Why has Bruni lost trust in his fellow Americans?
"It's always assumed that those of us who felt certain of Hillary Clinton's victory in 2016 were putting too much trust in polls.
I was putting too much trust in Americans."
He trusted us to agree with him, and yet curiously, we refused to do so.
I guess we kind of had it coming.
He writes in the New York Times,
"What has Trump's presidency taken from us? I'm reasonably sure that many Americans feel the same loss that I do, and I'm struggling to assign just one word to it."
Conformity? Groupthink? Elitist control of the masses the better to consolidate power? Wait, that's ten words.
"Innocence? Optimism? Faith? Go to the place on the Venn diagram where those states of mind overlap. That's the piece of me now missing when I look at this beloved country of mine."
This "beloved" country, beloved by Bruni back when America embraced diversity above all, except when it came to matters of public policy. That requires lockstep conformity if you are going to earn Bruni's affection.
And so Bruni is VERY disappointed in us.
"…We were better than Trump. Except, it turned out, we weren't."
"…And it was a populace I didn't recognize, or at least didn't want to."
"With him we went lower — or at least a damningly large percentage of us did. In him we forgave florid cruelty, overt racism, rampant corruption, exultant indecency, the coddling of murderous despots,…"
Wow, we are worse than I thought we were!
"I'm not saying that support for him is spun entirely of malice or bias."
Well! That's awfully magnanimous of him. But, really, you're going to make us blush. We don't deserve it. We knowingly disagreed with you and we apologize.
The bottom line? You're a bad person if you don't vote for Bruni's preferred candidate.
"Maybe, just ahead, there will be moments of grace, enough of them to redeem us. Maybe I'll look up on or after Nov. 3 and see that Biden has won North Carolina, has won Michigan, has won every closely contested state and the presidency in a landslide."
But you already knew that, you deplorable.
In related news, Don Lemon won't be your friend until you agree with him.
Not be Don Lemon's friend? I have to admit I've been on the fence, but this might just tilt me into the Trump column.