Politics
In the 2020 that mIght have been, nobody Is sIck and polItIcs
is the center of the universe.
The Democratic Party has just nominated Joe Biden and his running
mate at its mid-July convention in Milwaukee, while Republicans are
gearing up to renominate Donald Trump in Charlotte, N.C. At his usual
rallies, Trump is pointing to the roaring economy to make his case for
re-election, while Biden struggles to stir up crowds with his plea for a
return to normalcy. Trump’s allies continue to promote conspiracy theories
about the Biden family’s entanglements in Ukraine, leading increasingly
desperate Democrats to push for a second impeachment in the House.
Both parties are campaigning furiously across the country, knocking on
millions of doors to turn out voters in November.
But in the 2020 that’s actually happening, the COVID-19 pandemic
has changed everything—from how the campaign is conducted to how we
vote to what we value. It has canceled conventions, relegated fundraising
and campaigning to the digital realm, and forced many states to rapidly
change how people get and submit their ballots, with unpredictable and
potentially disastrous results. The acute crises have refocused the nation’s
attention, bringing issues like public health and economic and racial in-
equality to the fore and prompting the public to revisit what characteris-
tics it wants in its leaders.
For four years, Trump has been the dominant force and inescapable fact
not only of national politics but also of American life. Now he finds himself
displaced as the central character in his own campaign by a plague that an-
swers to no calendar, ideology or political objective. Just as the virus has
changed the way adults report to offices and chil-
dren go to school, upending whole industries in
the process, it has spurred a massive shift in the
fundamental act of American democracy: how we
select the President who will be charged with end-
ing the pandemic’s reign of destruction, dealing
with its aftermath and shaping the nation that rises
from its ashes. And as with so many other changes
wrought by the coronavirus, the practice of Amer-
ican politics may never be quite the same again.
This was always going to be an unusual
contest—the high-stakes re-election campaign of a historically divisive
President at a pivotal moment for the nation, a referendum on his norm-
shattering style and disruptive vision, a test for his scattered opposition
to prove which side of a polarized political spectrum represents the main-
stream. As the campaign enters its final three-month stretch, Trump trails
badly in national and battleground- state polls as Americans give his dismal
handling of the pandemic a failing grade. But the end of Trump’s turbu-
lent term will be written by the virus. It startled us with its rise and spread
in January and February, suspended normal life in
March and April, and lulled many into complacency
before whipsawing us again with its resurgence in
June and July. Who knows what kind of October
surprise it may have in store?like most things these days, presidential poli-
tics has adapted in ways that can get a little weird.
For example, on Facebook one recent Thursday
evening, Donald Trump Jr. is rhapsodizing with the
aging former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka about
childhood physical abuse. “Maybe a few more kids
in this country need a little bit more ass whoopin’
than participation medals!” says Trump Jr., who
wears an open-necked purple polo shirt and Air-
Pods. Ditka, whose phone is tilted upward toward
his bottle-brush mustache, looks confused. “How
can you say that?” he replies. “These poor kids.”
The broadcast, an installment of Trump Jr.’s
Triggered podcast, epitomizes the content the
Trump campaign is feeding hungry supporters on-
line. On another recent evening, it hosted “The Right
View,” in which Trump Jr.’s girlfriend Kimberly Guil-
foyle, Eric Trump’s wife Lara, and Trump campaign
aides Mercedes Schlapp and Katrina Pierson laud
the debunked virtues of hydroxy chloroquine as a
COVID treatment in a segment that will eventually
rack up more than half a million views on Facebook.PREVIOUS PAGES: GETTY IMAGES (4), REDUX, AP; THESE PAGES: WILLIAM MEBANE—THE WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGES
TRUMP FINDS
HIMSELF
DISPLACED AS
THE CENTRAL
CHARACTER
IN HIS OWN
CAMPAIGN
32 tIme August 17/August 24, 2020