The seven-decade marriage between Donald J. Trump and New York City, like all of his most volatile relationships, was never going to end quietly.Haberman gives us publicist-level superlatives ("a remarkable gambit," "the brashest stop"), but what she's describing sounds more like an abusive ex-husband violating the terms of a restraining order:
Rejection at the ballot box would not be the final word. Decampment to Florida — another septuagenarian Manhattanite in nominal retirement down south — would not disappear him in earnest.
Felony convictions? Reconcilable differences, it seems, for one evening anyway.
On Sunday, Mr. Trump is bringing his presidential campaign to Madison Square Garden....
More than anything, though, it is a reminder, a provocation, a warning: New York will never be rid of him entirely.He's both vengeful and self-pitying -- a common combination, especially among abusive men.
And he will never be done with New York.
“To him,” said George Arzt, a veteran of city politics who first met Mr. Trump in the 1970s, “this is a conquest.”
... His victory ... would position him once more as the vengeance-seeking specter idling above the skyline, a keeper of federal dollars that the city needs and of mental ledgers that he would never wipe clean as president.
“I have been treated very badly by the political leaders of both the city and state,” Mr. Trump said in 2019, announcing himself a permanent resident of Florida....But the main message, whether or not Haberman realizes it, is that Trump is really, really needy.
He has lashed out at Letitia James, the state attorney general, over a more than $450 million civil fraud judgment against him. He has thrashed Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, over the 34 felony convictions in his hush-money case, looking miserable through much of the trial, which compelled Mr. Trump to spend more time in the city than he had in years.
“Every athlete wants to play in front of their home crowd,” said Joseph Borelli, the Republican minority leader of the City Council....There are voters who wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton and won't vote for Kamala Harris because "women are too emotional." But both of these women seem coolheaded and in control of their emotions, while Trump seems to be a slave to his, as do many of the men he's surrounded himself with (the desperately needy Twitter troll Elon Musk, the angry dorm-room pontificator J.D. Vance). But I guess these guys have the correct emotions, or at least have them in an acceptable testosterone-cocktail mix, because no one ever seems to say that pure emotional excess is a sufficient reason to reject Trump.
He has been a New Yorker and a lapsed New Yorker, at least until his mind wandered to a venue he had never filled — in a city that might never accept him but will, if he has his way, never escape him, either.
“This is a Queens boy,” Mr. Arzt said, “who thinks that if he comes to Manhattan, this is the world, and he’s conquering the world.”
If Harris loses and we still have elections in 2028, I won't blame Democrats for wanting to nominate a man -- it may be the case that America will never be ready to elect a woman -- but if so, I hope they look outside party politics and find an angry, needy, overwrought headcase rather than a cool, steady Obama 2.0. The era of politicans who have the emotional regulation we associate with adults may be ending, and if so, Democrats need to keep up. They may need to find their own angry whiner. When I look at the current polls, I fear that might be what the U.S. electorate wants.
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