PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

In one interview after another, Miller maintained that Trump was referring to “voting power,” though it was clear that Trump had been talking about what “Second Amendment people” could do after losing the vote.

For anyone who cares about the future of American politics, the comment represents a dwindling commitment to politics itself, to the notion that, through rhetoric and competition, we might find a common way as a people. Instead, the Republican candidate made a casual nod to the final force of arms. At this stage, so little that Trump says shocks us, but, now and then, it is worth stepping back and regarding the full damage of it all: the wounds to our fading global image of openness and generosity; the stomping on our admiration for intelligence, eloquence, or honesty; and now the blithe contempt for safe and civil government.

—“Why Gun Owners Should Reject Trump’s Call to ‘Second Amendment People,’” the New Yorker, August 9th.

In 2008, in defense of a presidential candidate who began his political career in the living room of a man who bombed the Pentagon and spent years soaking in the racist sermons of his spiritual “mentor,” (not to mention being supported by the New Black Panthers), the New Yorker decided to satirize the legitimate fears of those on the right who pointed out his flaws:

As Glenn has written, “When the ‘have you no decency?’ crowd demonstrates an utter lack of decency every single day, its complaints lose their sting.”