Donald Trump went on Dr. Phil to rant and rave. Here’s some fact-checking from Newsweek, but I noticed this from the clip described here:
“It shouldn’t be allowed. It’s a whole different mindset,” Trump said, referring to mail-in ballots. “Republicans like to go in there Tuesday and vote. And that’s been for, you know, a long time, many years, decades, decades. It’s a custom almost. It’s a family custom. It’s a beautiful thing.
Donald Trump doesn’t speak, he blurts. He disgorges words that don’t mean anything and that he hasn’t thought about, like saying that Republicans have been voting on Election Day for “you know, a long time, many years, decades, decades.”
I’ve quoted here Maggie Haberman, the New York Times reporter who knows Donald Trump best, (and my fellow Sarah Lawrence College graduate), who makes this point that must be kept top of mind when reacting to Donald Trump:
Mr. Trump has treated his own words as disposable commodities, intended for single use, and not necessarily indicative of any deeply held beliefs. And his tendency to pile phrases on top of one another has often worked to his benefit, amusing or engaging his supporters — sometimes spurring threats and even violence — while distracting, enraging or just plain disorienting his critics and adversaries.
The Dr. Phil interview came on a day of what the Washington Post called “24 hours of Trump: QAnon tributes, crude attacks and hawking pieces of his suit” in a story that began this way:
Donald Trump amplified a vulgar joke about Vice President Kamala Harris performing a sex act. He falsely accused her of a staging a coup to secure the Democratic nomination and faulted her without evidence for a security lapse that enabled a rogue gunman to try to assassinate him. He shared a manipulated online image of Bill Gates in an orange jumpsuit and a call for Barack Obama to face a “military tribunal.” He promoted explicit tributes to the QAnon conspiracy theory. He hawked digital trading cards in an online infomercial along with pieces of his debate night suit. (“People are calling it the knockout suit.”) His campaign feuded publicly with Arlington National Cemetery over their visit.
And that was just in the span of 24 hours.
It’s important to remember that this is not normal presidential politics. I’ve made it clear in this space that I believe in the nobility and possibility of politics, as expressed in that Robert Kennedy quote I can recite from memory:
“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
It’s appalling that because of Donald Trump, millions of people think a day like the one described in the Post is normal behavior for a president or candidate.
One of the best things about Kamala Harris’ campaign is her ability to speak extemporaneously on the campaign trail and connect with audiences without a script, as she did at a Georgia high school this week. She knows how to reach that “responsive chord” with voters, while Trump only knows how to play them for fools.
But it’s foolish for us to overdose on outrage every time Trump says something stupid. Remember what Maggie Haberman reminds us, and the mounting evidence, as reported by medical professionals and cartoonists alike, of his dementia.
And please, remember what I’ve also been repeating here.
The U.S. has one of the lowest rates of youth voter turnout in the world. Before the 2022 election, 40% of Gen Z voters told the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics that they intended to vote. The actual turnout nationally was 23%.
That’s an improvement—in fact it’s one of the highest youth voter turnouts in a midterm election since 18-year-olds got the vote—but older, more conservative voters still make up the lion’s share of voters—63.1% in 2022.
The voters that will defeat Donald Trump are not as partisan as their parents and grandparents. Gen Z are values-based voters, motivated by threats to their basic rights—clean air and water, feeling safe in school, reproductive rights—and by urgent worries like their long-term economic future.
Adding four or five points to that youth turnout margin would guarantee not only a victory for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, but for a Democratic House and increased party control of the Senate. Imagine what a Harris Administration with a strong majority in Congress could do!
It’s wonderful that young people say they’re excited about Kamala Harris, but will that excitement make them break with history and vote in larger numbers? As political scientist John Holbein writes here,
Many young people lack confidence in themselves and their ability to navigate the voting process for the first time.
Many told us that in their busy, hectic and ever-changing schedules, voting often simply falls by the wayside.
With school and work commitments, as well as a lack of experience filling out voter registration forms and casting a ballot, voting seems like an insurmountable burden for many young people.
Lecturing young people about their moral duty to vote probably won’t work. Showing them how it can make a difference to their daily lives and their future is a better bet—and possibly transformational.