The Unhappy Warriors

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/opinion/campaign-stops/the-unhappy-warriors.html

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Gail Collins: Two weeks, Arthur, two weeks! I’m not sure what the world will be like when this election is over. Unless, of course, we’re defending ourselves against a mutiny from the right, the revolt of Donald’s Deplorables. Although he doesn’t really strike me as a guy who has much taste for the barricades. What do you think of all the “rigged election” drama?

Arthur Brooks: It was a line that worked at rallies but played poorly in front of the whole country. I agree with you that there’s less to the outrage than meets the eye, but it does sound pretty bad for a candidate to pre-announce that he might choose to be an epically sore loser. Not exactly a confident sprint to the finish.

Gail: Don’t know that anything like this has ever happened before. I seem to be saying that so frequently these days. It used to be, no matter how weird things got, I could always tell people things were worse when Grover Cleveland ran.

Arthur: What has the country come to when we can no longer take consolation in Grover Cleveland?

Speaking of rejecting political realities, I heard someone from the Trump campaign react to the news that he is now trailing in Arizona by alleging it was never really a Republican state to begin with. That reminds me of a scene from “This Is Spinal Tap.” The band manager tries to console the musicians after a concert is canceled in Boston by saying it’s not much of a college town.

Gail: When it’s over maybe Trump will say he never wanted to win anyway. This was all a sophisticated plan to launch Trump TV. Or maybe a chain of down-home fast-food restaurants that specialize in orange food.

Arthur: The most terrible part of this election is how humorless it has become. Seriously, did you watch any of the Al Smith charity dinner last Thursday? That’s usually a respite in an election year because the candidates always attend and tell jokes in good humor — whether it comes naturally to them or not.

Gail: To be honest, I’m obsessed with the Al Smith dinner. It was one of my first assignments when I came to New York as a reporter. While the serious journalists were listening to the speeches, my job was to watch the dignitaries eating onstage, many of them rather elderly, and make sure nobody died.

Arthur: One step up from writing obituaries, right?

At the Al Smith dinner in 2012, both President Obama and Mitt Romney were hilarious and self-deprecating. But this year, holy cow, it was brutal. Hillary Clinton’s routine was a crime against humor. She actually called the audience a “basket of adorables.”

Gail: Let me admit it, I kinda liked “basket of adorables.”

Arthur: No, Gail, no!

Worse, though, Trump earned some well-justified boos when he dropped this knee-slapper: “Here she is in public, pretending not to hate Catholics.” Ha. Ha. I hope he stiffed the staffer who wrote that joke.

Gail: Yeah, Trump was terrible, Hillary un-terrific. On the plus side, it’ll probably be the last time they’re together until after the election — if ever. Which reminds me that I haven’t asked what you thought of the final debate.

Arthur: For once, I thought the debate showed some initial promise. Trump articulated fairly sound, conventional conservative arguments on abortion, taxes and the Second Amendment. Clinton gave standard liberal arguments. I was almost lulled into the false consciousness that things were maybe, almost, kind of normal.

Gail: I can see you in your shoes and slippers, faithful dog at your feet, nodding happily. And then … and then …

Arthur: Record scratch. My reverie ended abruptly when they snapped back to insults and ad hominem arguments. I could go on all day with my policy complaints, but you know what I actually disliked the most? The obvious unhappiness in both the candidates. They seem ungrateful to be running for president. Both of them chose to run, now millions and millions of Americans are going to vote for each of them, and yet they both look like they are doing forced labor. There’s neither hope nor optimism. Just bitterness.

In the end, that may be the obituary of this election. Two candidates who had no interest in being happy warriors for the country, who expressed contempt and hatred for each other and who were both disliked by the majority of Americans. Sad!

Gail: Arthur, Arthur, cheer up! Nobody has ever liked running for president — except maybe Bill Clinton. Barack Obama was always complaining about how ridiculous the whole thing was.

