So Many Contradictions, So Little Time

There's a through-line connecting Mad King Trump's claims about war with Iran and Prince of Darkness Andrew Cuomo's bid for political rehabilitation in NYC. Does the truth still matter?

A generation ago, when Congress held an extensive debate over whether to authorize then-President George W. Bush’s pre-emptive use of the US military against Iraq over what we later learned were completely exaggerated and false fears of Saddam Hussein developing weapons of mass destruction, the House voted 296-133 and the Senate voted 77-23 in favor of Bush’s war. The public was generally supportive throughout the entire buildup to the war, with Gallup finding the percentage in favor fluctuating between 52% and 59% between August 2002, when Bush first floated the idea, through March 2023, when he invaded. Public support rose to 72% in the immediate days after the invasion.

I remember quite vividly the intensity of public engagement around the question (and co-edited a well-received anthology about the whole debate, in fact), which lasted for months and involved many serious scholars making the case, alongside policymakers, for pre-emption over caution. As then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in September 2002, “The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Support from elites for Bush’s folly spanned the political spectrum from the neocons of the Project for a New American Century like Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, and William Kristol to liberal pundits like David Remnick, Jeffrey Goldberg, George Packer, Matthew Yglesias, Fareed Zakaria, and Jonathan Chait. We all know how this turned out.

And here we are now pre-emptively bombing Iran to supposedly “destroy” its uranium enrichment program. As Karl Marx said about history repeating, “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” If you are dizzy from trying to track Trump’s claims about this war, welcome to the club. We are all in thrall to a Mad King who thinks statecraft is as easy as posting an ALL CAPS pronouncement on Truth Social.

All that said, here’s a silver lining: At least right now, the public is way ahead of our elected representatives in terms of instinctively understanding the dangers of the current moment.

This time, with no advance public debate, polls show that close to two-thirds of Americans don’t want us to get involved in the war between Israel and Iran. An Economist/YouGov poll released last week found that 60% were opposed, while just 16% favored military action. A Washington Post survey that posed the question in terms of launching US air strikes against Iran’s nuclear program found 45% opposed and 25% in favor, with the rest unsure. 82% said they were very or somewhat concerned about the US getting involved in a full-scale war with Iran.

Despite this, right now resolutions in the House and Senate that aim to invoke the War Powers Resolution to keep Trump from more hostilities in Iran have been only slowly gaining co-sponsors. On the House side, a resolution written by Rep. Tom Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) had just 42 cosponsors as of Monday afternoon. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) is circulating a similar resolution, which just got the support of Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

Perhaps we need less public debate and a Congress that is simply more responsive to public opinion?

Can We Handle the Truth?

All that said, given the bewildering swirl generated by serial liars like Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, I find myself turning to Peter Pomerantsev, the British-Russian journalist whose books Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible and This is Not Propaganda offer an excellent guide to understanding life in a declining empire. In Russia, he writes, the elites believe in nothing beyond public relations. “When I ask them about Soviet-era dissidents, like my parents, who fought against communism, they dismiss them as naïve dreamers and my own Western attachment to such vague notions as ‘human rights’ and ‘freedom’ as a blunder. ‘Can’t you see your own governments are just as bad as ours?’ they ask me. I try to protest—but they just smile and pity me. To believe in something and stand by it in this world is derided, the ability to be a shape-shifter celebrated.”

Pomerantsev also offers this explanation for our crazy times, arguing that after the financial crash of 2008, the West’s faith in free markets leading to a universal future of freedom, democracy and prosperity was also shattered. Into that void comes nostalgia and fantasy, he writes.

If the need for facts is predicated on a vision of a concrete future that you are trying to achieve, then when that future disappears, what is the point of facts? Why would you want them if they tell you that your children will be poorer than you? That all versions of the future are unpromising? And why should you trust the purveyors of facts -- the media and academics think tanks, statesman?

