Taking Stock in Stockbridge
Trump begins post-convention campaigning as the president is 'Biden his time.'
STOCKBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS — This is the historic town where Norman Rockwell spent the last 25 years of his life. Rockwell, of course, drew everyday scenes of American patriotism and optimism that, on one hand, has faded, on the other taken a different hue.
Arriving here after five days in Milwaukee covering the Republican National Convention it was apparent many on the floor desired a return to the country Rockwell portrayed, but perhaps with an extra helping of pale Christian nationalism.
The Republicans topped their ticket with two white Christian men as has been always been the case with a single exception — then-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate in the losing 2008 general election bid. (I should put an asterisk at the end of previous sentence to note Barry Goldwater’s nomination as the Republican presidential nominee in 1964, again a losing effort. Goldwater identified as an Episcopalian, the religion of his mother but not of his Jewish father.)
While conservatives are accused of wanting to paint America white again, I am reminded that Rockwell’s most powerful and enduring portrait is the illustration that ran across two pages in Look magazine in 1964, inspired by Ruby Bridges, the first African American student to enter an elementary school in New Orleans after court-ordered desegregation.
Rockwell’s work displayed in magazines prior to that time did not show Blacks, except in subservient roles. That is not because Rockwell was a racist. Mainstream magazine editors (presumably all white males) in the United States, prior to mid-1960’s, dictated how minorities could and could not be portrayed in the illustrations by Rockwell and every other artist. Rockwell’s later career output did advocate for racial equality and justice.
At the RNC, I met some delegates who were Black, Hispanic, Asian or Jewish, all fervent Donald Trump supporters. The overwhelming majority, however, white and Christian.
Trump, in recent rallies, has spoken more overtly about defending Christian values, invoking religious rhetoric and protection of American traditions. Initially this appeared amped to compensate for the erasure of former Vice President Mike Pence, his evangelical wingman. In his 2024 RNC acceptance speech Trump referenced divine intervention for sparing his life from an assassin’s bullet.
God may also be busy on the other side of the aisle. Joe Biden has said that only the Almighty’s intercedence could persuade him to drop his re-election bid.
“Lord Almighty, Joe, Let It Go!,” beseeched Maureen Dowd in Saturday’s edition of the The New York Times.
The Democrats, espouse a more charitable projection of Christianity (and allowing ample room in their tent for the two other Abrahamic religions). The party is also more devout in maintaining the Constitutional separation of church (synagogue and mosque) and state.
Some of the loudest voices in the Republican party are increasing the volume to try to bring down the walls of Jericho that have long separated religion and government. Christian nationalist espouse governance on, of course, a Christian model. Some overtly call for America to be declared a Christian nation.
Biden, a devout Catholic despite differing with his Church on the abortion issue, has supported the liberal (or should we say Constitutionally orthodox?) stance the Ten Commandments do not belong in the non-parochial classroom. Louisiana’s highest court does not agree. Biden has had no chance to reshape the federal judiciary’s longterm approach to that topic at the highest level because, on his watch, none of the conservative justices of the Supreme Court agreed to leave the bench voluntary or by death.
Realizing the backlash and the political price being paid in several states with the rejection of abortion bans at the ballot box following the Supreme Court’s 6-3 vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Republican National Committee eliminated all but one reference to the controversial topic in this month’s party platform, slamming it through on a quick and undisputed voice vote, as I reported from Milwaukee.
The much-publicized Project 2025, a voluminous collaboration of more than 100 conservative groups, includes strict anti-abortion language to embed in the next right-wing administration, as I’ve also recently reported.
Trump and the RNC tried to distance themselves from the Heritage Foundation’s publication. The Biden-Harris campaign has been the one giving the conservative project a top place in its messaging — but for a different reason. It hopes alerting persuadable voters to the divisive language on immigration, education and social liberties will dissuade them from considering Trump for a third time.
Questions about Project 2025, the possibility of Harris (or someone else) replacing Biden and critiques of how the media has reported on Trump, Biden and Harris all were raised by the audience Saturday afternoon at the Stockbridge Library, where I engaged with Jim Brooke, formerly of The New York Times, Bloomberg and VOA, in a discussion about my recently published book, Behind the White House Curtain: A Senior Journalist’s Story of Covering the President — and Why it Matters.
In response to one salient question, I told the audience of this Substack piece in progress and how I’d try to tie Norman Rockwell into a broader thesis on why the Republican Party is unlikely to ever return to the values of the mid-20th century country club set, with their preference for smaller taxes and bigger business.
Those old Republicans were firmly relegated to the sidelines when Donald Trump found resonance with populist messaging. The wealthy suburbanites generally had no strong opinion on immigration, gun rights and religious values. The working class and rural voters Republicans in the 21st century needed to attract for party survival certainly did. This allowed the Grand Old Party to peel away enough blue collar voters in swing states to put Trump in the White House. It didn’t quite work in 2020, but might again in 2024.
Mistrust of the Biden-Harris team — a constant theme broadcast by conservative media — economic realities in contrast to the official CPI data, a lack of early and effective action on the border crisis and the Democratic Party’s perceived preference for climate change mitigation over energy independence have influenced swing voters this year. Then add the volatile issue of transgender rights.
“We will not have men playing in women’s sports. That will end immediately,” Trump promised in his Milwaukee acceptance speech. Could such a vow sway just enough concerned soccer moms and dads in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to tip the election to Trump?
Now add Biden’s debate debacle to the mix.
Those Democrats who feared the president’s performance in Atlanta might clinch a Trump victory were quickly derided as “bed wetters.” No one is using that term now.
With some Democrats, such as Senator Michael Bennett, fearing Trump could now win a landslide victory and give Republicans control of Congress, the mood in recent days among Democrats on Capitol Hill has shifted from panic to terror, as I told Fuji TV’s Mr. Sunday program.
Enter the ‘Pass the Torch’ campaign. Its political TV commercial is set to air Monday in Washington, D.C. and Rehoboth Beach, the Delaware community where Biden is isolating as he recovers from a COVID infection. The spot is also scheduled to be inserted into MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ program, of which the president is a regular viewer.
Even Republicans at their Milwaukee convention were speculating who might replace Biden at the top of the ticket, as I reported. The most unlikely of names were bandied about by those I spoke with in front of the Fiserv Forum, including Michelle Obama and Jill Biden.
The Democrats are split into two camps — one adamant that the torch must be passed to Vice President Kamala Harris, the other insisting that anointing Harris without grassroots consensus would be, well, undemocratic. That second faction suggests holding do-overs, such as lightning primaries, or ensuring an open convention with the delegates freed to vote for the new candidate of their choosing. Both those options appear unfeasible, but cannot be ruled out entirely.
Preparing to departing here Sunday to return to the steamy intrigue permeating Washington, D.C., I see Biden’s plight poised to echo the last stanza of the lyrics of Arlo Guthrie’s Highway in the Wind, the final song on the album whose title is taken from another long-gone Stockbridge institution — Alice’s Restaurant:
The fortune teller tells me
That I have somewhere to go
I look and try to understand
And wonder how she knows
So I must be going now
I'm losing time my friend
Looking for a rainbow
Down this highway in the wind.
