Q&A: "Should" Trump Be President?

with John McWhorter

You may have noticed that John and I have a mild disagreement when it comes to Trump. I think that Trump’s election by the American people means that he’s president, and as president he gets to try to enact his agenda. He can do whatever he wants to do, within the limits described by the Constitution. You can criticize his actions, you can criticize his demeanor, but his power derives from the will of the people, which was expressed via an election.

John thinks the people made a mistake. And because they made the wrong choice—I suppose Kamala Harris would have been the “right” choice—we’re not obligated to respect it, even if we can’t change the election’s outcome. Trump is a clown, he’s dangerous, he’s a threat to democracy. Trump may be the duly elected president of the United States, but John believes that he doesn’t belong in the Oval Office, and we shouldn’t act as though he does.

Now, the topic of conversation was supposed to be the mainstream narrative about the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol. We begin to talk about that, but we quickly veer off into a rehearsal of our disagreement about Trump. Reviewing it now, I think I can reduce this argument to a dispute about one word: “should.” We’re not using it in the same way. I think Trump should be president. To me, “should” means something like “has the right to.” He was elected, so he has the right to be in office.

While John would agree with that statement of fact, he thinks my sense of “should” is too narrow. He’s using the term in a moral sense. For him, “should” means something like “deserves to.” Trump is president because he won the election, but he’s too destructive and dangerous to deserve to be president. If the election had gone the way it “should” have, Trump would have lost. Therefore, while he has a formal legitimacy granted by the Constitution, he doesn’t have any moral authority, at least in John’s estimation.

Is this a debate about Trump? Or is it a larger debate about what kind of authority legitimates a president? If it’s the latter, I think I have the better of John. Political campaigns may carry a moral message, leaders may profess moral values, but none of that is on the ballot. There’s only a name. Whichever name gets the most electoral votes wins. The moral authority of the office derives from that process, not a set of subjective values, about which we’ll all have major or minor disagreements. That doesn’t mean everything Trump does is right (in the moral sense), nor does it mean that each of us is required to support his actions, only that his decisions carry the force of democratic legitimacy, so long as they follow the law.

I think John and others like him normally have no trouble understanding that. Trump is different, because, well, Trump is different. He’s crude and bellicose and whatever else you want to call him. But my sense of “should” is not narrower than John’s. On the contrary, it’s much more expansive, because it allows that no one’s subjective moral sense ought to prevail over anyone else’s. The vote and the Constitution legitimize the office, not the unwritten rules of presidential comportment, which aren’t rules at all. I think John shows a mild contempt for the American people when he says they “made a mistake” last November.

I’m presenting this clip from our most recent subscriber-only Q&A session, because this dispute isn’t unique to us. This argument is happening across the country right now, as it has for the last decade. It could be that we’re all talking past each other, that our shoulds are misaligned. Maybe that means there is room for realignment, and we can come to understand each other, even if we disagree. Then again, maybe we can’t even agree to disagree.

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This is a clip from a subscriber-only Q&A episode. To receive early access to TGS episodes, an ad-free podcast feed, Q&As, and other exclusive content and benefits, click below.

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GLENN LOURY:

You, and especially John, swallowed the mainstream media narrative on January 6th, 2021. In reality, the experience of the vast majority of people who went there, and I know some of them, is nothing like that narrative.

Yet many got sent to jail and some committed suicide in one of the worst injustices in recent history. That needs to be corrected. Please respond to this video segment.

And he links to a Jordan Peterson interview with one Dr. Simone Gold, who describes her experience of January 6th. And I did actually, George Lee, look at the video, and it is chilling where a woman basically says, “I was there because we had gathered in Washington to express our views. I was going to be giving a speech. I was on the steps of the Capitol as people arrived from the rally that Trump had been speaking at and had come to the Capitol to to protest. I got swept into the building, the doors opened, the crowd surged forward. Next thing I know, I found myself in the building. But I didn't do anything except gets swept along with the crowd.”

