It’s Time to Admit America Has Changed; The New York Times, November 6, 2024

Patrick Healy and David French, The New York Times; It’s Time to Admit America Has Changed

"Donald Trump’s enduring hold over the Republican Party will send him back to the White House. On this episode of “The Opinions,” the columnist David French joins the deputy Opinion editor Patrick Healy to discuss the future of the G.O.P. and what a second Trump term might mean for America...

Patrick Healy: I’m Patrick Healy, deputy editor of Opinion, and I’ve covered American politics for decades as a reporter, editor and running our New York Times focus groups.

David French: I’m David French, a columnist for Opinion...

Healy: David, America has never been here before. It looks like a felon is about to take the presidency. Someone who incited an insurrection at the Capitol, who tried to overturn the 2020 election. Whose view and belief in the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power and the Constitution is just a really open question. I know it’s left a lot of Americans with a lot of frankly terrified feelings and they don’t know what the next four years are going to be like or how they’re going to get through it. And I find myself wondering when you look ahead, what’s weighing on your mind as we head into Wednesday and in the next few days?

French: You know, I was speaking at a college a few days ago and someone asked, “What will be your mindset if Donald Trump wins?” And I think of it as having two real components: Protect the vulnerable and speak the truth.

When you think about Trump’s declaration of vengeance, he wants to pursue his political enemies. He wants to pursue deportations at a scale that would be terrifying. So you can already see that there are vulnerable populations that will need protection. That includes political dissidents, political opponents that might be vulnerable to a vengeful Department of Justice. That includes immigrants and others who — you know, think about it this way, you’re talking about people who have said, “Hey, look, if there’s a person who is an illegal immigrant, but they have children who are citizens, well, so what? So what? Just sweep them out.” Right?

So there’s going to be this real need to protect vulnerable populations, protect vulnerable people. And then the other thing is, if there’s one thing that we’ve learned, it is very, very difficult to combat large-scale lying and defamation from people who have an immense amount of power and privilege. That is just very difficult because people who come into politics sort of more casually don’t know much about it — they don’t know if someone says yes and another person says no, if one person says up and another person says down — they don’t know how to adjudicate these disputes. And so I think about it in these two ways: protect the vulnerable, speak the truth, and I think of it in this moment as this is a real clarion call moment. At some point we’re going to have to sort of continue to put aside many of the differences that have divided sort of the different elements of the anti-Trump coalition.

I think it’s totally fine to grieve this. It’s totally fine to lament that this has occurred and to grieve that this is where we are as a country. But that’s got to be short, because if we care about justice in this country, there’s going to be a lot of work to do. I don’t think anyone should feel like the American experiment is over, but we should understand and gain knowledge from history that America can regress.

You know, Martin Luther King Jr. said the arc of history is long, but “it bends toward justice.” I remain relatively optimistic in that direction. But we’ve had long periods of backsliding, and we might be walking into one of those periods right now. And I just think when I look back at American history, you know, who stands out in those periods as having resisted the drift of the times, as having said no when so many other people were saying yes to injustice and hatred, and so that’s why I really think of it in these two frames. Defend the vulnerable, speak the truth."

MAGA’s Violent Threats Are Warping Life in America; The New York Times, February 18, 2024

 David French, The New York Times; MAGA’s Violent Threats Are Warping Life in America

"So we called the local sheriff, shared the threat, and asked if the department could send someone to check our house.

Minutes later, a young deputy called to tell me all was quiet at our home. When I asked if he would mind checking back frequently, he said he’d stay in front of our house all night. Then he asked, “Why did you get this threat?”

I hesitated before I told him. Our community is so MAGA that I had a pang of concern about his response. “I’m a columnist,” I said, “and we’ve had lots of threats ever since I wrote against Donald Trump.”

The deputy paused for a moment. “I’m a vet,” he said, “and I volunteered to serve because I believe in our Constitution. I believe in free speech.” And then he said words I’ll never forget: “You keep speaking, and I’ll stand guard.”

I didn’t know that deputy’s politics and I didn’t need to. When I heard his words, I thought, that’s it. That’s the way through. Sometimes we are called to speak. Sometimes we are called to stand guard. All the time we can at least comfort those under threat, telling them with words and deeds that they are not alone. If we do that, we can persevere. Otherwise, the fear will be too much for good people to bear."