One of the great things about any presidential election cycle is the chance to discover a new crop of American political writers. Long ago I met Michelle Cottle and Dana Milbank on campaign buses or at candidates’ rallies; in 1999 in Crystal City, Missouri (pop. barely 4,000), where the senator and NBA legend Bill Bradley was launching a doomed campaign against Al Gore for the Democratic Party nomination, I ran into Gail Collins on her first day as a New York Times op-ed columnist. Man, my anecdotes are getting old.
These days I tend to follow U.S. campaigns at a distance, but it’s always encouraging to find writers who bring a fresh perspective to these monumental efforts of theatre and logistics. This year many of the names that were new to me are on Substack.
Musa Al-Gharbi:
Freddie DeBoer:
Josh Barro, not quite as new but still impressive:
And my guest for the podcast this week, Ross Barkan, who was so bold as to argue in the midst of the Democrats’ forced euphoria over the brilliance of the Kamala Harris campaign that it was, in important ways, not brilliant:
I’d never met Barkan before we fired up the Zoom machine for this week’s chat. He’s a polymath: NYU journalism instructor, novelist, close observer of both New York and national politics, freelancer with impressive credits in the legacy media, boisterous Substacker. He’d have preferred Harris win — he ran for New York State office six years ago as a Democrat — but like most of the writers I’ve listed above, he thought this election was winnable and that the Dems should be introspective about why they didn’t win it.
Our chat speaks for itself. Barkan wears a lot of political knowledge lightly — he makes casual reference to things that happened when he was 6 or 8 years old — and he took care to explain everything in ways a Canadian audience could follow. Probably he says things not everyone here will agree with. I sure hope so. Our neighbours are going through a moment too important for cheap or thuggishly enforced consensus.
I hope to have more U.S. voices on the pod soon. Some readers grumble when I write about U.S. politics. I will now spend some months disappointing them. A second Trump presidency is a historic event, one I’d rather have missed but one I’d be a fool to ignore. Events in Washington will not have less significance for us than events in Brussels have for Parisians.
A few other thoughts, while I’ve got you here.
Some Trudeau Liberals have hoped all year that the return of Donald Trump would help reinforce their argument that Pierre Poilievre is a menace. Maybe later, but in the early innings that’s not how it’s working out. To a degree his detractors will find maddening, Trump legitimizes Trump. You can’t say a president mustn’t act that way, because here will be one who acts precisely that way. Already I’m hearing from Trump fans who seem to believe no criticism of the man is legitimate. I promise to disappoint them too. Behind them will be many others with no strong opinion, but for Liberals hoping for widespread revulsion, distracted equanimity will be bad enough.
Quite apart from perceptions of Trump, the fact of Trump seems to be cramping the Trudeau crew’s style too. The PM sounded positively excited about bromance rekindling possibilities. He’ll do “good things together” with… the guy he’s been trying all year to use as a stick to beat Poilievre with. I think the constructive attitude is responsible, but it does take some wind out of the already-sputtering campaign against Poilievre.
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I am grateful to be the Max Bell Foundation Senior Fellow at McGill University, the principal patron of this podcast. Antica Productions turns these interviews into a podcast every week. Kevin Breit wrote and performed the theme music. Andy Milne plays it on piano at the end of each episode. Thanks to all of them and to you. Please tell your friends to subscribe to The Paul Wells Show on their favourite podcast app, or here on the newsletter.
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