The New Yorker’s Political Writers Answer Your Election Questions 23:28

This is The Political Scene, and I'm David Remnick. This presidential election is, to say the least, confusing and anxiety-provoking in a lot of ways. At the beginning of 2021, it seemed like America might be turning a new page. Instead, our political life feels like a strange dream we can't wake up from.

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you what's on your minds and what's still confounding you about the whole election season. And dozens of you wrote to us from Signal Mountain, Tennessee, Salem, Virginia, Eugene, Oregon, Dolores, Colorado, all over the place. You asked some very complicated questions about the Electoral College and campaign strategy and some questions that might seem simpler but really don't have simple answers.

So I'm going to tackle just a few of your questions today with help from my esteemed colleagues, staff writers at The New Yorker, covering politics in different ways from different perspectives. And we'll shed some light where we can. So let's begin. One question many of you are dying to understand is a variation of this one from a listener named Jane. And Jane writes this.

I remain profoundly puzzled why nearly half of Americans, according to polling, continue to support Donald Trump now four years after the January 6th attack on the Capitol. That they view him as their redeemer when everything he does and says shows himself to be a self-serving power monger with no respect for the law. Well, where to begin on that one? Why does half the country, and maybe more,

support Donald Trump? Well, I'm going to start with Andrew Morantz, who's written about politics and extremism. Andrew, what say you? What's so appealing about Trump at this point, maybe not in spite of, but perhaps because of his seeming disregard for the law? Yeah, um,

I think at this point we can admit that he's funny. I mean, there might be some sort of hard nucleus of supporters who will deny to the ends of the earth that Donald Trump is self-dealing or that he's self-serving or, you know, that he's corrupt. But, you know, I think many of his supporters know that.

And it's a very time-honored tradition of saying, yeah, he might be a little bit self-dealing, but at least he's honest about it. At least he's authentic. But Andrew, it can't be just because he's a great insult comic that he's got this appeal. It has to be something on a political level, however visceral. Well, yeah. The question mentioned, I'm your redeemer or I'm your vengeance, and it has to do with

you know, the essence of reactionary conservatism. So there is a promise being made there. Jill Lepore, as a historian, as a political observer, what do you see as Trump's appeal? I think any explanation that goes to Trump is a showman. Obviously, there's a great deal of truth to be found in that, but that

on dismissing the preferences of his supporters as misguided, and they're not therefore guided by policy, by political preferences, by commitments to political, genuine political ideas. It's to sort of participate in the dismissal of the far right that liberal intellectuals

committed in the 1950s, the sort of liberal consensus theory, you know, there is nothing but liberalism. That's an idea in American history. Everyone else is a paranoid nut job and commits, you know, as Hofstadter would have said, you know, participates in a paranoid style. So I just would say, I think that I think there is an obligation to understand what those policy preferences are. And over the course of the 20th century, the far right ideology that has moved from the far right to

the entirety of the right, is an objection to the power of the federal government, to federal power over the states, an objection to the moral high-handedness of liberals and then of progressives. And yeah, you can sort of watch the kind of Trump Safari Daily Show version of let's go quiz these people and see how stupid they are.

That just generally has no interest in what it could be about the nature of the exercise of federal power through the administrative state that could genuinely...

be disappointing and be failing to deliver goods to people. So a listener by the name of Lawrence emailed to ask this. I'd love to know why you and your staff, like Evan Osnos, Susan Glasser, and Jane Mayer, are not doing critical interviews with people like Donald Trump or other high-level mega-politicians or enablers on a regular basis. It doesn't seem like top-level journalists like yourselves have a chance to challenge these people to their faces.

Are they not willing to speak with New Yorker journalists or is there some other reason? So, Susan Glasser, you're a biographer with your husband, Peter Baker, at The New York Times of Donald Trump. What say you? Well, thanks, Lawrence. You know, I did do two very interesting

Interesting, but not necessarily very revealing interviews with Donald Trump. I spent three and a half hours with him at Mar-a-Lago after the 2021 events unfolded. And, you know, like many engagements with Trump, it is...

but not surprising. And, you know, he's not an interview subject in a conventional sense. And it's not just because he only goes on Hannity and they give him softball questions. The challenge of engaging with Trump one-on-one, whatever news outlet you represent, is that, you know, he doesn't take in your question and spit back out an answer. There's no noun, verb, and a period to end a sentence. And, you know,

And, you know, essentially he does the same kind of freeform discourse, more or less, that you see in his rallies. And they never mention me. I'm up here sweating like a dog.

