The Illusionists, Part XXXVII
It has to start with David Frum, at 64 probably the most visible media Never Trumper fouling the “national conversation.” On Sunday, after Donald Trump pulled off the smartest political stunt this fall by spending 15 minutes at a Bucks County, Pennsylvania McDonald’s that instantly lit up social media, Frum tweeted, “Trump didn't ‘work’ in a McDonald's. He posed.” It was petulant—even a lot of Harris and undecided voters chuckled at the photo-op—and probably, in the recesses of Frum’s bitter mind, a fear that less than two weeks before the election, the former president has gained momentum.
It’s foolish to make predictions, as Trump’s perceived advantage might swing to Harris before Nov. 5th, but right now Democrats, including PA Sen. Bob Casey, in a tough reelection contest, has distanced himself from his party’s nominee, are sweating bullets from Kamala’s Glock. (Someone from the shell of Newsweek tweeted Monday morning: “Rumors have been circulating on social media that former President Donald Trump's visit to the popular fast food chain was staged.” I don’t care about the decimation of Newsweek—when magazines still mattered, I preferred Time—but you’d think someone would the plug on the website, if only for dignity’s sake.)
Just over a month ago, in The Atlantic (again, the well-financed outpost of the Never Trump media contingent), Frum wrote: “Suddenly, it looks as if the Harris-Trump margin may not even be all that close—and that the Republican majority in the House may be at risk too. Trump personally may not understand that he’s losing.” Unlike some Frum critics, I don’t believe the man is “stupid,” he’s not, but has wrapped his entire public life by J6, the coming Trump “dictatorship,” you know the rest, and he’s melting into an ugly puddle along with old friends Dick and Liz Cheney. But, if Trump does win, Frum has another four years of cashing in on his “woes.” And that’s not a minimum-wage job.
Not all Illusionists wear the same hat. Frum’s might be black and dinged-up, but I don’t know what lid Bruce Bawer’s wearing: what’s the color of naiveté? Barney Purple? I don’t think it’s the case but cynics might argue that Bawer’s Oct. 15th essay in The American Spectator, “How Trump Became an American Hero” was commissioned by a smalltime MAGA donor. The word “hero” is thrown around promiscuously—I can’t think of a single one—but Trump definitely doesn’t make the cut. Bawer engages in hyperbole that’s hard to stomach, claiming that at heart Trump’s just one of the guys, who affably mixed it up with the construction workers on his real estate projects.
He writes: “Even as the legacy media branded him a liar and racist, more and more ordinary Americans [again, beware of writers who use the word “ordinary” to describe people]—people who can recognize a phony when they meet one—discerned that whatever else he might be, he wasn’t a phony… He’d walked away from a life of almost unimaginable luxury and into the line of fire in order to serve his nation and help its people. And, as president, he proved it. Repeatedly. Magnificently. Courageously.”
As Trump might say if he saw the article (unlikely, as he appears to prefer dick jokes to reading): “That was beautiful, the most beautiful non-fake news you’ll ever read.”
Nate Silver, the analyst/aggregator of polls, mind-numbing to read, is (for now) bullish on Trump’s victory chances—although he’s almost certainly voting for Harris—wrote on Oct. 20th: “Trump has traits of a classic con man, but con artistry is often effective, and Trump is skilled at convincing voters that he’s on their side even if his election would not be in their best interest. Furthermore, Trump presents Democrats with a Three Stooges Syndrome problem: a range of plausible attacks so vast that they tend to cancel one another out.” Silver does the job he’s given himself—and won’t take a paycheck and shove it—but again, like so many Beltway/NYC obnoxious Bishops/Rabbis, can’t resist editorializing that the rubes who vote for Trump are screwing themselves.
And let’s not forget the flummoxed David Brooks, who can’t figure out why Harris isn’t coasting to a decisive victory, in his Oct. 17th New York Times column headlined, “Why the Heck Isn’t She Running Away With This?” He doesn’t make a lot of sense, as evidenced by the following “word salad” that’s just a notch above Kamala’s daily nonsense. He writes: “The result is that each party has its own metaphysics. Each party is no longer just a political organism; it is a political-cultural-religious-class entity that organizes the social, moral and psychological lives of its believers.”
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023