Digested week: Trump is in a corner and he'll do anything to get out
The end of the summer is in sight, and with it come thoughts on America’s turn towards fascism. “Fascism” is an over-used word, with a ring of the playground to it, but with the presidential election less than two months away and Trump defending violence from ersatz white militias, it doesn’t, for once, seem misplaced. Until now, there has been a broad assumption that the president is too lazy and stupid to seriously threaten American democracy, but this might underestimate what he’ll do when he’s desperate. Like the squirrel you trap in a corner of your attic, Trump is liable to chew through anything – including you – to get out.
All of which has contributed, this week, to another round of oh-god-he’sgoing-to-win jitters. Most polls in the US put Biden narrowly ahead, but so it was with Hillary Clinton in the final stages of the last campaign and the Trump machine is much bigger this time. In ordinary years, September might bring a renewed sense of purpose and order, but as we head into the Labor Day bank holiday weekend this year, most of the US is still under at least partial lockdown. Back-to-school optimism is hard to pull off when nobody’s going back to school.
On the other hand, it is in Trump’s political interests to fuel panic and the sense of a country on the brink – not of the real dystopia we face, in which private interests gut public life for personal gain, but the phony threat posted by “antifa”, Black Lives Matter and what Trump calls the domestic terrorism of those protesting against him. Straight from the authoritarianism play book, he is stoking instability and civil unrest, then presenting himself as the only candidate who can bring the country to order. It doesn’t matter that it’s a fiction. To his supporters, Trump’s job as president is neither a question of policies or governance, but of expressing their emotions – anger, fear, insecurity, resentment. It is a paradox of this kind of approach that the greater the scope of Trump’s failure, the more broken the country and, potentially, the greater his popularity becomes.
I’m reading Edith Wharton and thinking a lot about etiquette, so was delighted to turn to Tatler this week for advice on how to comport myself in the Covid age. The latest issue features what it calls the new rules of social engagement, one of those lists that, one suspects, was written with half an eye on trolling people who find Tatler unacceptable at the conceptual level. (In the au courant column are “live-in staff” and – what fun! – “tinned foods”, while weddings abroad and “hot tubs on skiing holidays” are out.)
More interesting to me is the placement of “homemade masks in floral fabric” on the not-cool list. Apart from the masks I ordered with the name of my kids’ public school across the front
– a smart fundraising initiative – we’re still on disposable blue masks in my household, along with the original pack of KN95s I bought back in March (and which I’m reusing, contrary to guidelines). On vacation last month, we all got quite sloppy and used whatever masks were lying around in the car to run in and out of the grocery store. But now, with a new season under way and “fashion masks” popping up everywhere, I wonder if it’s time to branch out.
The prime real estate on one’s face below the eyes is a strange space to think about filling. In my neighbourhood, there are a lot of political masks, mainly featuring Black Lives Matter or the looser slogan We’re in This Together, and the pale blue hospital masks prevalent in winter and spring, are increasingly giving way to floral and other designs. Is it obscene to apply fashion criteria to a lifesaving apparatus, even if it’s in the middle of your face? Or a way of normalising a horrible situation? Is it like designer glasses, or sponsorship on an oxygen mask? Much as I hate to agree with Tatler, if it’s OK to accessorise masks, the only style decision to be properly made in New York is to bin the Laura Ashley florals and, in line with the rest of our wardrobes, go with plain black.
Wednesday
The school start date in New York has been pushed back to late September, and in despair, I put in a call to the local Catholic school. Subsidised by the archdiocese of New York, it is a private elementary with fees that are approximately a fifth of the New York private school average, and is promising a return for most of the week.
The lady on the phone is very nice, much nicer than the expectation raised by the phrase, prominent on the school website, of the school’s “Christ-centred education”, which has me half thinking how lovely it would be to see my kids in a nativity play, and half thinking about the movie Spotlight.
“I’m not a Catholic,” I say, primly. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“No, of course not,” she says.
“I mean, I’m not … ”, I clear my throat awkwardly, “… even a believer.” She laughs. “Not a problem!”
Of course; bums on seats has always been the Christian mission. What I don’t say, because the idea sounds frankly insane in Manhattan in 2020, is that I’m a single gay parent and if my kids go to your school, are you going to teach them we’re all going to hell? It has
to be done, however, and I put a note in my diary to call back later in the week and bring up the subject of my abominable lifestyle.
Thursday
At last, something to feel truly, unambiguously joyous about. This headline in the Mail Online: “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s David Blaine!” David Blaine! Where have you been all these years? The best thing about David Blaine is, of course, the absence of the tiniest shred of a sense of humour, a failure so stark it makes you wonder if he has been Tatler-style, high-level trolling us.
This week, Blaine attached himself to 52 helium-filled balloons and floated 24,000ft over the Arizona desert, before parachuting back to Earth, where, disappointingly, he nailed a perfect landing. It was a fun stunt, riffing on the Pixar movie Up, but nothing compared with the time in 2003 when he suspended himself in a clear plastic box above the Thames, where he was pelted with food, and heckled by 24hour crowds. It seems magic now, the delivery, to early 2000s Britain, of one of our nation’s finest and most unified hours.
Friday
I made a lot of bargains with myself in August. On holiday in Massachusetts, I got an earful of lake water and before the doctor syringed it out, promised myself if I regained full hearing, I’d never complain about anything again. A few days later, I threw my back out, went to the ER in an ambulance, and swore to myself that if the pain ever stopped, I would never complain about anything again.
Now I’m back in New York. God, it sucks wearing a mask outside all the time. Why is it so hot, God the weather sucks. And why, when everyone is supposed to have fled to New Jersey, is the playground so crowded? The school situation, obviously, sucks, thanks to the mayor, Bill de Blasio, who stated in a press release this week “it is a great day for every public school student in New York City”, which would be true if, prior to March, there had been no public school system in existence.
Anyway, it turns out I’m not done complaining, although after a rough summer, at least I know what I can and can’t tolerate. “I believe in Jesus Christ,” said one of my five-year-olds this morning, which I think means she wandered by mistake into Christian TikTok. “That’s nice,” I say neutrally.
“Is God still alive?” she says. “Some people think so.” “But is he?” “Well, I guess so, if you choose to believe in him.”
“I do believe in him, but my sister doesn’t.”
“Okey dokey!” No, I can’t do it; we’re sticking with public school.