How Dangerous Is This Moment?
Maybe it’s because I’m now on the other side of the generation gap, but despite the terrible moments in 1968, the situation in 1968 seemed more hopeful — the country was turning against the war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement had come of age and the women’s movement was blooming.
Now it feels as if we’re almost post-hope. I suppose it’s totally futile to mention guns. I’m sure you read the story in our paper about the 20 to 30 marchers in Dallas who were openly carrying assault-style rifles during the demonstration that ended with the shooting. Which is legal in Texas.
.. I often talk to conservatives who remember ’68 as a disturbing time, much like how you see these days. And I have met Trump supporters who see this period as one of real hope and promise, in the way you described ’68.
.. Comey was doing what prosecutors do these days: If you can’t get an indictment, you slime your target while you’re closing the books. But I’m certainly not going to argue that Clinton and her team weren’t extremely careless.
.. But nobody’s going to be voting this November on the basis of her emailing practices. If there’s anything this week has taught us, it’s that we have bigger things to worry about.
.. But the really interesting story was that while the poll only listed the two candidates, 21 percent still chose neither. According to Gallup, that’s about twice as high as it was in 2008.
.. whole Lynch/Comey/email scandal drives down public trust at a time when trust is already redlining and polarization is out of control. Get ready for an election season where the feel-good underdog is “Neither 2016.”
.. This is really a question of how well social-media-driven populism wears with the public. Almost by definition, populists seek to follow the people rather than lead them in new directions, so the focus shifts with the winds of popular attention.
.. Trump’s political style has been around forever. In recent history, we can see shades of it in Ross Perot and George Wallace. Further back, some aspects of William Jennings Bryan’s manner and oratory were very Trumpish. By the way, Bryan dominated his party for more than a decade — never popular enough to win the White House, but too popular within the party to be deposed. I’d say a key lesson from this is that populism is likely to be with us for a while, no matter what happens in November.