And then she goes on and describes in detail the aftermath of that, which was apparently she got identified by photographic evidence, the FBI raided her house, she was arrested and whatnot. And she didn't do anything except be there and be swept along by the crowd.

George Lee's question is,

You, especially John, swallow the mainstream media narrative of January 6th …

Which, I assume, is, “A bunch of rioters created an insurrection.”

… and in reality, the experience of the vast majority of people who went there, and I know some of them, is nothing like that narrative.

Do you think, John, that we have drunk the Kool-Aid, so to speak, about January 6th and by the insurrection narrative, when it's really much more complicated than that and for a lot of the people who suffered significant consequences in their lives, they didn't do anything wrong? They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time?

JOHN MCWHORTER: That's fine. No, I'm not saying that I approve of it. That may be true. That's what happens with mobs. I'm not saying that woman should have been arrested. There was a core of people at that episode who were mobbing the Capitol, and there's no doubt about it. And it was absolutely reprehensible. The media is not pulling the wool over our eyes and not mentioning that there were some people who were physically swept up and ended up being mistreated by justice, just by association. That's not fair. That ruins lives. I completely understand that.

But that does not mean that the media has been wrong in portraying what happened that day as an insurrection. A significant and critical mass of those people were involved in doing exactly what we know they all did. I cannot imagine why we would want to hem and haw and hedge about it to the point that we don't really say anything about it, which would essentially be to pardon it. It wasn't okay, just like Trump isn't okay.

Not “just like.” They're not “just like.” Maybe they are for you. Trump got elected, John. Did you check that out? The very thing that causes you to say January 6th was a barbarity, which is an effort to use extra-legal means to over turn an election …

And yes, audience, I did mean what I just said. It was a mistake. Continue, Glenn. I just don't want there to be any question. I don't want anybody writing in and saying, “Did you hear what John said?” I did say it. It was a mistake. He should not be president. Glenn, continue.

Whose mistake, John?

He's a standup comedian. He's utterly inept. He's more than proving it now. That person should not be president. The people who have voted for him either were expecting something different from him or they voted ...

What's the ground for the “should”? You get to say who should be and shouldn't be president? I thought that was, apropos of the revulsion at January 6th, a decision for the voters, not for the commentators, ex post facto, to assert their judgment over that of the people.

Glenn, Do you think that it's appropriate that that man is president, given his actions lately, for example? Not to mention the way he acted on the trail?

This is like asking me who won the 2020 election, Donald Trump or Joe Biden. And I'm an election denier if I say Joe Biden didn't win the election. No, Joe Biden won that election in 2020, and Donald Trump won the election in 2024. I think, yes, it's entirely appropriate that he's president. He's the one who won the election. What am I missing?

I find that too clinical, especially in the era of social media. That man has what is the expression? He has his the kit, the nuclear war kit. He can decide ...

Football. They call it the football.

Yeah, that man has the football. This isn't right. This is not right. Something went wrong. It went wrong in 2016, and it went wrong this time. I can imagine how it feels for a Trump voter to listen to somebody like me saying it, but that man should not be in the Oval Office.

But he is in the Oval Office. He is the president, John. Who gives a damn what you think should or shouldn't happen for an election that's already been decided? This is performative on your part.

He's inept. He's ignorant. He's a clown. He has no business running anything.

I'm not going to engage that argument. You have not responded to what I'm saying. The person who should be president is the one who gets the votes.

It's more complicated than that these days, Glenn. The way you're using the word “should,” I think, is a little too general. Of course, he is legitimately the president of the United States. But, in terms of whether that's a good thing or not.

Ah, okay. That's a subjective call and people are going to differ on it. And you and I do, as a matter of fact, differ on that. But he is the most powerful man on the planet.

Which is a human tragedy.

Okay, let's move on. With respect. What? We're not going to accomplish anything here by relitigating this same old argument.

History will agree with me.

You show contempt for the people, John.

I'm sorry, but I think that the people who voted for him made a mistake, just like I made a mistake.

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