Now Is Not the Time for Fear
That comes later.
Before we get started: I am absolutely pumped to be home tonight. If you’re going to be at the show, come by and say hi afterwards.
And if you can’t make it tonight in Philly but are in the DC area on May 15, you can still get tickets for that show here.
Okay, now let’s get to the bad stuff, because today’s newsletter is basically a preview of the show. And I’m gonna level with you: No happy talk tonight. We’re going to a dark place.
1. The Time Profile
We’ll go deep on the Eric Cortellessa profile tonight. (The recording will be out tomorrow on the TNL feed.) But it is . . . not great?
The piece is excellent and Cortellessa doesn’t both-sides, or horse-race the situation. He knows what time it is and his story is a public service for our democracy.
The question is whether or not The People care. I mean, in what country could voters read the following paragraph and still say, “Shit Lurleen, we needs more of that Trump feller.”
To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.
Understand, these aren’t the hysterical predictions of Never Trumpers or socialist antifa cucks. This is Trump’s own representation of his wishes.
But I want to ring one particular bell in all of this: Trump’s third term.