Newsletter: An election about anti-Swiftie rage and racist cat memes. Let’s get it over with

Good morning. It is Saturday, Sept. 21. Here’s what’s happening in Opinion.

My 8-year-old said about the election this week, “Let’s just get this over with.” In another era I might have replied by extolling the virtues of participatory democracy and musing about all the people who worked hard for the right to vote, allowing us to settle political disagreements at the ballot box instead of on the battlefield.

But now? My third-grader vocalized the zeitgeist better than any political pundit this election. Out of the mouth of babes, as the saying goes.

At least state and local elections are still about issues and demand something more than superficial attention from voters (and The Times’ editorial board endorsements can help with that). But at the national level, instead of debating our involvement in the Israel-Hamas war or continued assistance for Ukraine or the nationwide housing crisis falling especially hard on California, we’re talking about a raging senior who blurts “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” online and embraces cat memes based on a racist lie. Of course, there is some smart analysis of what this all means for the state of U.S. politics — Robin Abcarian’s column on MAGA world’s Taylor Swift backlash is a good example. The state of the race, 45 days out from the election, isn’t a good look for America.

And this isn’t a “both sides” problem. Sarah Longwell, a never-Trump Republican strategist, summed things up on CNN after a pro-Trump apologist had just put a positive spin on profoundly sexist comments made at campaign events for the former president: “This is the most vicious, despicable, lie-filled campaign I’ve ever seen.”

Indeed. If only we could just get this over with.

Trump assassination attempts are just the beginning. Imagine what is coming after the election, write security researchers Jacob Ware and Colin P. Clarke: “The fact is, the United States remains in the eye of the perfect storm — a highly polarized political climate in which extreme rhetoric is prized over moderation, in a country awash in weaponry and susceptible to disinformation and digital manipulation.”

Don’t underestimate threats of violence from Proud Boys and other right-wing groups. Dr. Garen Wintemute, a violence prevention researcher and emergency medicine professor, warns that Jan. 6, 2021, might not have been the end of an insurrection, but rather the start of a period of political violence. The Proud Boys is reorganizing; he worries that it and other far-right militias will not only engage in violence to influence the election, but their members could also be deputized as federal marshals if Trump wins a second term.

Authoritarianism and hatred are no match for a politics of love. Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat notes that autocrats stoke fear and resentment to gain and keep power, and Trump’s movement has some success on that front. But resistance based on lifting people up has beaten back authoritarianism in other parts of the world, and “the United States is ripe for a heart-centered mass movement ... a national campaign that explicitly elevates solidarity, kindness, tolerance and empathy as core values of a multiracial democracy.”

Nobody’s ever talked the way Trump does. It’s like no one before. Or so it seems. Author Laurie Winer notes his increasing reliance on superlatives — for example, he says the economy he oversaw as president was “the likes of which nobody, no nation had ever seen.” Under his watch, “We had the most secure border and the best economy in the history of our country, in the history of the world.” Winer says this is the mark of a fascist leader growing increasingly detached from reality.

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