Recently, Andew Sullivan did an interview at his substack blog The Weekly Dish with New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, praising Ross in the manner objected to above. One can wonder, a lot, if Andy’s words were nothing more than excessively good manners, in light of the most recent columns turned in by the two.
According to Ross, ‘TACO’ Is the Secret to Trump’s Resilience—that is to say, while the ignorant wise guys on Wall Street snicker that “Trump Always Chickens Out” (threatens catastrophic measures, then cancels them while loudly declaring victory), this is really just Trump’s way of figuring out, well, “what works”:
The willingness to swerve and backpedal and contradict himself is a big part of what keeps the president viable, and the promise of chickening out is part of Trump’s implicit pitch to swing voters — reassuring them that anything extreme is also provisional, that he’s always testing limits (on policy, on power) but also generally willing to pull back.
Andy’s “vision” of the Trump moment, it is fair to say, is a bit “darker” than that: in his latest, Pardon The Death Of Liberal Democracy, Andy writes: “Pulling on the thread of the absolute pardon power, Trump is wrecking the rule of law.” As indeed he is, for look at the “limits” Trump has already “tested” and breached.
- Whether it’s okay for the president of the United States to attempt to hold onto the office of the presidency after losing his bid for reelection.
- Whether it’s okay for the president of the United States to overturn the lives of tens of thousands of people living legally in the United States—and potentially millions (that is the “plan”, after all)—while stigmatizing them as either rapists or spies or both.
- Whether it’s okay for the president to unilaterally sentence hundreds of illegal immigrants (allegedly) who are members of criminal gangs (probably) to lifetime sentences in overseas hellhole prisons beyond the reach (allegedly) of American courts.
- Whether it’s okay for the president of the United States to pardon convicted criminals as long as they support him—including, just for example, the 1,500 who ransacked the U.S. Capitol Building at his urging in order to prevent his successful rival from being named president-elect.
- Whether it’s okay for the president of the United States to hold a million-dollar a plate dinner in his own “honor” for investors in one of his many
side hustleslegitimate businesses. - Whether it’s okay for the president of the United States to demand that a small but wealthy petrostate give him a $400 million luxury jumbo jet for his own private use, accepting said luxury jumbo jet while still in office, to be used as “Air Force One”.
- Whether it’s okay for the president of the United States to run a “tariff” policy whose subtlety of both conception and execution would embarrass a Mussolini, a tariff policy that consists essentially of adding a dozen kerosene-soaked logs to the already raging global bonfire of authoritarian xenophobia every week.
No, Ross doesn’t give a damn about any of these things, as long as Donnie’s approval rate is close to 50%. Ross is glad he’s livin’ in the age of the death of liberal democracy. Who needs all that “Enlightenment” stuff anyway? Remember how happy we were when we didn’t have them? You know, like 1300 or something. Those were the days!
Afterwords
Ross was on Andy’s show to promote his new book, Why You Should Be Religious. Ross himself is a Catholic, and a “Latin Mass Catholic” to boot, who actually regrets the “failure” of Bonnie Prince Charlie to bring England “home” to Rome. (This is true.) And if that isn’t stupid, I don’t know what is. And if Ross Douthat isn’t a walking contradiction and refutation of the Catholic faith as well, I don’t know what that is either.
Special Clarification Afterwords
I did not photoshop or otherwise manipulate the photo. If you think manly Ross is giving Andy the big eye, you’ll have to ask him about that.