Arthur: I never trust people who have glamorous jobs they say they hate. And personally, I think there is nothing more fun than traveling around the country speaking to groups of people. But I confess to being out in the tail of the extroversion curve. Your mileage may vary.

Gail: You always do seem to be having fun. But of course there’s nobody trailing you around telling people that you’re going to destroy the country.

Arthur: Tell that to my Twitter mentions.

Gail: Although I find myself increasingly unable to speak for whatever reality Trump is living in, Hillary does look forward to becoming president. She thinks she can make the country better. And you know, it’s really a modern phenomenon to want a president who seems to be having a good time. Nobody thought Andrew Jackson was enjoying himself. Or Calvin Coolidge.

Arthur: My friend Martin Seligman, who is a psychology professor at Penn, did a famous study of optimism in presidential candidates that earned front-page coverage in The Times back in 1988. His basic finding: The more optimistic candidate had almost always won. Amazingly, Marty’s study itself appeared to change that effect because it immediately became conventional wisdom among politicians that they had to be optimistic and fake it if necessary.

Gail: Wow, I wonder if Ronald Reagan was really sitting in the basement every night, mulling dark thoughts.

Arthur: I would guess that Reagan was a true optimist through and through. His darkest private moments were probably still sunnier than your typical public speech from Jimmy Carter. But I digress. After everyone read the Seligman study, optimism stopped being so predictive because everybody started adopting the same language.

Weirdly, this year has been the complete opposite. For better or worse, both these candidates have shed any pretense of joy or optimism. Their core value propositions are identical: “I am the only one standing between you and a candidate you see as the apocalypse.” This might seem like a good strategy given the public’s sour mood, but I think it’s shortsighted. One 2013 study found that happy leaders are perceived to be 132 percent more effective than unhappy leaders.

But back to business. Give me your take on the debate.

Gail: A few weeks ago I’d have agreed that the issues argument at the beginning was a great change of pace. But to tell the truth, I don’t care any more whether we ever get around to issues. The choice is between Hillary Clinton and the potential destruction of the planet.

Arthur: It’s my job to note that partisans on the right are saying approximately the inverse: The choice is between Trump and the end of America. Personally, I don’t really believe either argument. I will comfortably predict that America will survive either presidency. And hey, weren’t you trying to cheer me up?

Gail: If I’m right and this election actually is about character and personality, the debates have done their job. There’s nothing anybody could say about issues now that would change the trajectory. So we might as well sit back and watch the melodrama.

Arthur: Not exactly a ringing endorsement. The Clinton campaign was probably toasting the last debate with lukewarm glasses of tap water. “Here’s to a job … done.”

Gail: I was sort of imagining them hopping around slapping one another on the back and yelling, “Oh, wow, did you hear what he just said?”

Arthur: “Finally,” they assured one another, “she’ll be up by 50 points!” Uh-huh.

Just for fun, let’s end on a positive note. You and I were talking the other day, and we landed on the subject of what makes us hopeful about our country. So tell our readers what that is.

Gail: Well, for all the current anti-immigrant hysteria, there’s still no place that’s better at accepting diversity. And Americans are fair. Once you convince them that something is unfair you have instantly won your argument. Although getting to that point, of course, can take a lot of time.

If you look at our national elections, I think you’ll find that in general when our people go to the polls they make reasonable decisions based on very sound, larger principles — do we want major change? Does the candidate have the most basic necessary qualifications?

That second one doesn’t generally come up that often, but this year is — in oh so many ways — an exception.

What about you?

Arthur: Speaking of immigrants, I was on the road recently and met a driver who moved here from West Africa. He started talking to me about politics, complaining about Trump and insisting he’s surrounded by dangerous advisers who want to kick out all the immigrants. I was just listening quietly. After a few minutes, he stopped and reflected: “But you know what? I’m from Ivory Coast, where Donald Trump would look like Thomas Jefferson.” We agreed that this is truly a great country.

Enjoy your week in our great country, Gail, and we’ll talk next week and see where we stand.