By far the biggest revelation of last Tuesday night was what happens to American politics if you remove Donald J Trump.
Everything instantly changes.
We actually had a civil, lively debate between a sane, reconstructed Republican and a likable, if jittery, Democrat. Not in the distant post-populist future, but now. It was a fleeting snapshot of a politics without madness. Yes we can!
Does that mean that JD Vance told the truth? Nope. Among the untruths: hospitals in Springfield have not been overwhelmed by new immigrants; Trump did not salvage Obamacare — he tried to repeal it; and the Trump tax cuts benefited the wealthy far more than the middle class. Walz was better but still couldn’t admit he made up being in China during the Tiananmen massacre (he missed it by a couple of months); absurdly claimed that border crossings were down from the Trump era; and invented the idea that Project 2025 would create registries of pregnant women.
But the thing about these untruths is that they were perfectly, reassuringly, normal. Politicians fib; they exaggerate; they elide uncomfortable truths. It all eventually gets filtered out in the democratic process. Liars aren’t necessarily bad presidents. Bill Clinton proved that. What has changed in this past decade is a whole new category of total gaslighting, an endless series of total lies designed solely to defend the ego and interests of Donald J Trump.
Here is the latest from the man himself, on the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene:
They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.
Disgusting, despicable, demagogic lies all the way down. Yes, history handed him social media as a super-weapon, and he used it like a Jedi. But it is startling how much of our democratic nadir can be traced to a single, depraved monster.
Trumpism isn’t the problem. It was a response to shifting realities as neo-liberalism won its very pyrrhic victory. But Trump really is. Last week, he said:
“[Migrants will] rape, pillage, thieve, plunder and kill the people of the United States of America. … They will walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat.”
This is Nazi rhetoric. It is Trump’s alone. There is nothing he will not say. All those who are finding reasons to support his candidacy need to admit they are backing a uniquely indecent figure in American history. And decency matters.
Look at the other manifestations of right-populism in the West, and it’s nowhere near as nuts. Giorgia Meloni is conservative, charismatic, attuned to the populist era but sane. Same with Sunak in the UK during his brief period in office. Le Pen has moderated substantially. No other leader has nearly brought their entire system down with mob violence. No other leader in any other democracy tells lies as depraved as Trump does. Every other right-populist leader has instantly accepted election losses.
And this, of course, is Vance’s core weakness. He has to remain committed to that Lie, because he is Trump’s vassal. In the debate, he eventually hocked up this sad loogie:
It’s really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power on January the 20th, as we have done for 250 years in this country.
That takes some balls, doesn’t it? Vance then suggested that government censorship of social media was as big a threat to democracy as … trying to overturn the results of an election by fraud and violence. The argument — a reprise of his flailing in an interview with Ross — is contemptible whataboutism.
And we now know in detail, thanks to Jack Smith, the extent of Trump’s crimes. We know he was always going to declare himself the victor on election night, regardless of the results, capitalizing on the fact that Democratic votes would take longer to count and so he’d appear to have a lead.
He then conspired to try and get fake electors to nullify the real ones, pressured key Republican officials to rig the results, targeted his own vice president by claiming he had the power to prevent the certification; and piled pressure on him — including, on January 6 itself, the threat of murderous violence. “So what?” Trump said when he heard Mike Pence was in physical danger. “The details don’t matter,” he told an aide who insisted that the fraud claims would not hold up in court.
Reality never mattered to him:
It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.
It still doesn’t, as he ranted to a reporter this week:
They rigged the election. The election was rigged. I didn’t rig the election, they did.
None of this can faintly be ascribed to a president’s official actions, subject in some way to presidential immunity. These are, put simply, crimes committed by a candidate to overturn an election result. They are, in fact, some of the gravest crimes ever committed against the Constitution, which is why they required impeachment and barring Trump from office indefinitely. But Mitch McConnell blinked.
Vance has disqualified himself by repeating the Big Lie. It’s why I’m voting, however reluctantly, for Harris. But it’s vital to see that Vance also showed Tuesday night that there may be a Republican future beyond Trump; and that it does not have to be as depraved and deranged as it now is. And this matters. It should matter to you if you’re a Democrat as well as a Republican, because we have two parties, and bringing one of them back to some kind of sanity is vital if we are to rescue liberal democracy.