Secret Service said we have to make sure everyone's safe. I said, what about me? Oh, we never thought of that. They don't think about me. I'm working my ass off. I'm working hard. This is hard work. Front row Joe. Front row Joe. This is not the Republican Party that it was in 2015 or even in 2016. And that's that's a phenomenon that's been very interesting to observe as someone who spent a long time reporting in Washington, D.C.

You know, someone like Marco Rubio, for example, was someone I interviewed for one of the first pieces I did for The New Yorker. This is a guy who called Donald Trump a kook, who ran as a national security minded presidential candidate that really the choice of the Republican establishment in many ways in Washington and on Capitol Hill in 2016 changed.

Just the other day, I noticed that he tweeted that Joe Biden was a sick and deranged old man, as if Donald Trump had seized his phone and was tweeting for him. And so I think that, you know, it's important to recognize that the world that we're operating in as journalists has changed as well. Claire Malone, you've had some experience with this. How would you answer that question? Why is it so difficult sometimes to do critical interviews with

politicians and influencers on the right. I guess my experience with this was, you know, not interviewing President Trump, but talking to Candace Owens, who's a pretty prominent right-wing reactionary media personality. And I did a profile of her and she did agree to let me come and speak with her and talk. But, you know, she wanted to make sure that she was always able to record. She sort of wanted to limit where I was allowed to interact with her. It was basically just at the

the studios of The Daily Wire. She sort of felt a deep, I think a deep suspicion of me. What was also interesting is in some ways she also felt

didn't care. The way she sort of put it to me was like, I don't care how this piece ends up for me because it's essentially it either raises her profile or it proves the point that the mainstream media attacks those on the right wing, which I thought was, you know, an interesting and I think she's a savvy person and a savvy reader of her audience. There's also kind of the interesting element of we in the mainstream media because

Because Trump really, I guess, cannily played into a lot of institutional distrust that people have had for decades of the media. But he really accelerated this feeling that we are, as we all know now, the phrase he used, the enemy of the people. And I think that that did an interesting thing where it made...

our job of, you know, calling out what's true and what's not and trying to wrangle misinformation, something that I think is like a pretty impossible task these days. I do think that that did this interesting thing where it almost politicized the media and it

in the partisan America of you're on this side, you're on that side, you're on the Republican side, you're on the Democratic side. The Democratic Party does not have the same problem with misinformation and, you know, the alternative reality that the Republican Party does. And so I think inevitably that sort of has placed us more on the, well, you're in the Democratic camp. That's not to say that Democratic parties

Democratic politicians don't take liberties with the truth or spin things. But I just think in the binary, there is an interesting dynamic that makes right-wing politicians less likely to talk to mainstream media.

So let's talk about Biden. A listener named Jim expresses a concern that we know is pretty widespread. So let me quote it directly from his letter. I'm very frustrated by Biden's arrogance to deny all comments about age and unfavorable poll ratings. Why are Democrats not pulling out all the stops? And why are they so casual and foolish based on the stakes? Susan Glasser. I do think that Biden is,

And his team in the White House have stoked the idea that somehow he's getting an unfair rap from the media. And what I have perceived, certainly in Washington, is a lot of what you might call working the refs, kind of an inside game from the Biden campaign and the Biden White House. They've hauled in individual news organizations for meetings at the campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Washington.

You know, there's a sense that, you know, if only somehow he would get, you know, a fair shake from the remnants of the mainstream media, this would be different. I don't think that the information such as we have today,

bears that out right now. If you look at surveys, it's very, very clear that Biden would be winning this election in a landslide if it was only readers of The New York Times. There's a huge problem with Biden breaking through with the platforms that younger voters tend to be on. In particular, those platforms

People who only get their information from social media are essentially a very different segment of the entire rest of the population in terms of their views about Biden. Now, Diana, who's a listener from Massachusetts, has a concern about Biden's communication with us, with American voters. And she asks this.

