Nicholas Kristof Snubs the Doo-Dah Man

Kooky, man, that’s just as kooky as a panhandler I saw the other day on N. Charles St. in Baltimore. He was splayed out on a sidewalk, ostensibly playing a saxophone (even half-hearted buskers stand a better chance of pedestrians throwing a buck in the hat than the mere “I need food” hustlers), and it piqued my interest until getting closer and discovering he was “lip-blowing” along to John Coltrane’s rendition of “My Favorite Things.” No effort, as opposed to the can’t-touch-this come-on from two years ago, when a wiry young fellow said to me, “Makes no difference to me that you’re white. You got 100 bucks to spare?” That earned him a fin.

Like most people who choose to consume current events—no blame meted out to those who abstain—I come across a dozen kooky, man, kooky examples every day. The best one, courtesy of the Crackerbox Palace New York Times, was an essay by forgotten columnist/unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Nicholas Kristof, the publicly puritanical (he was gleeful that the Backpage defendants were found guilty) 66-year-old who wrote an essay under the headline “Trump Is Immensely Vulnerable.” Business as usual to start off—for some reason I could’ve sworn the writer was Michelle From Brooklyn, whose pen name is Michele Goldberg—but taking a tentative peek, and then going all-in, baby, one of us was definitely losing our marbles. And it wasn’t me.

Kristof’s first SOP sentence is “How can Americans best defend their democracy from their president?” and then he says Trump is “vulnerable” because he’s “deeply corrupt,” probably true, but not much different than his predecessors (Clinton bedroom visits for sale?), “Trump is hurting you in the pocketbook,” and “Trump looks down on you and thinks he can manipulate you.” We’ll see about the “pocketbook,” but again, isn’t politics defined by “manipulation”?

Then, as if some dormant disease Kristof picked up abroad came to fruition, he inadvertently defends the corrupt Trump and says his Democratic Party is fucked. He writes: “Trump excels at storytelling, and Democrats could learn from his talent… Democrats need their own anecdotes, and they need to remember that even when the stakes are deadly serious, humor is sometimes the most effective tool.” I think CNN’s Jake Tapper got that message: how else could he “manipulate” his viewers into buying his after-the-fact book on Biden, even if it’s “deeply corrupt”? (I wonder if Tapper’s attention/cash grab for Original Sin will cost him that lucrative CNN anchor job. Co-author Alex Thompson is presumably safe, as a lower-profile Washington correspondent for Axios, that throw-a-dart-and-maybe-a-story-will-be-true website.)

This Kristof advice is center-cut: “[H]ow can Democrats ask voters to trust them when the blue state of California accounts for nearly half of the entire nation’s unsheltered homelessness, or when one study finds blue Oregon ranking around the bottom of the country in education after adjusting for demographics? However appalling Trump’s own behavior may be, his critics have to show that they can not only mock him—but can also govern. If we are to hold Trump accountable, we must also hold ourselves accountable.”

I’m a sporadic Kristof reader, so it’s possible he’s “held himself accountable” for screwing up, but it’s doubtful. It’s mildly interesting that he takes an implicit shot at 2028 presidential hopeful Gavin Newsom by criticizing California, and his negative citation of Oregon on education suggests that maybe he’ll do his residency homework and make another political run there. He thinks liberals made a mistake by “endlessly embracing pronouns… and terms like ‘pregnant people.’”

I don’t know if Kristof and the even kookier, man, kookier David Brooks (D-Elite Universities) run in the same social wagon-train, but the following might constitute a breach of collegial etiquette: “Worse, there is a tendency in liberal circles to denounce anyone sympathetic to Trump as a racist, bigot or fascist. It’s always distasteful when educated elites employ insidious stereotypes to dismiss millions of working-class people—plus it’s difficult to win votes from people you’re castigating.”

I included the link to Kristof’s column for those who dare to click so as not to give the impression that the champion of “working-class people” is just dumping on fellow Democrats. Most of his words are devoted to skewering Trump—not an original thought contained—but the overall impression is that he’s nervous, bereft and soul-searching about the fate of his party. But not so downtrodden that he mentions even one Democrat who’s got the flashlight pointed at redemption. Maybe that’s because he can’t think of one. No Fun Kamala, Laughingstock Mayor Pete (or Chasten!), Josh Shapiro, out-of-his-depth Wes Moore, Porcine Pritzker or Jared Polis. I’d go out of my way to find that piss-poor busker mentioned above (and suggest that instead of Coltrane, he lip-blow Sugar Pie DeSanto numbers) and put a Franklin in his palm if Kristof endorses Chelsea Clinton. Kooky, man, kooky, that would rule!

—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023