Impromptus

Trading places, &c.

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Container ships being loaded and unloaded in Long Beach, Calif., April 20, 2023 (Mike Blake / Reuters)
On protectionism, Donald Trump, Laura Loomer, Kamala Harris, Taylor Swift, James Earl Jones, and more

When I was coming of age, certain American towns declared themselves “nuclear-free zones.” The issue was not nuclear energy — that was a separate issue, really — but nuclear weapons. Cold War policy. The towns’ declarations were just symbolic, of course. Those “zones” were covered by America’s nuclear deterrent regardless. They were under the “nuclear umbrella” regardless.

Part of me wished they could opt out. “What if there were a hole in the umbrella? That’s what they want, right?”

Thinking about trade recently, I thought of those nuclear-free zones. A lot of Americans are hostile to trade, or think they are: They benefit from trade every day. But maybe they could live in trade-free zones? Zones free of trade?

What if they had to live with the consequences of their own autarkical desires? Would it teach them something?


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(One could continue in this vein. There are people who yell for the defunding of the police, and the FBI, and the Department of Justice. If they had to live without those things . . .)

• Here is Donald Trump, talking about Kamala Harris’s name:

Here is Trump again, talking about Harris’s earrings — or listening devices? — during last week’s debate:

Once more, Trump:

We have had eight years to get used to the fact that Donald Trump is the leader — indeed, the hero — of the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Some of us are not used to it yet. It is still disorienting.

• Last July, I jotted a note, a simple tweet:

Yesterday was a sickening day in America. I remember the attempts on President Ford. And “March 30,” as Nancy Reagan used to say. I was born the day before 11/22/63. I’m glad that Donald Trump is well. I’m sorry about the dead and wounded. God bless America, and to hell with the democracy-robbers and life-robbers.

Sunday was a sickening day too — an assassination attempt, foiled. No loss of life this time. Still sickening.

I was given a memory (for Trump was on the golf course). The memory was of October 1983. Thirty-five years later, a Washington Post writer, Jacob Bogage, recalled the day in question: “A gunman took hostages at Augusta National. Ronald Reagan tried to calm him down.”

That seems so vivid to me. Events are in technicolor, somehow, when you’re young. (Then they get blurrier?)

• A lot of people were mighty ticked off at Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris-Walz. Here, for instance, is “Judge Jeanine,” a Fox News personality:

Question: If Swift had endorsed Trump-Vance, would Judge Jeanine be singing the same tune? Or would the endorsement be hunky-dory? Indeed, laudable?

In my experience, it’s “Shut up and sing” until some entertainer agrees with you, politically. It’s “Shut up and dribble” until an NBA star agrees with you, politically.

The Republicans had Kid Rock perform at their convention this summer. (I had never heard of Kid Rock until he started Republican activism.) (I follow politics a lot more closely than rock.)

(Kid Rock and the rocker Ted Nugent are both Republican activists — and Detroit-area kids.) (I am a Detroit-area kid myself, sort of.)

• Donald Trump has made Laura Loomer famous. She is a MAGA star, a “right-wing influencer.” Loomer has been part of Trump’s entourage lately. She flew with him to the debate in Philadelphia. The next day, she flew with him to New York and Pennsylvania for 9/11 commemorations.

This is curious, in that she has indulged in 9/11 conspiracy theory: the attacks were “an inside job.”

September 8 was National Grandparents’ Day. (Who knew? Every day is Grandparents’ Day for me.) Kamala Harris circulated a post about her Indian grandparents and traveling to India to visit them. Laura Loomer had a comment over that post — which began, “If Kamala Harris wins, the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center.”

What house is not improved by the smell of curry? In any case: Conservatives are habitually accused of being loons, bigots, and racists — falsely. But that does not mean all such accusations are false.

• The more responsible Republicans have said, “Trump should really separate himself from Loomer.” I thought of my friend Anthony Daniels, the writer, who sometimes writes under the pen name “Theodore Dalrymple.” For years, he worked as a prison psychiatrist. “I often met people who ‘fell in with the wrong crowd,’” he says. “Oddly, I never met the wrong crowd.”

