More New York, New York
Having editorialized a week ago that New Yorkers should reject Donald Trump, I decided that I should follow up in person and go mix and mingle with the citizens of my home state. After all, we at TWS don’t just talk the talk, we walk the walk! (Actually, I had to be in the Big Apple anyway for various meetings and obligations).
My report: I’m doubtful my three days in New York partly spent in conspiring and inveighing against Trump will make much of a difference. But as an original Mets fan, a kid who grew up a conservative on the West Side of New York, in Bella Abzug’s congressional district, I’m used to fighting the odds.
The odds of course are that Trump will do well in New York tomorrow, though I hope not quite as well as the polls suggest. He won’t do so well if, before going to the polls, every New Yorker reads Garry Kasparov’s excellent piece in Sunday’s New York Daily News. Kasparov, who now lives there, addresses the question of “New York values,” and explains that “the New York values Trump represents are the very worst kind. He exemplifies the seamy side of New York City – the Ponzi schemers and the Brooklyn Bridge sellers, the gangster traders like Bernie Madoff and the celebrity gangsters like John Gotti — not the hard work and sacrifice that built New York and America.” Well said.
One reason I’d been in the city (yes, Chicagoans and Angelenos, New York is “THE city”) is to film a second conversation with Kasparov, since the first had only taken us through the fall of the Soviet Union. I’d thought Kasparov’s account of his youth under a Communist regime fascinating, and lots of viewers agreed, and so looked forward to this second round. And Kasparov didn’t disappoint. And when we release it next week, I think you’ll be fascinated by his account of what’s happened in Russia in the last 25 years, his analysis of Putin and his tactics (one highlight is Kasparov’s explanation that one has to think of Putin as a poker player, not a chess player), and his remarks on American foreign policy.
After filming the Conversation, Garry and I drifted into a discussion American politics, and Kasparov went on a riff about “New York values” and Trump. It was so compelling that I encouraged him to write it up. So while he did all the work, I’ll take a tiny bit of credit for his Daily News piece–which you should read and circulate to your friends in New York or any other state yet to vote in the GOP primaries.
Apart from filming “Conversations” with Kasparov and Gen. David Petraeus, what else did I do in the Big Apple, you ask? Well, I made the case against Trump on Morning Joe and on Erin Burnett’s show on CNN. I had dinner with someone close to Ted Cruz, where we discussed how Cruz might broaden his message and adjust his strategy just a bit in the closing weeks of the campaign. I met with some other friends and acquaintances in the donor and journalist worlds to catch up and (of course!) discuss politics. And for a nice break when I found myself unexpectedly free one evening, I went to an excellent symposium at Yeshiva University Museum on the imagery of the Passover Haggadah, and had a lively dinner afterwards with my friend, the distinguished rabbi, scholar and occasional TWS contributor, Meir Soloveichik (do re-read his cover piece for us from a year ago, “When Lincoln Died on Passover“).
The next morning I discovered a cafe (which for some reason they spell “caffe”) with excellent coffee (to revert to the English language) around the corner from my hotel. I recommend the Seven Grams Caffe if you find yourself in Chelsea. Of course, no sooner had I sat down at 7:00 am Thursday with my coffee to ponder the editorial I had to write that morning (here it is), than I was cheerfully interrupted by a local resident who recognized me, introduced himself, and told me what a great job Bernie Sanders had done in the debate the night before with Hillary Clinton. He understood, he said, that I had different views, and he respected the way in which I made my case…but didn’t I have to admit Bernie made a lot of sense? I graciously mumbled something ambiguous, said that it was nice to meet him, wished the Mets good luck this year, and went back to my labors. The encounter did remind me just how weak a candidate Hillary Clinton is in order to have created, as it were by contrast, such enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders. And it reinforced (not that it needed reinforcement) my notion of what an unforced disaster nominating Trump–and thereby probably electing Hillary–would be.
My little New York sojourn ended with Thursday night’s New York State Republican dinner, at which Trump, Cruz, and John Kasich spoke and were mostly ignored by a mixing-and-mingling crowd of garrulous New Yorkers. I should also point out that while the speeches weren’t memorable, the chocolate desert elephant was; one guest took a photo and forwarded it to me. As befits a serious commenter on politics, I of course paid attention to the speeches. Here’s a photo someone took from the next table which proves my attentiveness, while our former colleague and contributing editor, Mike Goldfarb, is by contrast getting up to go gallivant around:
We’ll see tomorrow night what happens in the New York primary. Meanwhile, we have a competition for you, in honor of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death later this week (which we intend to commemorate appropriately in the next issue): What lines of Shakespeare best characterize Donald Trump? One stipulation: when I announced this competition yesterday on Twitter, several tweeters immediately and understandably responded by comparing Trump’s campaign to “a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.” So I’m ruling that answer out as too obvious. I eagerly await other Shakespearean descriptors for Trump’s campaign or the man himself. Do send a Shakespeare submission via email by clicking here.
I still think, by the way, that Trump is more likely than not to fail in his attempt to be the GOP nominee. Or is the wish in this case father to that thought (Henry IV, Part Two, Act 4, Scene 5)? I hope not….
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Onward!
Bill Kristol
