David L. Ulin’s “American Flash Fiction: An Anthology,” will be published by Library of America in September. He is a professor of English at the University of Southern California, where he edits the journal Air/Light.
Late last month, Politico ran a chatty piece about Izzy Gardon, the comms staffer for California Gov. Gavin Newsom who has become a bit of a lightning rod because of his outspoken — some might say offensive — remarks. Gardon, Politico reminded us, has referred to rapper (and “No. 1 fan” of the president) Nicki Minaj as a “stupid hoe” on the platform formerly known as Twitter. He sent an email to another conservative influencer that included the sentence “Respectfully, fuck off.”
The snark, it should be noted, comes not only with the consent of the governor but also with his active encouragement.
Newsom is taking a gamble that his constituents — actual or potential, as he tees up his 2028 White House run — are so sick of the constant bombast and profanity spewed by the president and his staff that they would welcome turning the rhetoric back on them.
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I get it. I’m exhausted by the trolling, too.
At first, I found Newsom’s barrage of all caps anti-MAGA tweets and AI images amusing, but the thrill is gone. What such positioning offers, after all, is nothing other than capitulation. It accepts that the president has irrevocably coarsened the culture, and we must adapt in order to survive.
Whatever the simplistic logic of that calculation, it turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. At the California State Democratic Convention in February, gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter took the stage bearing one of her signature whiteboards. It read: “Fuck Trump.” Others, including Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, have publicly embraced the same phrase.
Don’t get me wrong. I am in utter sympathy with such a sentiment. We live under a rogue administration, the abuses of which include the armed occupation of American cities, the killing of citizens engaged in peaceful protest and a reckless and unauthorized war of choice in the Middle East. And yes, raw power and prejudice masquerading as the rule of law debase us far more than dirty words.
Mariel Garza
Many people remember Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention with its refrain, “When they go low, we go high.” It’s easy to dismiss it now as Pollyanna-ish thinking, but I prefer to see going high as a marker of self-respect. Obama’s speech was a reminder that even in difficult times — it was delivered virtually, to a nation divided by the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd — swagger and vulgarity doesn’t have to be “who we are.”
Over the more than half a decade since, we have come to take America’s bifurcation as a given, to regard civility in the public square as a quaint artifact that only made sense in some earlier, idyllic time. But the truth is the times were never idyllic; we were never undivided. Civility is a choice we must make and make again, often in the face of daunting contempt.
I think of Zohran Mamdani, who as New York’s mayor-elect paid a visit to the Oval Office, where he and the president came to an unexpected — and unlikely — meeting of the minds. During his campaign, Mamdani had referred to the chief executive as “a despot,” only to be called “a communist” in return.
Julie Marquis
Yet after a 45-minute conversation the two leaders emerged to share, if not exactly a collective vision, then at least some points of possible agreement, some semi-common ground.
“I met with a man who’s a very rational person,” the president said to reporters. “I met with a man who wants to see — really wants to see — New York be great again.”
Mamdani echoed the sentiment: “I enjoyed our conversation and I look forward to working together to deliver … affordability for New Yorkers.”
The president, of course, is notoriously mercurial. He will not hesitate to lie. Mamdani’s post-election equanimity was certainly strategic as well. Still, their civility, unlikely though it may be, may already be producing dividends.
Paul Thornton
At a second Oval Office meeting last month, the new mayor brought props to soften up the president — a newspaper mock-up, with a headline reading “Trump to City: Let’s Build” — while seeking $21 billion in federal funds to support the construction of a 12,000-unit housing development in Queens.
Equally important, he used the “let’s build” gambit to press the president to drop immigration charges against four pro-Palestinian protesters, including Mahmoud Khalil.
This, as the late John Lewis might have put it, is good trouble. This is how to be civil without backing down. This is not trolling for hits on social media but, rather, doing the actual work of politics and governing.
The point is that civility isn’t — and perhaps shouldn’t be — easy. The point is, it can yield results.
The boorishness of this misbegotten moment should be mitigated rather than taken as permission. Given how far our rhetoric has degraded, that remains an uncertain process, but without it we will only fall further into antipathy.