You know?

• Here are Loomer and Nick Fuentes, the Hitler-friendly Putinist, toasting: “To the hostile takeover of the Republican Party!”

• Interestingly, Loomer and Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia congresswoman, have been feuding. (To read an article on this, go here.) The gist of it is, “I’m better for Trump.” “No, I’m better for Trump!”

I have a book idea, for anyone who wants to run with it: the women of MAGA. Greene, Loomer, Lauren Boebert, and the rest. Could sell a million.

• Another missive from Trump:

The Trump position seems to be: I won the debate, hands down. All the polls say so. Yet the debate was rigged against me, making me look bad. And I will not be participating in another debate.

Trump is a “person of extraordinary genius” — according to him. Over and over, he says that Harris has “a very low IQ” or “an extremely low IQ.” Possibly, Mr. Trump is insecure. Possibly, he is unfit for leadership.

But we have been having that debate since the summer of 2015 . . .

• Again, Congresswoman Greene:

Bear in mind: This is not some Internet rando. A member of the U.S. House, she sits on the Homeland Security Committee.

• Here we have Trump calling Harris a “Marxist,” a “communist,” a “fascist,” etc.:

This will no doubt thrill a lot of people. “He’s tellin’ it like it is!” But the thing is: These words, like other words, mean things. They don’t mean merely “someone I don’t like” (as Orwell pointed out). Conservatives should defend language — particularly political language — which is bound up in thought.

Bill Buckley don’t live here no’ mo’ — but he ought to . . .

• The Democrats are running ads that have a Republican flavor. That is, they hearken back to the GOP of yesteryear. See what you think of this:

Another ad:

Above, I used the word “disorienting.” Young people think present politics are normal. And they are! But they can seem abnormal to old-timers. Standing with our allies against tyrants? That was a Republican pitch!

• Do a little math with me. (If I’m doing it, it’s easy.) Let’s say you are a politics-minded person and you started following things when you were twelve. If today you are 20, you have known no Republican presidential nominee except Donald Trump. That will be true until you’re 24 (regardless of what happens this November).

This must be important in American life.

When I was growing up, there were two conservative analysts on television, regularly — two intellectuals, with a gift for communication: William F. Buckley Jr. and George F. Will. That had to matter.

Our influences were Buckley, Will, Irving Kristol, Thomas Sowell, Norman Podhoretz, Milton Friedman, James Q. Wilson, Michael Novak . . .

What do young conservatives have today? Catturd? I am exaggerating, but I believe the concern is legitimate.

• Last week, on the 11th, I thought of the weather. Dumb thought to have. But I remember a post from Andrew Sullivan, immediately after 9/11: “Why Did It Have to Be Such a Beautiful Day?” I am going from memory, but I believe I remember the heading correctly. September 11, 2001, was a fantastically beautiful day in New York: the heat had just broken. And the 11th last week was just the same kind of day.

• James Earl Jones died on September 9 at age 93. For the New York Times, Robert D. McFadden wrote his obituary. McFadden is a great obituarist. He has just retired, at 87. In tribute, the Times published a compendium of his work, here.

Jones had one of the most recognizable voices of our era. What I had not known, however, before reading the obit, is that that voice did not speak for a while.

James Earl Jones was born in Mississippi in 1931. Abandoned first by his father and then by his mother, he was raised by his grandparents in Michigan, on a farm. He stammered and stuttered for some time, and then went mute altogether.

As an actor, he would become one of the most famous of voices. He was the voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars series, and the voice of Mufasa in The Lion King. He acted onstage and onscreen in a huge range of roles. He never stopped working, acting week after week, day after day.

Sometimes, he was confused with James Earl Ray — Martin Luther King’s assassin. That was understandable. Was James Earl Jones outraged? Did he make a fuss about it (which he certainly could have)? No. He was tolerant and forgiving.

I thought that was really big of him.

I’m glad he came along, and found his voice, James Earl Jones.

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