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We don’t throw parties for love
But we like to hold hands and court each other
We don’t let our hair grow long and messy
Like the hippies in San Francisco.
If there’s promise in Democrats calling Trump a crank — and I think there is — it’s not in the repulsive word itself. The crank isn’t a threat; he’s just a loser. Calling Trump a crank is a mild way of expressing contempt, but it’s contempt nonetheless. We don’t know whether the public — not the chattering class — is responding well to the weirdo wave because it’s so new. But the Blueprint poll tested a Related Informationthe results were not promising. The message was that Harris was “one of the few politicians who acts and thinks like a normal person because she actually is.” Implied: Unlike Donald Trump, Kamala Harris is not weird! The message didn’t fail, but it didn’t succeed either. It landed somewhere in the middle of the top and bottom (which is where you’d expect the average to be).
Kamalot’s useful message when he calls Trump and Vance “wackos” is this: Don’t be scared. No one is going to cringe at the kid in the corner eating glue off his hand. (Maybe they shouldbut that’s another, darker story.) No one will fear a paper tiger that you crumple up and throw in the trash. Likewise, while Trump and Vance certainly want to rule the country in a reckless and authoritarian manner, we will not fear them; we will defeat them. That is The “weird” part is worth keeping.
The master of this style was Franklin Roosevelt, who famously said:We have nothing to fear except fear itselfRoosevelt specifically mentioned the financial panics that led to bank failures, but he showed the same enthusiasm during the Great Depression and World War II, when fascism posed a more tangible threat. Ronald Reagan’s cheerful demeanor masked a terrible disconnect from the day-to-day affairs of governance, a disconnect that grew on him in later years but was undoubtedly a political asset. One reason I’m sorry Hillary Clinton wasn’t elected president in 2016 is that I admire her skill at disarming hostile lunatics with a humorous skepticism. I’m thinking especially of her Performance before the Benghazi Commission 2015. It was a masterclass in how to dismiss a demagogic fool. Trump is the most demagogic fool in American political history, and while Clinton gave him a pretty good fight in the 2016 debate, it sadly didn’t seem to matter. It would have been worse if she’d shown fear, though.
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