Mikal Gilmore
Driving home earlier, listening to CNN, I heard Trump's remarks at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner. Part of me wondered, of course, why CNN was covering him live and at length for this event. I didn't see legitimate grounds for it, but there it was—and it was a shit show. Trump slurred and rambled like a dry drunk, as he delivered what was essentially a stand-up patter that he turned into mean-spirited political invective.
In other words, even Trump's comedy routines get feature treatment on CNN, but what I really had to wonder was: How much worse will he get between now and Election Day? How many more people will he insult, degrade and threaten? And why isn't every appearance of his on cable news preceded and followed by the necessary disclaimers: "You are listening to a man who aroused a mob to attack the nation's Capitol Building in an attempt to hijack an election, resulting in deaths. You are listening to a man who is a convicted felon, who has been found liable for sexual assault. You are listening to a man who still faces major federal and state charges for his abuses of power that may yet land him in jail."
It's as if all that has been forgotten, as if Trump is instead a credible if problematic candidate for president. Think back: George Wallace didn't get this sort of deference from the media during his presidential campaigns—that is, until he got neutered by an assassination attempt, and he received humane compassion because he was no longer a viable danger.
Trump is still the Emperor, still riding buck-naked before his kingdom, while too many truth-tellers don't regularly acknowledge the truth about him: Namely, that this man has no clothes, no cloak of decency, when he appears before us. Instead, he possesses some bewildering power to cloud the minds of those who not only owe us forthrightness in this fraught time, but also owe us the power of honest judgment: The worst man in the history of American power is telling us he wants his power back—or else.
Mikal Gilmore is the author of four books, including the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning memoir Shot in the Heart, and the 1960s cultural history Stories Done. He is a longtime writer for Rolling Stone.
From The National Catholic Reporter
The mistake — and the cardinal is hardly the first or last to make it — is to judge the moment as if it were somehow still attached to a degree of normalcy, or what we've always known in presidential politics.
Yes, the Al Smith dinner was once a place where, even amid the sharp-elbow politics of a presidential campaign, normal humans could sit with each other, share a meal and some levity and walk away with dignity and reputation intact. Trump changed all that. And it is absurd at this point to act otherwise.
Read more here.