Roger Angell Tried To Warn Us About Trump

Roger Angell, who wrote his first article for The New Yorker in 1944 and joined its staff as an editor in 1956, passed away yesterday at the age of 101.

Angell was best known for his essays and books on baseball. However perhaps the most important article Angell ever wrote was at the tender age of 96 when he tried to warn us about Donald Trump before the 2016 election. Of course, Angell was far from alone in issuing such a warning. But keep in mind that Angell cast his first presidential ballot for FDR in 1944 while serving in the Pacific Theater in the U.S. Army Airforce. Angell considered his vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 the most important he ever cast:

My country faces a danger unmatched in our history since the Cuban missile crisis, in 1962, or perhaps since 1943, when the Axis powers held most of Continental Europe, and Imperial Japan controlled the Pacific Rim, from the Aleutians to the Solomon Islands, with the outcome of that war still unknown.

That danger was, of course, Donald Trump.

Angell strenuously objected to Trump wanting a Purple Heart as an insult to the thousands upon thousands of soldiers who have been wounded in war or killed in action as was the case of many of Angell's friends. A Purple Heart is neither a toy nor a souvenir much less just another a parcel of land. Of course, Angell had other objections:

Mr. Trump has other drawbacks I haven’t mentioned: his weird fondness for Vladimir Putin; his destruction of the lives and hopes of small investors and contractors unlucky enough to have been involved in his business dealings; his bonkers five-year “birther” campaign, now withdrawn, though without accountability—but never mind all this, for now.

Mr. Trump is endlessly on record as someone who will not back down, who cannot appear to pause or lose. He is a man who must win, stay on the attack, and who thinks, first and last, “How will I look?” This is central, and what comes after it, for me, at times, is concern for what it must be like for anyone who, facing an imperative as dark and unforgiving as this, finds only the narcissist’s mirror for reassurance.

Trump's fondness for Putin continues unabated even after his invasion of Ukraine. The defeated former President characterized as an act of genius but Ukrainian resistance has demonstrated otherwise. Trump is also a man who demands credit for COVID vaccines his own supporters refuse to take while going to great lengths to minimize a disease which has killed more than twice as many Americans than died in WWII and in half the time.

While we can be grateful Trump is out of the White House at present, the fact remains he has not only never conceded but he insists that he has won despite all evidence to the contrary. The most dangerous thing of all is that Trump has convinced millions of Americans he was robbed of the presidency. Thousands of these Americans were prepared to prevent the peaceful transfer of power and are prepared to do much worse come 2024.  

Perhaps we can be grateful that Angell won't live to see what might come in 2024. But this is cold comfort to the rest of us as his warning was not heeded by nearly enough Americans. The best we can do to honor Roger Angell's memory is to get out and vote. R.I.P.