Over the years, Donald Trump has enjoyed (I think that’s the word) an unusual relationship with Kim Jong-un, the dictator of North Korea. Campaigning the other day, Trump said, “He thinks Biden is a total — I won’t tell you the word he used, but a very bad word.” I begin my Impromptus column with this subject today. There are myriad other subjects, of course, grave and light. Here.
A little mail? In a column on Monday, I had a note on George C. Wallace — a note that went like this:
A significant moment in modern American conservatism came in 1968 — and again in 1972. I’m talking about the campaigns of George C. Wallace for president (especially the first). Wallace titillated a lot of the Right. William F. Buckley Jr. said no. No way. No to the populist demagoguery that Wallace represented, and specialized in (and was so very good at).
Some people around WFB said yes — yes to Wallace. “Sure, he’s a big-government Democrat, but all his cultural resentments are right.”
On Friday, George F. Will had a highly interesting column: “Trump and today’s repulsive politics echo George Wallace in 1968.”
Is there any doubt that, if he were alive and kicking, Wallace would be a Republican and a star of Fox News, CPAC, Turning Point, etc.? And that flocks of conservative scribblers and intellectuals would be “anti-anti-Wallace”?
I received a fair amount of mail on Wallace. One reader, I think, makes an observation both witty and shrewd: “If Americans elect Trump again next year, they’ll get two Wallaces for the price of one: George C. and Henry A.” Another reader writes the following:
Jay,
I grew up in Montgomery in the mid ’70s. George C. Wallace was a big part of my early exposure to politics and politicians. Just driving by the Governor’s Mansion when I was a kid, I thought it was cool to be that close to someone so well-known, who seemed to be talked about all the time on the news and by my parents.
A clearer memory of him comes from later. In 1982, he ran for governor again, this time as a liberal Democrat — very different from the Wallace of 1968. Trump and his followers would not be supporting the 1982 Wallace in any way. Wallace ran against the mayor of Montgomery, Emory Folmar (whom Trump would have loved). This was a time when my parents and I and almost everyone we knew were Reaganites.
I graduated from Auburn University in 1985, and whose signature is on my diploma? I’m sure that most of today’s population would guess incorrectly, only knowing about the earlier version of George Wallace. At the time, I was embarrassed to have his signature on my diploma. Many of us felt that Wallace’s liberal “conversion” was a political trick, to get reelected. But I am not embarrassed anymore.
Whatever his motivation for apologizing for his past stances — especially the racism — it was something the state of Alabama needed. I also hope it was something that gave him personal comfort as he lived out his life in a wheelchair.
After he left the governor’s office in 1987, he lived just a few blocks from my parents. I remember driving by that way occasionally to get a glimpse, and I did once, as a state trooper wheeled him into his house. This man, such a prominent figure my whole life, was just an old man being wheeled around. I felt sad for him.
Thank you to all readers and correspondents.