Why aren't Americans, and thus voters, understanding the magnitude of Biden's legislation that will improve our country for years to come? For example, Build Back Better, the Inflation Reduction Act, the infrastructure bill. These affect and improve red and blue states alike. I'm confounded by why this message is not getting across. Evan Osnos.

Yeah, I think the questioner raises a really interesting point, which is that by any ordinary measurement of electoral credentials, Joe Biden's kind of going into this race with a pretty strong hand.

You have violent crime right now. Is it basically a 50-year low? You've got the stock market hitting all these highs. Unemployment is at record lows. So why? Why is it that he doesn't get any credit for that? The usual answer in Washington is, oh, it's the communications. He's not, you know, somehow it's getting lost in this static. But I think one of the things that's going on is that we are much more

discombobulated, dysregulated by the effect of the last four years, including really at the heart of it, COVID. In a way that we don't adequately describe, I just think it has thrown off so much of how we perceive ourselves as a political community and our leaders that it makes it almost easy for people to forget that they are looking at a legislative record that in any other year would pretty much guarantee reelection.

So we're answering some of the questions that listeners have sent us about the election over the past couple of weeks. Kelifa Sana, here's a question for you, and it's pretty blunt. How did we wind up with this rematch of Biden versus Trump redux? And why are there no inspiring leaders? Is it too costly to challenge the wealthiest candidates? It doesn't have to be that way, the question goes on. We do need to change that or we are doomed to the same old, same old. Kelifa, what say you?

Well, yeah. I mean, part of that might have to do with the weakness of political parties, right? That it's hard for either party to either step in and say, no, we don't want this person, or to say, no, we really do want this other person. Sometimes what you see in the absence of that is that you get candidates who are either celebrities...

rich and famous, or you get candidates who are extremely old and have been around forever. And, you know, obviously in this race, once again, for the second time in a row, we have an old person versus a celebrity who also happens to be quite old. Claire Malone, I want to come back to you here on the Biden-Trump rematch. There were other potential presidential candidates out there, weren't there?

What exactly happened to them? There's sort of a whole generation of voters now, or millennials even, who have sort of been waiting for the baby boomers to stop running for office. I mean, I think Gavin Newsom maybe wouldn't admit it, but he sort of seemed to be doing some sort of like...

shadow, hey, I could be the guy. Pete Buttigieg has long been a person who appears on Fox News pretty regularly. So, you know, there were people, Gretchen Whitmer, yeah. So I think there were, there was a moment. But I think like a lot of things in life, inertia just sort of set in and

Everyone looked around and no one jumped in the Democratic Party specifically. And I think that's how we end up here with the rematch. Jill, we have a question from a listener named William, and it requires a sense of history as well as a sense of

the structure of how our political system is organized. William writes this, independent observers and many within both parties feel that the two-party system is controlled and dead-ended. Is there a realistic, viable way to establish a third-party candidate for future elections? And I know you've done a lot of research on democracy, God knows, over time.

What's the history behind that two-party system? And would a multi-party system like you see in the UK or many other countries be a better course for the United States? Well, I think there is an extraordinary amount of frustration with a two-party system. I think, as both Claire and Ben had pointed out, especially with young people, the two-party system, which is not in our Constitution, is something that evolved over time.

is in considerable tension with some of our structural separations of power in the Constitution and makes it very difficult for certain features of our constitutional order to work. And it's a much bigger problem when the parties

are polarized. So I think sometimes when people are complaining about the two party system, what they're really reacting to is the polarization of the parties. What are the prospects for change? I mean, there are some great, exciting ideas out there that people can become involved in if they're committed to them. And I think some of them are surely possible.

You know, Daniel Allen does a whole series for The Washington Post that's about reimagining our democracy. She's a big advocate of ranked choice voting, which is one of the mechanisms that would allow for the blossoming of third parties and multi-parties. I think it's a little hard with our presidential system to imagine a really vibrant multi-party system unless we had a parliamentary structure.

And I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Like it all kind of goes to that feeling of brittleness and rigidity, right? That I think for young people is also associated with being elderly, that like everything is creaky and everything moves slowly and is half broken. And

geriatric. And there's something not just about these two presidential candidates, but about our constitutional order that just is that way. A listener named Andrew asks this. What happens if the Republicans in Congress refuse to certify the results and essentially install Trump? Jill, what can you tell us here? Who has control in the event that Biden wins?

