Uncertain Times
I’m probably not the only person who felt increased sympathy for Trump when he showed such spirit as he survived being shot, then had reason to dislike him again within 48 hours—the specific reason for the dislike in my case being his choice of anti-capitalist Republican, Ivy League hillbilly, venture capitalist man of the people, and all-around mushy huckster J.D. Vance (about whom I complained at length three years ago, and I didn’t even dwell much on the masculinist idiocy that props up much of today’s populist politics).
Despite all the ideological and psychological analyses people will do of Vance, the stealthily pragmatic Trump probably chose him in large part just because Vance picks up votes in the Midwest, which is full of swing states and low-information, white, lower middle-class, moderate voters of the sort who may have seen ads for the Vance-inspired movie Hillbilly Elegy.
Bloody Trump had a small window when even the most ardent of libertarians might’ve been won over to permanent sympathy for him had he chosen a vocally free-market, anti-government running mate.
He didn’t have to pick the country’s best senator, Rand Paul, or the similar-sounding “libertarian nationalist” and Trump-booster Vivek Ramaswamy—nor forge an unlikely alliance with current Libertarian Party nominee Chase Oliver or anti-establishment firebrand Robert Kennedy. Heck, Trump could’ve signaled his emphasis on business (as opposed to the populism of Vance or, say, the establishment militarism of Rubio) just by picking Gov. Doug Burgum of energy-producing North Dakota. Instead, he doubled down on market-bashing populism.
Above all, let no one respond that now is a time for unity. Unity is the real enemy in an uncertain world of diverse preferences and innumerable, shifting factions. Unity is always a false façade, an imposition, the thwarting of the clashing voices from which we should be hearing.
Likewise, a clash between Democrats who want to stick with Biden through next month’s Democratic National Convention and Democrats who share Obama’s rumored desire to replace Biden is probably the healthiest thing going on in that whole monopolistic, censorious, homogeneity-seeking half of the political spectrum right now. Uncertainty is saner than dogmatism.
I can even sympathize with Jack Black joking about Trump getting shot, then taking it back and apologizing for his more bloodthirsty-sounding Tenacious D bandmate. What are comedians and rock stars for—and perhaps even more so, comedy rock stars, of which we have precious few—if not spouting emotive nonsense off the tops of their heads and regretting it later, then maybe regretting the apology itself, then maybe distracting everyone by saying something even more offensive? Aren’t right-wingers, on their good days, always telling us to be thick-skinned about these things? Leave people room for error and offense.
Similarly, I’ll have far more respect for the liberal establishment court jesters at The Daily Show if, say, they’re still mocking Kamala Harris this harshly three months from now if she’s the Democrat standard-bearer than if they suddenly toe the party line. My bet is that if she’s the presidential candidate, though, they’ll close ranks and start doing lots of softball “jokes” about how brilliant she is and how hard it is for normal mortals to be in her presence without being outshone—much the way The Simpsons tends to treat celebrities who visit Springfield (assuming nothing has changed since I last saw the show, a decade ago). Laughter is at best priority #2 at these sorts of shows nowadays.
The more blurted-out truths, quiet parts said out loud, leaks, gaffes, second thoughts, contradictions of the party narrative, and off notes we hear, the safer we likely are. They’re all admissions that we aren’t, like some national choir, filled with certainty about what comes next.
The nicest thing one can say about this week’s Republican National Convention by my agnostic standards may be that speakers include not only people who’ve been called Christian Nationalists but one speaker, in the (shapely) form of Amber Rose, who has expressed sympathy for Satanism because it’s so feminist and pro-choice. Beats marching in lock-step. Maybe she and ex Kanye should do a song about diversity within the ranks of Trump supporters called “We Are Legion.”
Uncertainty should reign supreme for the time being even on the matter of the Trump shooting itself. With the security team that day being on camera dithering about whether to take out the attacker not just for two minutes but, we now know, for nearly a half hour, we deserve multiple competing narratives and arguments about whether this was a minor oversight, extreme negligence, willful negligence, or even an outright criminal conspiracy orchestrated at the highest levels and signaled in advance by financial overlords BlackRock’s recent ad (really) featuring the face of the young future shooter.
The days of assuming the authorities will sort it out, tell the truth to major media, and let the rest of us know when we seem fully able to handle it are long gone, even if some people don’t realize it yet. That’s as it should be, lest we too eagerly lap up the most anodyne, order-keeping propaganda tale. Let a million arguments bloom.
—Todd Seavey is the author of Libertarianism for Beginners and is on X at @ToddSeavey