Is Obama Right?

 Jon Chait has been beating the drum against the illiberal left for a while now, so he naturally jumped at Obama's rhetoric last night that we need to stop "canceling" each other. The broader text of both Obama's speeches last night was not an embrace of Trumpists, but rather an argument that most of the people who vote for Trump are redeemable.

I think that's at least somewhat true, because tens of millions of people voted for him. There are many who have been mainlining the fabricated bile of Fox News and its less subtle progeny for years. They believe things that are demonstrably false. Presumably if there was no Fox News, then they might be open to reason and persuasion. Certainly there are a lot of former Republicans right now; several are speaking in Chicago this week.

However, it's worth noting that Fox News does exist. Of those tens of millions who support Trump, many of them drink deeply and with great relish from the river of hate and division that he spews forth. The worst part of Trumpism is finding out how many of our countrymen are hateful people. 

Maybe...maybe this fall, Trump's support collapses to about 40%, and we can move on from him. Certainly, you can't look at the energy and joy that Harris and Walz are bringing to the campaign trail and compare that to the absolute spent force that is Trump. His appearance yesterday in Michigan to rant falsely about crime was so lackluster I almost felt like Trump could have cried, if he was capable of that emotion.

There are, I hope, millions of Trump voters who are not necessarily Trump supporters. Maybe people like Adam Kinziger can tilt them to vote Democratic just this once. Frankly, I had hopes that George Bush would say something, but he's been an intellectual coward his whole life, so being a moral coward in this moment isn't shocking.

I don't know how salvageable some of this country is. I really don't. But some are, and if we can woo them this fall, that would be important to the future civic health of this country.