Very few seem interested in this right now, in nursing the signs of pro-family policy pragmatism on the right, a more realist foreign policy, and a less culturally progressive government. Some still want to return to the party of neoconservatism and open borders, and would rather destroy the GOP than reform it. That’s why they’ve done all they can these past few years to prevent any Republican alternative emerging. The campaign against DeSantis was brutal, and relentless and it worked.
Sane liberals have also assailed Vance, many with zest. Part of it is his submission to Trump; part is his constant ideological reinvention. Fair enough, I guess. But part is also, it seems to me, the usual educated liberal’s contempt for an intellectually curious conservative. I just wish they’d stop for a second and listen to some of Vance’s answers on Tuesday night: the way he acknowledged Republican flaws (on abortion, for example); the way he reached out personally to Walz (over his son witnessing a shooting); the way his voice modulated when weighing various points; the way he seemed focused on solutions rather than slogans, as in his agreement with Walz on a federal family leave program.
This tone — and I acknowledge it’s not one he’s used on wingnut podcasts — matters. It really does suggest that there’s a way to have a conversation about our challenges that doesn’t become a rant, a diatribe, or a shout-fest. That’s something that, even if you disagree with Vance, you should welcome. It’s the tone of liberal democracy, and it has been a very, very long time since we’ve heard it on the right. Get rid of Trump, and we have a future for conservatism.
I think there are two ways this election will go. One could be the final turning of the page of the Trump era. It won’t be a victory for Harris so much as a defeat of the ugly, destabilizing, toxic past. At some point, the ratings for The Apprentice collapsed. Maybe the same will happen for a third Trump election cycle. I sure hope so.
The other could be a surprising Trump victory, because the alternative seems too compromised by the Biden record, simply doesn’t have the talent or vision to command even a single news cycle, and is running a dangerously risk-averse campaign, which the press, by and large, is too chickenshit to expose. Yes, I have PTSD from 2016. But you should too.
Either way, Vance will matter — either as a saner version of Trumpism, or as a moderator of the coming madness. Rather than trashing him, we need to engage him. After defeating him, of course.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: my chat with Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on their history of animal welfare; many passionate dissents over my reluctant endorsement of Harris; 10 notable quotes from the week in news; 19 pieces on Substack we recommend on a variety of topics; a Mental Health Break of scenes from Maggie Smith; a striking view from Northern Ireland; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
From a Dishhead who just renewed his subscription: “Some of the best money I spend all year!” From a newcomer to the VFYW:
I’ve never done this contest before, even though I’ve been a paying Dish subscriber for 2+ years now. (Ok, I don’t pay; my mom subscribes for me as an annual Christmas present. I asked for a gift subscription to the Dish instead of another year of 50 issues of The Economist collecting dust next to the toilet.)
I’m a big fan of the Dish and appreciate your perspective even if I don’t always agree. I have to thank you for helping me articulate my feelings towards the Catholic Church as, after most of my adult life away from it, I’ve recently been enjoying getting back to the faith via a conservative parish that does a beautiful high mass in Latin on Sunday mornings. Your sentiment that churches should be more ethereal than a living room is right on.
Keep on keepin’ on!
New On The Dishcast: Bill Wasik & Monica Murphy
Photo by Emmett Wasik
Bill Wasik is the editorial director of The New York Times Magazine. Monica Murphy is a veterinarian and a writer. Their first book, Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus, was a bestseller, and they’re back with a new one: Our Kindred Creatures: How Americans Came to Feel the Way They Do About Animals. It’s a fascinating account of how the social movement to prevent cruelty to animals took off in America.
Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on the beginnings of dog welfare, and the “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” for animal activism. That link also takes you to commentary on our recent episodes with David Frum and Michelle Goldberg. There’s also continued reader debate over the presidential race, immigration, and inherited IQ.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Walter Kirn on his political evolution, Musa al-Gharbi on wokeness, Sam Harris for our quadrennial chat before Election Day, and Damon Linker on the election results. Wait, there’s more: Peggy Noonan on America, Anderson Cooper on grief, Christine Rosen on humanness in a digital world, Mary Matalin on anything but politics, and John Gray on, well, everything. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
I have supported you and the Dish for over a decade, and I have enjoyed your writing as a voice standing against insanity of the gender critical movement and how it is harming children, teenagers and young adults. So your endorsement of Harris was disappointing. You have written many pieces critical of the ideology, the institutions, and people who are indulging this harmful religion. You were exiled from establishment media and I wanted to see your voice continue, so I was ecstatic when you started the Weekly Dish. I was angered by Jon Stewart’s condescension towards you, and when Ben Smith virtual-signaled to the world at your expense, I defended you to anyone that would listen.
