20 THENEWYORKER,SEPTEMBER30, 2019
THECAMPAIGNTRAIL
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S
ome people believe that, in 1968, Rich-
ard Nixon beat Hubert Humphrey
in four seconds, by looking into a cam-
era and asking, “Sock it to me?” on
“Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.” If cam-
eos really can move voters, then it would
seem that President Donald Trump has
an advantage going into 2020. Trump
has made around two dozen cameos, ap-
pearing in “Sex and the City” (he flirts
with Samantha), “Home Alone 2” (he
tells Macaulay Culkin where the lobby
is), “The Little Rascals” (in the role of
Waldo’s dad), and “The Fresh Prince of
Bel-Air” (Carlton: “It’s the Donald!”).
He favors a certain kind of role: charac-
ters who get to kiss attractive women or
give sage business advice. Waldo’s dad is
just a rich guy who has a weird relation-
ship with his kids. (His sole line: “Waldo,
you’re the best son money can buy.”)
Some of the Democratic candidates
have been slightly more selective. Sen-
ator Elizabeth Warren has only one TV
credit, playing herself in “Alpha House,”
a political comedy series created by Garry
Trudeau. Warren’s scene takes place at
a book signing, where she inscribes a
book for a fellow-senator, played by John
Goodman, promising that she’s not going
to run for President.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has been on
three TV shows: “The Simpsons,” “The
Good Wife,” and “Horace and Pete,” a
2016 Web series made by his friend Louis
C.K. On “The Simpsons,” the joke is
that the Mayor is tall; he lifts up Grampa
Simpson and says, “From my shoulders,
you can see Rhode Island!” On “The
Good Wife,” the joke is that he is an-
noying. (“The Mayor won’t stop talking.”)
On “Horace and Pete,” he is both tall
(“You’re big as shit!”) and annoying (of
the N.Y.P.D., he says, “it’s your N.Y.P.D.
It ’s all our N.Y.P.D.”). Michael Price,
who wrote the “Simpsons” episode,
coached the Mayor remotely, from L.A.,
as de Blasio recorded his part in a New
York studio. “A deep laugh, kind of like
the Jolly Green Giant’s—a big ho-ho-ho, ”
Price said, required several takes.
Senator Cory Booker recently lent
his voice to a short film called “Bound-
less,” directed by the actress Rosario
Dawson, who is also his girlfriend. He
plays Kevin’s dad, a disembodied voice
from off-screen, who yells, “Kevin, your
friends are here!” The film is available
on YouTube. (Comments have been
disabled.) Booker’s other two roles—
cameos on “Being Mary Jane,” a BET
drama, and the NBC sitcom “Parks and
Recreation”—are more Method. In the
first, Booker is suckered into a “gotcha”
moment by a news anchor, but he re-
covers, and ends by making a point
about the black incarceration rate. In
the “Parks and Rec” episode, which
aired in 2015, he shows his willingness
to reach across the aisle.
On the same day that Booker’s cameo
Homer, Marge, and Bill de Blasio
has said that it will withdraw from the
agreement, and has been systematically
reversing whatever progress had been
made. Last month, the Environmental
Protection Agency announced that it
was loosening the rules on methane leaks
from oil and gas operations. (As a green-
house gas, methane is many times more
potent than CO₂.) Last week, the Ad-
ministration moved to revoke Califor-
nia’s authority to set its own tailpipe-pol-
lution standards—an authority that the
state was granted by Congress in 1967.
Are the politics of climate change in
America changing? There are positive
signs. Earlier this month, the top ten
candidates for the Democratic Presi-
dential nomination participated in a
CNN town hall on the issue; according
to the Times, this was “the first such
prime-time event” in history. A recent
Washington Post poll found that more
than three-quarters of Americans now
consider climate change a “crisis” or a
“major problem.” A survey conducted
this summer of voters in Texas showed
that, even in the oil patch, a majority
are concerned about climate change.
Thunberg’s actions have inspired hun-
dreds of thousands of young people
around the globe to stage school strikes
for climate action. Ahead of the strike
called for the eve of the climate sum-
mit, the New York City school system
said it would excuse students who
skipped classes; Thunberg was set to
speak to the strikers in Foley Square.
Still, you’d have to ignore most of
the past forty years to conclude that ac-
tion is imminent. The same Post poll
that showed rising concern about warm-
ing indicated continuing resistance to
doing much about it. Fewer than half
of those surveyed said that they’d sup-
port a two-dollar-a-month surcharge
on their electricity bills, and only a third
would support a ten-cent-per-gallon in-
crease in the federal gasoline tax.
Much has been written in the past
few weeks about the importance of re-
maining hopeful. Without hope, the
argument goes, there’s no hope. In any
event, giving up isn’t an option. Blow
past 1.5 or two degrees Celsius and
there’s the prospect of 2.5, or three or
four or even more, to worry about. New
climate models unveiled the other day
in France suggest that, if emissions con-
tinue unabated, by 2100 global tem-
peratures could rise by a beyond-apoc-
alyptic seven degrees. At no point will
it cease to matter how much carbon
goes into the air and how much stays
in the ground.
Once again, Greta Thunberg has
put it best. “People sometimes ask me
if I’m an optimist or a pessimist,” she
said in a recent interview. “I am a real-
ist.” As for hope, that “is something you
need to deserve—that you have actu-
ally done something.”
—Elizabeth Kolbert