And so the politician who makes a big show of rejecting facts, who validates the pleasure of spouting nonsense, who indulges in a full anarchic liberation from coherence, from glum reality, becomes attractive. That enough Americans could vote for someone like Donald Trump, a man with so little regard for making sense, whose many contradictory messages never add up to any very stable meaning, was partly possible because voters felt they weren't invested in any larger evidence-based future. Indeed in his very incoherence lies the pleasure. All the madness you feel, you can now let it out and it's OK. The joy of Trump is to validate the pleasure of spouting shit, the joy of pure emotion, often anger, without any sense.

New York City’s Book of Forgetting

Readers of The Connector who live in New York City along with everyone else who follows NY politics—we too are in the midst of the same dislocating moment. Do facts about politicians matter? Do voters care about consistency? Or are we too now living in a culture where shape-shifting, powered by big money and sheer bullying, wins out over principle?

Politico reporters Abhinanda Bhattacharyya and Jeff Coltin have put together an astounding feature collecting statements from nearly half of the 42 current and former elected officials who have endorsed former Governor Andrew Cuomo in his bid to win the Democratic primary for NYC mayor that is culminating today. Eighteen of them criticized him harshly four years ago, Politico shows, when two scandals laid out in detail in reports by state Attorney General Letisha James – one showing that he had deliberately undercounted Covid-19 nursing home deaths under his watch to burnish his record, and one declaring that he had sexually harassed eleven women – led to his decision to resign his governorship.

Back then, these Democrats said Cuomo had to resign because his leadership was no longer tenable. Now they’re all making excuses for his past or acting like it never happened and that he is a super-manager who, alone among the many people running, can lead the city through the challenges it faces. (This despite the fact that Cuomo hasn’t even lived in New York City for most of the last thirty years, was a terrible people manager and ran administrations rife with high-level corruption.)

Even my own member of Congress, Rep. George Latimer, whose district includes a small piece of the northeast Bronx, has joined the march to the memory hole. In August 2021, he called for Cuomo to resign, saying, “The Attorney General’s findings are clear and compelling. The Governor must resign. The patterns of sexually harassing, intimidating and inappropriate behavior towards women cannot be tolerated.” Now he says, “Andrew Cuomo is the experienced leader we need as mayor to stand up to Trump’s withering attacks on our democracy, fight the scourge of antisemitism and deliver real results for working families in the Bronx. We need less talk and more action, and Cuomo has an unmatched record of actually raising wages for working families, building bridges, rebuilding our airports and subways, and actually building afford housing at a time when we need it most. I wholeheartedly endorse his candidates because New York City needs a proven manager who knows what’s needed and can get the job done.”

It's ok if you threw up a little in your mouth as you read that. I know I did.

The latest polling suggests that maybe, just maybe, enough New York City voters have decided that rehabilitating Cuomo is the wrong choice. The progressive alliance between Muslim state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani and Jewish city comptroller Brad Lander is offering a real, joyous alternative that – unlike in 2021 when the liberal-left stayed badly divided through the whole primary – could very well win. A late shift among Latino voters away from Cuomo and towards Mamdani-Lander might be the reason why, in which case perhaps we can thank Stephen Miller’s revved up anti-immigrant kidnapping campaign for the outcome. Polls close tonight at 9pm, and we should have the first-round totals from the ranked-choice system an hour or two later. In all likelihood, though, we won’t know the final result for a week.

Defiance Notes

—Here’s an interactive map showing the impact of Trump’s proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health’s budget broken down by congressional district.

—Thursday, groups across the country will be holding photo petition events under the banner of “Disappeared in America,” a joint partnership between Immigration Hub and Together & Free. People will be showing up at courthouses and town squares, taking pictures with posters of those who have been disappeared, and demanding that we protect due process. Learn more about how to participate here.

—The National Day Laborer Organizing Network is calling on members of the public who are not at risk of deportation to “Adopt a Day Labor Corner” to help counter ICE. Sign up here.

End Times

Satire cannot keep up with reality.