Remnick's first piece on Trump's positive test posted at 3:45 a.m. on Friday. Then, he proceeded to rewrite Comment for next week's @newyorker. Closed last night. Worth studying his summation of this moment. For history. newyorker.com/magazine/2020/…
The contrast between Trump’s airy dismissals of the pandemic’s severity and the profound pain and anxiety endured by so many Americans has helped define the era in which we live.
Because of his ineptitude and his deceit, because he has encouraged a culture of heedlessness about the wearing of masks and a lethal disrespect for scientific fact, he bears a grave responsibility for what has happened in this country.
It is difficult to overstate the psychological overload that the drama of the Trump Presidency presents to anyone who has been following the narrative.
Take a week in the life: One day we learn that Trump, who is alleged to be the wealthiest President in U.S. history, paid just seven hundred and fifty dollars in federal income tax during his first year in office.
Then comes a debate performance in which he tries to baselessly undermine mail-in voting and asks the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, to “stand back and stand by”—presumably, to be mobilized should he lose.
He made it plain, as he has in his public speeches, that he is not so much running for reëlection as running against the election itself, hoping to invalidate its results preëmptively with threats and conspiracy theories.
Then, at an ugly, mask-free rally in Minnesota on Wednesday, Trump riled the crowd, declaring that a Biden Presidency would “inundate your state with a historic flood of refugees.”
Misinformation and violence, too, are contagions, and Trump, who sees only political advantage in fomenting schism and mistrust, has long been a superspreader.
(Personal note: He's the boss and doesn't need my compliments, but I just shake my head in admiration. The summation of what we've been living through and what we are living through. The economy of words. The sentences that land like a thunderclap. This is writing for history.)
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