Who or what can ensure a peaceful transition next January? We don't have a repeat or worse of January 6, 2021. I came across this book written in 1899 called President John Smith in which the same thing happens. And there's an insurrection in the Senate floor during the joint session or on the floor of Congress during the joint session to certify the Electoral College. And this was to certify whom?

This was to certify this fictitious President John Smith in this 1899 dystopian novel that was set in the future that I just want to say. People thought about this problem a long time ago and didn't solve it, didn't fix it. Remember when you could just go catch a flight and just walk into the airport with your bag and walk onto the plane? We won't have an election like where you could just walk onto the plane anymore.

until we get through this era of American history and an all but unprecedented risk of political violence. And is that era of political history defined by the presence of Donald Trump, or do you think it goes beyond that? I think if Trump had vanished from the national political stage after 2021, it would have ended with Trump.

But I think no matter how this election goes, it will go beyond this. That is a grim forecast for what's coming. In other words, what you're saying is that no matter what happens in November, the drop... We need TSA at the Electoral College certification. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Ben Wallace-Wells, you've been covering the Trump campaign and you've watched the MAGA movement evolve since 2015, 2016. What have you observed?

I think it's interesting and maybe bears on this question to think about the 2016 version of Trump and the Trump movement relative to the 2024 version. And some of this is inevitably nebulous and sort of anecdotal, but in my experience...

The Trump campaign and the Trump rallies in 2016 were much scarier. They were much more violent. People got beat up in the stands. There were angry protests, street fighting outside. Trump himself, you know, people walked into those rallies and had no idea what was going to happen. You know, when I look at Trump himself...

today, it's a diminished figure. You know, he's not able to generate the same energy, his crowds are smaller, it's a less intense effect. At the same time, and somewhat moving in contradiction,

His movement has become much more openly opposed to democracy, to democratic institutions. His party is much more completely behind him. And so I sometimes wonder if when I walk away from a Trump rally, I've been artificially reassured by how mediocre he is. I had this feeling too. I went to the rally in the Bronx and

And Trump was telling stories about the woman's skating rink and various real estate moguls that he knew and the Yankees in the era of Steinbrenner. And it was, politics aside, it was like listening to Grandpa at Thanksgiving, but without even the bile that you're kind of used to. It was odd. And yet, Kelifasana, looking at you here,

When we watch him walk into an arena for some kind of boxing match or whatever it is, the crowd goes nuts. UFC. For UFC, the crowd goes nuts. Nuts. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there is that core of people who love him. There's the core of people that are just happy to be in the same room as a celebrity. But I think it's also important to bear in mind the awesome power of negative polarization. Yeah.

I sometimes have liberals ask me, how could anyone vote for Trump just out of kind of knee-jerk partisan fealty? You know, okay, you're not a – people who aren't crazy about Trump but are just willing to vote for him against Biden. And I have liberals who say to me, like, how could anyone support this guy? And I say, picture if it was reversed. Imagine if the Democrats nominated, like, 50 Cent.

And 50 Cent is running on a campaign to, I don't know, end police brutality forever, but he's also saying all sorts of things that seem to flout democratic norms and seem to maybe encourage violence. And it's, you know, it's unsettling. What would it take for you as a liberal to vote for Ted Cruz instead? And I think for a lot of people, that would be a hard ask because there is this idea that no matter how bad the person on our side is, at least he's not like those people on the other side.

Thanks to all of you who wrote us your questions about the election. I'm sorry we couldn't answer every single one of them. And thanks to my colleagues, Susan Glasser, Jill Lepore, Claire Malone, Andrew Morantz, Evan Osnos, Kela Fasana, and Ben Wallace-Wells. You can read all of them on politics and the state of the nation at newyorker.com.

You come to the New Yorker Radio Hour for conversations that go deeper with people you really want to hear from, whether it's Bruce Springsteen or Questlove or Olivia Rodrigo, Liz Cheney, or the godfather of artificial intelligence, Jeffrey Hinton, or some of my extraordinarily well-informed colleagues at The New Yorker. So join us every week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts. From PR.