John Cassidy's Blog, page 21

Trump in Deep Trouble on Eve of Second Debate

If the Presidential election continues on its current course, historians may well look back on the third weekend in September as the moment when Donald Trump came closest to the White House, while millions of Americans reached for the Xanax. That Saturday, Hillary Clinton’s lead over Trump narrowed to one percentage point in the widely watched Real Clear Politics poll average, which combines the results from a number of surveys. A day later, Clinton’s lead fell to 0.9 percentage points.

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Related:
The New York Tale of Donald Trump’s Accountant
Does Trump’s Rise Mean Liberalism’s End?
Trump and the Truth

Can Donald Trump Learn from Mike Pence?

Tuesday’s debate between Tim Kaine and Mike Pence is unlikely to have a significant effect on the outcome of the Presidential election. Historically, the clash of Vice-Presidential wannabes has rarely shifted the opinion polls much, let alone the actual voting. Why should this year be any different? The back-and-forth on Tuesday provided plenty of fodder for political commentators and partisans, but it was always a sideshow. The real contest moves on to St. Louis, Missouri, where, on Sunday night, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will take part in their second Presidential debate.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Looking Backward at Donald Trump
Afternoon Cartoon: Wednesday, October 5th
Mike Pence, Dancing with Trump

Why the Vice-Presidential Debate Does and Doesn’t Matter

According to a poll carried out for ABC News late last week, more than forty per cent of Americans can’t name the two major-party candidates for Vice-President. Journalists, myself included, bear some responsibility for that sad state of affairs. During the entire campaign, I’ve written about each Veep contender once—Tim Kaine when he was picked, Mike Pence when he refused to apply the word “deplorable” to David Duke, the former Klansman who is supporting Pence’s running mate.

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Related:
Pence Opens V.P. Debate by Begging Private Sector to Hire Him
Bonus Cartoon: The V.P. Debate
Morning Cartoon: Tuesday, October 4th

Is Donald Trump a “Genius” Tax Avoider?

The current incarnation of Rudy Giuliani lacks many qualities associated with him when he was mayor of New York City: moderation, tolerance, and an eagerness to cross party lines. But as he showed Sunday morning on “Meet the Press,” where he appeared in his role as a Donald Trump surrogate, he can’t be accused of lacking chutzpah, or what the Brits call a brass neck.

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Related:
Donald Trump’s Taxes
Donald Trump’s Cuba Hypocrisy

The Meaning of Trump’s Early-Morning Tweet Storm

The tweets Donald Trump sent out early Friday morning about Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe who has emerged as an important surrogate for the Hillary Clinton campaign, raise a number of questions, and the first is: Why was Trump up all night?

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Related:
Debate Night at the Apollo
How Donald Trump Could Disappear from the Political Scene

How Much Damage Did the Debate Do to Donald Trump?

The reviews are in, and they are virtually unanimous: Donald Trump had a horrible debate on Monday night against Hillary Clinton. He was unprepared, unconvincing, and off-putting. On Wednesday, the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal, hardly a redoubt of liberal sophistry, published a piece by Jason L. Riley, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, who wrote, “If Mr. Trump had a strategy for winning Monday night’s face-off with Mrs. Clinton, it remains as secret as his plan to defeat [the] Islamic State.”

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Donald Trump and the Climate-Change Countdown
What Obama Has Meant for Food
Afternoon Cartoon: Wednesday, September 28th

Hillary Clinton Brings Out the Real Donald Trump

“Words matter when you run for President,” Hillary Clinton said toward the end of Monday night’s happening at Hofstra University, on Long Island. Clinton was criticizing Donald Trump for his loose language regarding America’s allies in Asia, but she could have been summing up the lopsided debate, which saw her doing virtually everything she needed to do while Trump indicted himself with his own words.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Problem with Trump Isn’t His Debating Skills
Hillary Clinton’s Miss Universe Moment
The First Debate of the Twitter Election

The Presidential Debate Is Clinton’s Chance to Outfox Trump

If the late philosopher Isaiah Berlin were alive to watch Monday night’s Presidential debate, he would surely recognize the ways in which the two candidates on the stage personify his famous metaphor of hedgehogs and foxes. In Berlin’s terms, Donald Trump is a classic hedgehog. He knows, or claims to know, one big thing: the United States and the world are going to hell in a handbasket, and they need a strong man like him to fix things. Hillary Clinton, by contrast, is one of Berlin’s foxes. She knows many things.

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Related:
Why Ted Cruz Surrendered to Donald Trump
Trump and Clinton: The Victorian Novel
Trump and the Truth: His Charitable Giving

Trump and the Truth: His Charitable Giving

This essay is part of a series The New Yorker will be running through the election titled “Trump and the Truth.”

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Related:
My Vote
Afternoon Cartoon: Friday, September 23rd
Trump and the Truth: Black Outreach as Campaign Ploy

Tony Blair Praises Hillary Clinton and Issues an Appeal to Americans

In the fall of 1999, at 10 Downing Street, I interviewed Tony Blair, who was midway through the first of his three terms as Britain’s Prime Minister. Apart from his insistence that old-style socialism was dead—a sacrilegious statement for many members of his Labour Party—what I recall most vividly was Blair’s physical presence: the intensity, the flashing eyes, the gesticulating, the articulateness. Trained as a barrister, Blair had the bearing and mannerisms of the smartest young advocate in the chambers.

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Related:
Arlie Russell Hochschild’s View of Small-Town Decay and Support for Trump
Afternoon Cartoon: Tuesday, September 20th
Trump and the Truth: The “Mexican” Judge