You probably saw that weird Trump rally last week. I mean, they’re all weird, but I’m talking about the one where a couple of people in the crowd fainted and the candidate decided that rather than answering any more questions, he would spin some sweet tunes from his personally curated rally playlist.
For the next 39 minutes, Trump stood and swayed on stage, occasionally waving or pointing, but mostly just swaying, apparently blissed out by hearing Elvis’ “An American Trilogy” and other tunes from his playlist for the 10,000th time. It was bizarre.
As I watched clips of the rally, I was struck by the dilemma of those stuck onstage with the former president. They couldn’t leave, so they had to pretend like what was happening was not weird. They shuffled awkwardly, whispered to each other, waved desultorily, shuffled some more. Event MC Kristi Noem bounced around in cheerleader mode for a while, pointing, clapping, making the “YMCA” song gestures, trying to pretend it was normal. It must have been exhausting for all of them.
I read an opinion piece that compared the scene to Hans Christian Andersen’s folktale, The Emperor’s New Clothes, in which no one in the emperor’s entourage has the courage to tell their boss that he’s walking around naked in public. That certainly works as an analogy, but for me the rally evoked Weekend at Bernie’s vibes.
If you have somehow managed to avoid encountering that movie classic from 1989, let me summarize: Two young insurance company executives discover their mob-connected boss Bernie is dead after arriving early at his house in the Hamptons for a big weekend party. Convinced that the police would think they murdered him, the employees spend the weekend trying to sustain the illusion for party-goers that Bernie isn’t dead, just really drunk and stoned. And yeah, it’s as stupid as it sounds. But I think that’s what Trump’s campaign handlers are trying to do during the campaign’s final weeks: sustain the illusion that their man is okay by keeping him upright and limiting his appearances to pep rallies and friendly media. They know Trump is losing sentience with each passing day, but they’ll worry about that after he wins. And that’s a terrifying thought.
The one helpful thing that Trump accomplished during his first term was to demonstrate the flaws in our system, the first of which is that a president can just ignore the law, especially if he or she is enabled by a compliant majority in either house of Congress or a politicized Department of Justice. So, we owe him thanks for that, I guess.
And because of Trump, we learned the hard way that our democracy is only as good and decent as the president we elect to run it. A president who decides to disregard the established traditions, and even the law (Emoluments Clause, anyone?), can get away with it. The U.S. attorney general, for example, was intended by the Constitution to be the peoples’ steward of justice, a person who would tell the president the truth and stand up for the rule of law. After a couple of false starts, Trump found Bill Barr, an AG who would do his bidding like a Mafia capo. “You want an investigation quashed? No problem, Boss. This guy Epstein bothering you?”
And it didn’t stop with the Justice Department. The Education Department was run by a woman who made millions in privatized education. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was turned into a propaganda agency, forced to bury or alter scientific data to suit the president’s Covid-19 agenda. The Treasury, Energy, and Interior departments were run by lobbyists in the pocket of those they were supposed to be regulating. Even the military was politicized, with top generals replaced if they questioned or refused to bend to Trump’s unconstitutional whims: “We can’t bomb Mexico, sir. And no, we’re not going to ‘nuke a hurricane.’”
I could go on. Looking back at Trump’s first term is real nightmare fuel, but imagining the decisions this barely cognizant man could make in a second term with handlers such as Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, and the Trump children calling the shots? That would not be a playlist any decent American would want to listen to.