2/8/23, 1:58 PM [Context] | Bombast Bursting in Air, by Lewis H.

Lapham | Harper's Magazine

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Bombast Bursting
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Republican presidential candidate John Kasich surveys his competition; Lewis H. Lapham
R E L AT E D

analyzes the 2016 election so far.

by Lewis H. Lapham on October 30, 2015

Published in the November 2015 issue of Harper’s Magazine, “Bombast Bursting in

Air” is Lewis H. Lapham’s analysis of the 2016 election. Read the full essay here.

T
rump declared his candidacy on

June 16, a deus ex machina [Lede]

descending by escalator into the atrium of

From a Washington
the Trump Tower on Manhattan’s Fifth
Post transcript of the third
Avenue, and there to say, and say it plainly,
Republican presidential [Forum]
that Justice Brandeis had it right,
primary debate, held
democracy and concentrated wealth do not Is Liberalism
October 28, 2015. The
a happy couple make. Money is power, and
remark below was made
Worth Saving?
power, ladies and gentlemen, is not self- The future of an ideal
by Ohio governor and
sacrificing or democratic. The big money byPatrick J. Deneen, Francis Fukuyama, Deirdre
presidential candidate Nansen McCloskey, Cornel West
cares for nothing other than itself, always
John Kasich.
has and always will; it is the name of the

game and the nature of the beast. Trump I want to tell you, my

didn’t need briefing books or policy great concern is that we

positions to front an outdated noble are on the verge,

falsehood. He embodied — live and in perhaps, of picking

person — the proof of the proposition that someone who cannot

he deemed it the duty of the children of do this job.

the city to believe.      I’ve watched to see

[Letter from Philadelphia]
people say that we
Trump established the bona fides of his

claim to the White House on the simple

should dismantle No Vacancy
Can empty houses help solve
Medicare and Medicaid
but all-encompassing and imperishable
homelessness?
and leave the senior
truth that he was really, really rich,
by Wes Enzinna
citizens out—out in the
unbought and therefore unbossed, so
—in the cold. I’ve heard
magnificently rich that he was free to say
them talk about
whatever it came into his head to say, to do
deporting 10 or 11—
whatever it took to root out the corruption
people here from this
and stupidity in Washington, clean up the
country out of this
mess in the Middle East, or wherever else
country, splitting
in the world ungrateful foreigners were
families. I’ve heard

https://harpers.org/2015/10/bombast-bursting-in-air/ 1/2
2/8/23, 1:58 PM [Context] | Bombast Bursting in Air, by Lewis H. Lapham | Harper's Magazine

neglecting their duty to do the bidding of about tax schemes that

the United States of America, the greatest don’t add up, that put

show on earth, which deserved the helping our kids in—in a deeper

hand of Trump, the greatest name on hole than they

earth, to make it worthy of his signature are today.

men’s colognes (Empire and Success) and

set it free to fulfill the destiny emblazoned

on his baseball cap: make america great

again.

Read the full essay here. [Letter from Washington]

Swamplandia
The money behind Ron DeSantis’s
TAGS
populist façade
2016 U.S. presidential election Donald Trump GOP primary debat John Kasich Lewis H. Lapham
Andrew Cockburn
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