Democracy Cannot Be Ripped Down

Trump’s ICE is starting raids in NYC. Federal agents descended on Canal Street in lower Manhattan, causing chaos and quickly drawing protestors. According to the NY Times, they were after men who routinely sell counterfeit goods on the street, primarily men of African descent. Every New Yorker is well aware of these vendors, often all over the city: they spread their fake Gucci bags and Rolex watches out on a blanket and try to sell them for a fraction the cost of real items. NYC Police often raid them, that’s why they spread their products out on blankets, so that they can be rolled up quickly. There is no need for ICE to be involved in arresting these vendors of illegal goods, the NYPD does that. These are, once again, racist scare tactics.

Trump has placed proponents of his false claims about the 2020 election into government jobs, all as he dismantles systems built to secure voting. This is worrisome; we are aware he wants to interfere with the 2026 midterms because he knows his party will lose. Trump and those around him (probably mostly those around him, he is doing things like knocking down walls at the White House and building a gawdy ballroom) are doing everything the can to interfere with US elections.

Some ruminations:

I know it’s just a building— and our democracy is not a building—but the ripping and tearing of the White House—the People’s House— is deeply distrubing. It is perhaps in a way symbolic of what Trump is doing to us. However, to carry the thought further and lend some hope, Trump may be ripping and tearing at us as a people, distressing us and confusing us, pitting us against each other, trying to strip us of compassion, he cannot shred an idea.

Democracy is an idea, and no matter what Trump does, it still stands for all the people who reside in the United States. Everyone.

Michael and I often talk about The New Yorker magazine in a similar way. He and I have worked for them for over forty years, it is what brought us together and we have always adored it. And while editors come and go, structure and layout and content may shift, the idea of The New Yorker remains. The magazine’s editor William Shawn, who first published Michael’s and my drawings in the late 1970’s, wrote this below during a time of change of ownership of the publication:

“The business ownership of The New Yorker may change hands, but the idea of The New Yorker -the tradition of The New Yorker, the spirit of The New Yorker—has never been owned by anyone and never will be owned by anyone. It cannot be bought or sold. It exists in the minds of a group of writers, artists, editors, and editorial assistants who have been drawn together by literary, journalistic, aesthetic, and ethical principles they share, and by a shared outlook on the world. Whatever else may happen, it will endure.”

William Shawn in Talk of the Town, April 22, 1985