Giuliani rose to an American moment. Just about two decades later, he is the face of another one. His current act as Trump’s globe-hopping investigator and defender whose actions have helped spur an impeachment inquiry in Congress is a legacy-altering role, and probably his grandest. He may have gotten the title in 2001, but Rudy Giuliani is truly America’s mayor in 2019.
As much as Giuliani spoke to the resilience Americans wanted to feel in the fall of 2001, he is now speaking to the mania many of us feel in the fall of 2019. The US in 2019 is less aspirational and more a 75-year-old man shouting warnings of treason from a cable news sofa. It’s less “city of one” and more “I will be the hero.” It’s less “extraordinary grace” and more inopportune spittle.
The US in 2019 is yelling non sequiturs at you on the phone because you aren’t asking the right questions. It is demanding your attention, even though you’re not really sure what it’s demanding. It is paranoid, anxious, and somehow winking.
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