'I made some mistakes. And I don’t really blame myself.'
A politician without conviction or a convicted politician?
One could hardly suppress a snicker at Mitch McConnell's latest public attempt to explain his private antipathy for Donald Trump.
A new book designed to serve as a monument to his career quotes the not-for-long Senate GOP leader calling Trump “stupid, ill-tempered” a “despicable human being” and a “narcissist” in the chaotic aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. McConnell did not possess the gaul to deny the account, so instead he gallantly chose to qualify it on the sweeping scale of resplendent Trump-flopping. “Whatever I may have said about President Trump pales in comparison to what JD Vance, Lindsey Graham and others have said about him,” McConnell told me through a spokesperson. “But we are all on the same team now.”
It seems not long ago when the collective “we” thought the end of Trump might be near. Whether it be in the weeks following January 6th, 2021. Or the second, third or fourth felony case. Or the first conviction. Jail? My god, he was centimeters from being murdered in broad daylight this summer. Even the drubbing he took in September’s debate rekindled the delusion of Trump’s eventual demise.
And here we sit 18 nights away and he’s never stood in a better position to win the presidency. In 2016 he was vastly underrated; in 2020 he was a decided underdog. Now he’s an even bet.
A Trump win would shock few. And that’s maddening enough for the meritocratic class to make sense of.
“Kamala Harris, I think we can sort of agree, is a politician without any convictions. But it’s better than being a convicted politician,” mused the singular Tina Brown — who is now on Substack (!) — on a podcast with Andrew Sullivan.
“You would think, but apparently not,” she lamented.
Perhaps it takes a fictional character, represented here in the Jonathan Franzen 2010 novel “Freedom”, to shed light on our country’s insurgent core.
“If you don’t have money, you cling to your freedoms all the more angrily. Even if smoking kills you, even if you can’t afford to feed your kids, even if your kids are getting shot down by maniacs with assault rifles. You may be poor, but the one thing nobody can take away from you is the freedom to fuck up your life.”
“Donald Trump’s going go get 48% everywhere,” David Plouffe warned this week, offering a gentle reminder that the only surprise left on the table is a handy Trump defeat, an outcome much of his 48 percent would never believe.
