Trump Got Booed and Heckled With 'Lock Him Up' Chants at the World Series

From Esquire

It began as a good day for Donald Trump, American president. The big guy woke us all up Sunday with some news to share: he'd ordered a special operations raid that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It was a victory for the United States over an organization that seemed to be, at its height, the closest approximation to pure evil the world has seen in recent times. Of course, Trump could not avoid the weird and unnerving stuff in his speech, repeatedly suggesting Baghdadi was "whimpering" and "crying" in his final moments and declaring he "died like a dog." (This is an adaptation of his frequent proclamations that various people were "fired like a dog," which implies dogs have careers.) But it was a win nonetheless for our very normal president.

Unfortunately for the chief, this victory exists within a broader pattern of corruption, incompetence, and divisive vitriol which has led less than 41 percent of the country to approve of his performance in office. This has been remarkably consistent since his inauguration in January 2017, though the president would surely tell you all those many dozens of polls are Fake. One sign he doesn't really believe that, though, is that he rarely ventures out to any public venue that might feature a representative cross-section of the public, rather than a rally or other event where his supporters will dominate proceedings. He made the rare decision to do so Sunday night, however, when he meandered out to Nationals Park for Game 5 of the World Series. When the fateful decision was made to show him and his crew of congressional lackeys on-screen, he got an instant reminder of why he usually sticks to rallies.

That look on his face is enough to show you how rarely he gets any feedback from beyond the Fox News-campaign-rally bubble he and his aides have so meticulously constructed around him. (Recently, he received a Presidential Briefing that consisted of tweets that were positive about him.) Pretty much any politician has an insatiable thirst for approval, but the truly bottomless need for affirmation in this guy does seem to be singular. He is very likely addicted to the atmosphere at his staged events at this point. Later, Trump was treated to a spontaneous cover of a hit song from those rallies:

Obviously, the right of Americans to boo their political leaders shall not be infringed. This echoes the reception for Rudy Giuliani at a Yankee game last year, and that was before Giuliani truly became the International Man of Stupidity.

The people's right to chant, "Lock him up!" at the president is also inalienable, even if some members of the punditocracy—and a Democratic senator—are clutching their pearls this morning. There's really no need for Senator Chris Coons to worry whether the office of the presidency is being "respected" at this point. The occupant has no respect for the office, except insofar as he is the occupant and everything he does is worthy—or at least desperately in search of—respect. The idea he is a custodian of world affairs and the future of our species, that he is tasked with ensuring that the institutions of our precious democracy will outlast any of us, has scarcely occurred to him. Certainly, other nations and their leaders have diminished regard for the American presidency at this point. That even goes for the president of Iraq. The ship has sailed, to the extent any politician should be granted respect or adoration simply because of the office they hold. They answer to the people.

Still, we ought to think about whether we want chants calling for the imprisonment of political leaders to become commonplace in our society. Sure, the key difference between the chants directed at Hillary Clinton at Trump's rallies—which continue today, three years after the election she contested—is that Trump seems to have committed a series of actual crimes. The crowd's chant also must be taken in context: they are redirecting the lawlessness of his political movement back at him. But it's hard to look past the fact that even sardonic calls for extrajudicial punishment are an extension of the lawlessness he has introduced to our politics. This is not a call for a return to the rule of law, even if that's what the vast majority of chanters and Americans might want. It still has the feel of retribution against an enemy—even, again, if he is an unindicted co-conspirator in at least one federal conspiracy.

After all, even if the republic rids itself of Trump, the danger is not over. We may fail to address the structural issues in our political economy which gave him an opening to thrive. We may refuse to come to grips with the fact that the Republican Party he's led was primed for his toxic cocktail of white nationalism and corruption before he jumped into the 2016 race, and will remain a reliable vehicle for the same when he's gone. But we also ought to spare some thought for the wildness he has let loose in our politics, and how we might best contain it going forward. Certainly, he and his co-conspirators should face legal sanction according to due process and the rule of law. He should not be pardoned, as Nixon once was. That would pardon the nation from reckoning with what he has done in our name. But is calling for his jailing, even sarcastically, the best way to get there?

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