But now, I feel silly having invested so emotionally in you. For all the conflict you had with Stewart and others, you ultimately end up voting for the same person who absolutely supports all the things that you are afraid of with gender critical psychosis/religion.
I’m not even sure what the purpose of your endorsement was, as it was such an emphatic backhand to Harris — one that neither she or any of her surrogates could ever make reference to. I’m also angry that you consider voting third-party or abstaining as a “cop-out”. I fall into this camp, and I think an equally valid argument is that a backhanded endorsement is a cop-out, perhaps even more so. Dick Cheney’s endorsement of Harris is more loved by the leftist establishment than your endorsement, and rightly so, because he has made the calculation that he wants to help Harris win.
These are all good points. I’m profoundly worried by the toll that gender ideology is having on gay, autistic and transgender children. It’s the greatest assault on gay kids since the religious right’s conversion therapy campaign. But we are slowly exposing the young, gay bodies this transqueer movement has irrevocably violated, and we are making progress in the states and winning public opinion. In other words, this is not a presidential dealbreaker for me as such.
And look: I know my position is excruciating. I accept many of you will be deeply disappointed. But for me, the removal of Trump from our political scene is the absolute sine qua non of our recovery as a liberal democracy. I said on Substack Notes that I’d vote for Vance over Harris in an instant. But I cannot enable Trump.
I may be wrong — and if I am, you know I’ll acknowledge it in due course. But this is my gut choice. I hate it. But, in my view, it is the only responsible thing at this point for an American citizen to do.
Read five more dissents, along with my replies, here. The debate continues on the pod page. As always, please keep the dissents coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as the escalation by Israel and Iran, the veep debate, and Eric Adams. Below are a few examples, followed by a brand new substack:
Ross Douthat experiments with a serialized fantasy novel on Substack.
Here’s a list of the substacks we recommend in general — call it a blogroll. If you have any suggestions for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday night at midnight (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month subscription if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the contest). Contest archive is here. Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. One of our weekly sleuths bought and renovated a second home in Asheville last year to be next to family:
My wife and I were in Chicago all last week while the Helene flooding was happening and we went straight back to Tucson. My daughter and her family evacuated today and are safe and sound in Arlington, VA. Our houses were not damaged. We are all fine.
But it’s going to be a long road back for Asheville. Power and cell service will start coming back this week, but some of the water stations were damaged and some roads have to be rebuilt to get to them, so water is unreliable. We don’t know when we will be able to move back in. A true disaster. Many beautiful places have been destroyed.
Here’s a photo showing that my favorite wine store, the Appalachian Vintner, survived the flooding:
However, the way we used to get there was by driving along Swannanoa River Road, in the foreground, which I’m pretty sure is washed out. When I sent this photo to daughter no. 1 showing the non-flooded store, she said, “Well thank god for that.” And my favorite butcher, the Chop Shop, is up on a hill. So when we do get back, we will have the essentials.
Unfortunately I won’t get a chance this week to do a food report.
Also stymied this week was a regular sleuth in Augusta, GA:
Greetings! I didn’t actually have a chance to search for this week’s window at all, since Hurricane Helene hit Augusta early Friday morning and knocked everything out. I’ve never seen destruction like it here before (thankfully my home wasn’t too badly damaged). It seems like every third house has a tree beside it or on top of it, and many roads are inaccessible. Our neighborhood finally got power back, but everything else (like water) is dicey. I’ve only just now been able to access my email; the network has been too overloaded to connect.
I hope to be able to get back to the contest soon, as it would be a welcome distraction; I’m quite overwhelmed at the moment. Here’s wishing a speedy(er) recovery to all Dish readers caught up in this disaster!
