Opinion ‘Unstable and unhinged’: This is Harris’s best attack on Trump
Plus: A Georgia election official stands up to right-wing meddling.
What caught my eye
In the closing weeks of her campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has hit upon a compelling message: felon and former president Donald Trump is, well, a mess.
She put it this way in an interview with Roland Martin: “His staff won’t let him do a ‘60 Minutes’ interview. ... Everyone has done it except Donald Trump. He will not debate me again. I put out my medical records. He won’t put out his medical records. And you have to ask: Why is his staff doing that? And it may be because they think he’s just not ready — and unfit and unstable and should not have that level of transparency for the American people.” She hit the same notes in a series of battleground rallies describing Trump as “unstable and unhinged.” And at her rally in Erie, Pa., on Monday, she even played clips of Trump labeling his political opponents as “the enemies from within ... those people are more dangerous than Russia and China.”
Trump, as even mainstream outlets acknowledge, is becoming angrier, more threatening, more explicit in his authoritarian vision — and more incoherent. The uptick in unsteady, off-kilter performances has increased. On Monday, he seemed to prove Harris’s point at a bizarre town hall at which he cut off questions and swayed to the music for nearly 40 minutes. On Tuesday, he rambled, insulted the interviewer and American autoworkers, and then veered wildly off topic when asked a basic question about his economic plan.
Unsurprisingly, as the prospect of losing looms larger and the potential for resuming his criminal trial increases, Trump hides from the scrutiny of an electorate that would be repulsed by his message and by objective examination of his emotional and physical health. Only within the cocoon of his faithful MAGA supporters does his message attract rather than repel.
He lacks the mental capacity to defend bizarre and destructive policy notions; he cannot justify his damaging lies that endanger Americans (whether in North Carolina or Springfield, Ohio). So Trump retreats physically to safe spaces without critics and abandons any pretense of persuasion and serious public policy. As the Bulwark editor at large William Kristol put it, “In the closing weeks of this campaign, any mask of democratic normalcy and civic decency has been tossed aside.”
Jon Lemire on “Morning Joe” summed up Harris’s strategy: “She can effectively needle him. ... ‘He’s afraid to do an interview. He’s afraid to release his medical records. ... Trump makes every decision about himself, not about you, the voter.’ ... That is her argument right now as Trump simply goes darker and darker on the campaign trail.”
So Trump burrows deeper into the belly of the MAGA beast, schedules a rally at Madison Square Garden reminiscent of the German American Bund’s Nazi rally in February 1939. A man increasingly showing signs of intellectual and physical deterioration (e.g., falling asleep at his trial and his own convention, sometimes appearing listless and tired at rallies even before Monday’s gobsmacking outing) seeks to pump himself and his followers up in feverish rallies that play on hatred of immigrants and revenge fantasies.
No wonder the vivacious, trim and energetic vice president released her health records and has taken to playing clips of her diminished opponent. She is running against the oldest man ever to be nominated by a major party for the presidency, someone who is keeping secrets about his health and degenerating before our eyes.
Distinguished person of the week
Republicans are pulling out all the stops preparing to thwart the election if Trump loses. Blocking military and overseas votes? That’s extreme. But so is filing roughly 200 lawsuits asserting unproved and unprovable theories (e.g., undocumented immigrants are voting). But now and then a brave Republican stands up to holler: Enough!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Monday, “The chair of the State Election Board says his Republican colleagues have gone too far, taking the law into their hands by passing new Georgia election rules since Donald Trump praised them at a campaign rally.” John Fervier, who was appointed by Georgia’s Republican governor, scolded the right-wing majority on the board for failing “to stay within its boundaries.”
The AJC, noting nine rule changes invented by the board, reported, “Fervier’s comments come ahead of critical court hearings this week on lawsuits attempting to revoke the board’s recently passed rules, including requirements for an undefined ‘reasonable inquiry’ before certifying elections and an election-night hand count of the number of paper ballots.” Indeed, on Tuesday, a Georgia court held no election board could refuse to certify election results.
“We all represent every voter in Georgia, and we should act like that,” Fervier said. “This hyperpartisanship doesn’t serve anybody, and it certainly doesn’t serve this board. And I think it creates dissension.”
Kudos to him for speaking up and for alerting Georgians to Republican antics. During 2020, we saw a number of brave Republicans (e.g., Rusty Bowers, then-speaker of the Arizona House; Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state) refuse to subvert democracy under pressure from Trump. We will need others like Fervier to step up this time around.
Something different
To an extent that might surprise you, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles — which ended World War I and carved up much of Europe, the Middle East and Asia — shaped the rest of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries. The magnificent tome “Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World” by Margaret MacMillan details the diplomatic personalities, the deals, the ongoing military clashes (in Turkey, Russia and elsewhere) and the rise of nationalism in the wake of the devastating war that cost Europe a generation of young men and cracked apart the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires.
MacMillan, in painstaking detail, documents those six months (January through June, 1919), debunks some common misconceptions (e.g., the reparations placed on Germany were not that severe) and exposes some devilishly complex issues we have yet to resolve (e.g., what does “self-determination” really mean?). The Big Four — the United States, Britain, France and Italy — come across both as more clueless and more sincere in their efforts. What is striking is that many of the knottiest problems (e.g., how to draw national boundaries in the Balkans, how to settle competing interests in the Middle East, how to control aggressors) still plague us. The account, if nothing else, should instill some humility in diplomatic efforts.
Imperfect knowledge and the law of unintended consequences, despite the best efforts of diplomats, upset even the most earnest efforts to create a more peaceful and stable world order. MacMillan amply illustrates another truism: Treaties without the will to enforce them — by military power, if need be — are worthless.
The book is a fascinating read, a luxurious deep dive for those who want to grapple with the most difficult international conflicts and issues that we have yet to solve.
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