Odd Couples
Trump & Mamdani
I could speculate endlessly over the remarkably amicable encounter between the socialist and the fascist in the White House. What did Mamdani hope to accomplish in requesting a meeting with Trump? He had no way of predicting how Trump would behave—how would he have responded to a hostile, bullying Trump, maybe with Vance joining the attack? And Trump—why was he so nice?
But, given my limited mindreading skills, I’m not going to speculate. I’ll just comment on the likely outcomes of the meeting, which are positive. There was good reason to fear that New York City would suffer as Trump sought to punish its socialist mayor. Now, there is reasonable hope that Trump will exercise restraint. Nationally, Trump’s embrace of the mayor-elect tends to normalize democratic socialism as a legitimate current in American politics. It takes some steam out of Republican plans to make Mamdani the sinister face of Democratic communist Islamic radicalism. It certainly drew the ire of NY’s hatemongering Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who is gearing up for a gubernatorial campaign against Hochul’s jihadist in NY’s City Hall. Of course, with the mercurial Trump, you never know—he could turn around on a dime and start denouncing the communist lunatic Mamdani all over again. But as of now, we can be pleased.
Chomsky and Epstein
Some friends have asked about my reaction to the revelation that Noam Chomsky had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. It’s unclear from the documents how the two came into contact. Epstein evidently helped Chomsky with some financial transactions, and Chomsky some time after 2017 reported having been in regular contact with Epstein since meeting him half a dozen years earlier. Chomsky clearly was impressed by Epstein, with whom he reported having had multiple conversations on a broad range of topics. Epstein also enabled Chomsky to make at least two valuable contacts, including one with Israel’s former prime Minister Ehud Barak. There is no indication that Chomsky actually visited Epstein, and there is nothing in the documents that have been revealed thus far that suggest the kind of salacious interests that have embarrassed Larry Summers.
In his writings, Chomsky often recommended going to the information sources utilized by the ruling class--likeBusiness Week, Forbes and other business publications--to understand what is really going on in the world. I imagine he saw Epstein in that kind of light--a conduit to the thinking of powerful people. So, Chomsky found Epstein useful to him, though he should certainly have had some sense of the man’s sleaziness. These revelations to my mind say more about Epstein than about Chomsky. Monstrous as he was, Epstein was clearly a remarkably talented man, able to engage the interest of someone like Chomsky, alongside that of so many different others.
As to Mamdani and Trump, my take is that Trump unconsciously recognizes Mamdani as appealing to the same working class he does, but also as having far more authenticity. Trump is a charlatan, and on some level must be aware of that; he has channeled the working class's resentment of the rich, but has also spent his whole life trying to gain acceptance and dominance among precisely that same set of wealthy oligarchs that they resent. In Mamdani he sees someone who really does relate to the working class; I think Trump is genuinely impressed, and even a bit jealous.
When Steven Pinker met Epstein, he recognized that Epstein was “an intellectual imposter” and tried to stay as far away from him as possible. It is odd that Chomsky, who treated other lesser intellects with condescending scorn, was fooled by Epstein.