As 2022 draws to a close, The Fulcrum has invited leaders of democracy reform organizations to share their hopes and plans for the coming year. This is the fourth in the series.
Davies is a podcast consultant, host and solutions journalist at daviescontent.com. He co-hosts the podcasts “How Do We Fix It?” and “Let’s Find Common Ground."
We are right in the middle of America’s season of biennial public rituals. First there was the election, then Thanksgiving and, still to come, Christmas and the new year. All of them bring people together and remind us that despite our differences there is much that we share in common with one another.
The result of the midterm election was a surprise to almost everyone. And isn’t it good when the smart people — pundits, pollsters, and political professionals armed with all their data and research — get it wrong? While science and technology continue to make stunning advances, human behavior remains a tricky thing to track.
Leading up to the vote last month, Republicans expected to score a blowout victory. Democrats issued dire warnings that democracy was hanging by a thread. Many of us were anxious and fearful, but both of these forecasts turned out wrong.
Leading up to the election, right-wing populists promoted the absurd theory that the 2020 election had been stolen. But that year Republicans made gains in Congress and state races. If that election was a sham how could this be? The populist claim was as crazy as seeing the former president dressed up as a superhero with laser beams shooting out of his eyes. Hardcore Donald Trump supporters eat it up, but last month common-sense, independent-minded voters made it clear they'd had enough. While many conservative, mainstream Republicans did well, many of the most controversial and extreme Trump backers went down to defeat.
The second great public American ritual was Thanksgiving, a holiday when more people travel to be with their loved ones than at any other time of year. Many friends and families were together in the same room for the first time in three years, since before the pandemic.
As with the election, this Thanksgiving had more than its share of doubters. Leading up to the long holiday weekend we were deluged by media warnings that the turkey might be hard to swallow if you had the bad luck to be seated next to a family member with different political views than your own. We were fed the theory that with such deep political divides Thanksgiving could be a time of great tension. No doubt it was for some, but where is the evidence that this year was much more fraught than usual?
The day after Thanksgiving was Black Friday, Our local mall opened at 6 a.m. Stores were packed. Driving along I-95 in southeast Connecticut that morning, I spotted an astounding queue of cars waiting to go to Clinton Crossing Outlets. It must have taken some shoppers well over an hour just to get to the lot.
According to the business press, many people want to visit brick-and-mortar stores because they’d had enough of Amazon and other forms of online buying that boomed during the pandemic. We might have difficulty admitting it, but for many people physical in-person shopping is fun. There is still something thrilling when you think you’re coming home with a bargain, especially at a time of high inflation and a shaky economy.
Here’s to a happy holiday season for all: A time when we celebrate light, hope, and even the occasional miracle.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.