The Nation — October 30, 2017

10 October 30, 2017

Trump as the ghostwriter for his book The Art of the Deal.

His assessment? “Trump is willing to start a NUCLEAR

WAR & kill tens of millions of people to divert attention

from his failures. He is a madman.”

Too many members of the media find themselves in-

tellectually paralyzed by this president. Reporting on him

truthfully, in context, and explaining just how outlandish

his behavior is involves violating journalistic taboos that

were put in place when the presidency was not occupied by

a psychopath with only the most tenuous grip on reality.

Denial is the only mode in which these institutions feel

comfortable operating. This explains why we keep reading

stories about how Trump is somehow all of a sudden act-

ing “presidential” when he happens to say or do something

that is at least imaginable coming from one of his prede-

cessors. For instance, following the Las Vegas gunman’s

killing of 58 people at a country- music festival, Trump

gave a speech in which he failed to praise Nazis, attack

black quarterbacks, mock Hispanic mayors whose cities

were underwater and without power, or insist that Barack

Obama was born in Kenya. (Of course, the mass murderer

was white and not Muslim, Mexican, or black, so the mas-

sacre did not offer Trump an opportunity to stoke his

base.) Afterward, one could almost feel the combination

of relief and release with which CNN’s John King told

his viewers, “I don’t think that, whatever your politics are,

there is anything you can take issue with [in] what we just

heard from the president of the United States.” Trump’s

words were, he insisted, “pitch- perfect.” The network’s

Jeff Zeleny then praised the president as “a unifier,” while

Poppy Harlow warned against any naysaying: “This is the

time to bring the country together.” There hadn’t been

such joy inside a CNN studio since Fareed Zakaria was so

thrilled by Trump’s bombing of Syria. Q

Calvin Trillin

Deadline Poet

HARVEY WEINSTEIN,

HOLLYWOOD PREDATOR

“He appeared in a bathrobe and asked if he could

give her a massage or she could watch him shower,

she recalled in an interview.” —The New York Times

He hit on starlets and on stars.

He saw this as a perk of power.

Were some so desperate they agreed

To watch while Harvey took a shower?

It sounds more like a captor’s threat,

Delivered with a scary glower:

“Reveal all secrets that you know

Or you’ll watch Harvey take a shower.”

Drawing Opposition

NATION NEWS

The Nation has launched OppArt, a series of daily artistic dispatches from the

front lines of the resistance. Spearheaded by illustrators Andrea Arroyo, Steve

Brodner, and Peter Kuper, OppArt will showcase progressive art that confronts

and exposes power. To see more, visit thenation.com/oppart.

iTrigger / Edel Rodriguez iIncantation for America / Iviva Olenick

iBully Culprit / Robbie Conal iRepro Rights / Frances Jetter