Hello friends,
This week’s newsletter has a 3 to 4 minute read time:
(1) Notes on Trump’s jaw-dropping behavior since his diagnosis and what it says about his worldview.
(2) What I’m reading.
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Trump’s empire of self
I usually refrain from keeping up with the Trump Show any more than I have to, but this past week and a half I just couldn’t help myself: I have been utterly transfixed by the man.
In uncharacteristic fashion, I have refreshed the homepages of the Times, the Post, Politico and Axios, desperate for morsels of new information about Trump’s whereabouts, his latest statements, and his North Korean-style videos.
Trump’s recent behavior, from his coronavirus diagnosis to his noxious return to the Oval Office, has broken new ground in his construction of unreality, the only consistent project of his presidency other than white nationalism. And it has also modeled a kind of sociopathic empire of self, in which the pursuit of happiness is not merely selfish but actively harmful to others, and only insulated from pushback by extreme power and phalanxes of yes-men hired to shield the ego.
A quick summary of the noteworthy moments of Trump’s behavior since his diagnosis:
He has refused to disclose the date of his last negative coronavirus test, which is crucial for contact-tracing and determining if he knowingly endangered Joe Biden at the first presidential debate.
He attended a lunch buffet fundraiser knowing that he’d been exposed by someone in his inner circle.
His administration has refused to properly contact-trace even as experts say that the the White House has “turned into the epicenter of what is clearly a major outbreak."
He has successfully directed his physicians to consistently mislead the public about the nature of his infection and the level of danger an infection poses to others.
He exposed Secret Service agents to his infection so that he could be driven around in a heavily armored Suburban and wave to a small group of supporters outside the hospital while in the midst of treatment.
He tweeted days into his diagnosis, while under 24/7 state-of-the-art care, that people should not “be afraid of Covid” and should not let the virus “dominate” them. While reports on some of the medication he received indicated he had at least a moderately severe case of Covid, he said he felt better than he did “20 years ago.”
He returned to the White House while still in the midst of a serious infection. He marked the occasion by dramatically unmasking himself on a balcony, while noticeably struggling to remain composed, and then headed indoors without a mask to expose personnel waiting inside.
Soon after he whimsically torpedoed talks over desperately needed coronavirus relief for needy citizens, businesses, and state and local governments. That then caused the the stock market to tank, which prompted him to suggest they were back on again.
He confessed, caked in heavy make-up, that the FDA won’t let him get a sham vaccine out by Election Day — but then immediately pivoted to saying that it doesn’t matter because he has come upon a “cure” to the virus which will soon be made free and accessible to all. (He received an experimental treatment that nobody else has received.) He also said that God gave him Covid so that he could direct physicians to give him this miraculous treatment.
He is working in the Oval Office, while he might still be contagious, and staff must protect themselves from him using PPE.
He’s now insisting on public events starting Saturday, two days before doctors said they’d consider him in the clear regarding the course of his illness.
I have literally been slack-jawed while following many of these developments.
While some critics hoped that contracting the virus would force Trump, through his actions or words, to yield to reality on some level, that has not happened. Instead he has persisted undaunted in trying to convey an alternate reality in which coronavirus is not a serious problem for him or anyone in America. The only real public concession to the reality of the virus he made was a necessary trip to the hospital. But he has done everything in his power — politically, personally, aesthetically —to deny the existence of something that actually entered his body and knocked him off his feet.
This effort at denying the virus is also, of course, a denial of the existence of others — including those who care for him and support him politically and logistically. And most worrying of all, tens of millions of Americans are part of a cult that believes that his life is one to be emulated. The lesson here for them goes beyond a ruthless libertarian outlook — it encourages the adoption of malignant solipsism as a political philosophy. Unfortunately for most of his fans, they do not have the resources to realize such a vision. Unfortunately for the rest of us, even if Trump leaves office, his base is likely to prolong our crisis by mimicking his disregard for distancing (and possibly dragging their feet on getting a vaccine if he’s not fully behind it).
It is a bleak fact of American life that Trump’s behavior is not understood as a con by most Republicans. The inches of make-up; the grimacing while standing defiantly; the malicious promise of a free and widely distributed “cure” after experiencing a completely unique and experimental treatment regimen available only to ultra-elites: without being born into money, this person would not have been particularly memorable informercial host.
But ultimately Trump’s belief that the world is immaterial appears to be sowing the seeds of his downfall. His misconduct and denial of the virus is costing him the most reliable voting bloc in America: old voters. And only a fool would sabotage the opportunity to take credit for sending stimulus checks and aid to struggling citizens and governments just weeks before an election.
Trump’s last shot at manufacturing an alternative reality to win will require going beyond just optics and intervening in the real world: rigging the election. Unfortunately on this front, he has the aid of a ruthless Republican Party, armies of lawyers, and an openly corrupt head of the US Postal Service. Overcoming this will not involve critique or fact-checking but a massive mobilization by liberals and the left.
What I’m reading
First, some good news:
The myth of Trump’s political genius, exposed.
The U.S. Postal Service is blocking members of Congress from inspecting postal facilities
Kamala Harris did not need to tout fracking
Joan Didion on Ernest Hemingway.
Imani Perry on John Edgar Wideman.
“Barrett’s attitude toward erroneous constitutional rulings is very different. She criticized Scalia for his “faint-hearted” originalism, and instead argued for a “fearless” originalism that recognizes no legal duty to preserve non-originalist precedent, no matter how entrenched or widely accepted it may be today.”
The students left behind by remote learning.
The rise of Mrs. Europe.
Also: Republicans are more openly disavowing democracy.
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