Ask Greil: November 9, 2024

You predicted correctly that whomever won the electoral majority in the presidential race would win handily and so Trump did. Add to that, he won the popular vote as well. And as of this writing, it appears it's going to be an all Republican Congress (and, of course, a Supreme Court to boot!). All of this suggests a mandate for Trump to do anything either he or his cronies want to do. Can this ultimately backfire on him because mass deportations and monkey wrenching an economy that appears to be doing pretty well now could upset even his voters and apparently, that takes a lot of doing, because Trump voters don't seem to care what their tin god says or does from a public stage during a campaign, they believe he can make their lives better somehow and oppose their fellow Americans who they believe are their enemies as opposed to say, Russia. Is the formula for continued electoral success going to be “We get to do any/every goddamn thing we want” or “don't risk pissing off our supporters” (and how exactly does one do that?) and just do a few symbolic gestures like deporting only non-voting Hispanics because voting Hispanics don't really care about that, as long as it doesn't directly affect them. I have trouble not only with the result of this election, but with the (ir)rationality of how it came to be that Trump can defy decency and common sense and get that many votes. Will the chickens eventually come home to roost and people see that his policies are not only wrong, but detrimental to them specifically (good luck on Trump giving anyone a child tax credit!) or will the cult continue? He won't be able to blame democrats (although he will blame someone, anyone else) if and when things go terribly wrong. And that common ground I'm told to find with people who are Trump voters might eventually come to pass: we will all suffer from him. —JAMES R STACHO

The thug won. So where do we go from here? —CRAIG ZELLER

It's too soon to tell. I don't know. My sense is to think to extremes, as with Timothy Snyder in the current New Yorker on the inevitability of Trump changing the rules to allow him to remain president for life, if not appoint a successor, and the proposals to replace the income tax with revenue from tariffs. The result would be collapse and ruin, but, on different psychological and political levels, that may be what it's all about, leaving aside any suspicions or beliefs that both Trump and Musk are working with Putin.

Lincoln spoke these words in 1838, to a young men's self-improvement organization. Some people have been mulling them over for decades. It was Edmund Wilson, in the 1950s, who first suggested that when Lincoln spoke of a "towering genius," he was projecting himself into the role. I used to find that persuasive; I don't anymore. Lincoln's speech was bandied about when Trump was first elected. Minus Lincoln's imputation of good intentions, the bell he's ringing is far louder today. 

The experiment is successful; and thousands have won their deathless names in making it so. But the game is caught; and I believe it is true, that with the catching, end the pleasures of the chase. This field of glory is harvested, and the crop is already appropriated. But new reapers will arise, and they, too, will seek a field. It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them. The question then, is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would inspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon?—Never! Towering genius distains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. —It sees no distinction in adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable then to expect, that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.

Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm; yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down.