still not ready to call Trump’s batshit lunacy “some weird shit.”
Trump advocated shooting on sight anyone who robs stores. He recommended solving the state’s wildfire problem by watering the forests with free water from the north of the state. It was an applause line. The MAGA champion belongs in a padded room.
The crowd cheered as Trump spoke of standing up to “crazy Nancy Pelosi.” Trump added snidely, “How’s her husband doing, anybody know?”
A fringe right attacker, inspired by such language, broke into the Pelosis’ San Francisco home last year looking to attack her. She was not home. So he bashed in her husband Paul’s skull with a hammer. He survived.
Trump sneers about Nancy Pelosi, whose husband was assaulted by a deranged MAGA: “How’s her husband doing, anybody know?”
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 29, 2023
He adds that the wall around her house “didn’t do a very good job.” pic.twitter.com/dnxjXsoNAW
“Imagine being the type of person that would laugh about an 82 year old man being assaulted with a hammer to his head,” responded MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. “Who are these people?”
Sociopaths Anonymous?
“The speech [Trump] gave today was beyond meandering,” former Sen. Claire McCaskill posted. “It was deranged, vicious, out of control, bizarre, and sick. And they all laughed. And it was on a teleprompter. So someone wrote that shit? Seriously scary. And they all laughed.”
When he promised to end “American carnage” in his inaugural speech, Trump signaled to his mirror-world followers his intent to dial it up to 11. (He had help from COVID-19.) Now facing four indictments and 91 felony charges, the twice-impeached former president hopes to double down with a second term defined by spite:
“In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice,’” Mr. Trump told the crowd in National Harbor, Md. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”
MAGA Republicans don’t want to govern. They mean to rule.
History has brought us to, Biden said this week, “a new time of testing.” We face the MAGA movement, “an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy.”
Whoever the Democrat and Republican candidates for president are next year, the choice Americans face at the polls will be between Uncle Joe’s sunny America and Trumpian autocracy. Conservative nostalgia for the 1950s is gone. Vengeance is the agenda. There is no policy to be found among most Republican members of Congress, no vison for a more perfect union. Nothing but catch phrases and buzzwords.
So what will Americans choose in the privacy of the voting booth? Are we really that insane? I did not think so in 2016. I was wrong.
As twee as it may sound, there is something still authentically appealing in Uncle Joe’s “This is the United States of America!” I imagine even the most cynical among us felt a secret thrill in dark theaters the first time Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi mentioned “the Force.” We still want to believe government can be a force for good, built on ideas that bind us together. Or are we too jaded for that kind of faith?
Biden spoke in honor of the late Republican Sen. John McCain, quoting him: “We are citizens of the world — the world’s greatest republic. A nation of ideals, not blood and soil. Americans never quit. They never hide from history. America makes history.”
What sort of history we will make is up to us.