Rudy Giuliani is a mess
By
Senior critic-at-large
November 18, 2020 at 6:20 p.m. CST
To be
clear, Rudy Giuliani was never America’s mayor. That nickname was a bit of
media gloss that was spread so thickly and indiscriminately that Giuliani had
no trouble dining out on it for years. Many Americans lapped it up, too.
President
Trump has been like a steady stream of acid on that veneer. And now Giuliani is
a raw, smoldering mess.
His
return to federal court as a practicing attorney, for the first time in nearly
three decades, would not be the worst of Giuliani’s water-carrying for Trump,
but it was, perhaps, the saddest. It was so small and petty. He was in
Pennsylvania court Tuesday not to tell a convoluted tale of international
intrigue about shadowy figures and powerful people skulking around in Ukraine.
His story of malfeasance was closer to home and it was simply mean. Giuliani
argued that a vast swathe of perfectly reasonable, good-hearted Americans
masterminded a huge scheme that cheated Trump out of reelection. Giuliani
couldn’t offer any evidence that this awful plot existed, but nevertheless he
was sure it did and it just so happened to be centered in places like
Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Detroit, which have substantial populations of
Black and brown people.
As a
culture, we like to believe that with age comes wisdom. The truth of it may be
that age only makes people more obviously what they’ve always been. Freed of
the urgent need to prove and define themselves for a future that’s yet to
unfold, people can simply be. Giuliani, at 76, has revealed himself to be a man
who believes that he can summon truth from falsehoods, bend the law to his will
and conjure whatever reality suits him simply by speaking his hopes and dreams
aloud.
In
court, Giuliani alleged “widespread nationwide voter fraud of which this is a
part.” And then he admitted, that, well, there wasn’t fraud in the legal sense,
just in the hysterical, made-up Trumpian sense. Throughout the afternoon,
Giuliani misspoke, calling Joe Biden “Bush.” He was denigrated by defense
counsel. He expressed dismay that Republican counties didn’t let voters fix
mail-in ballots but turned his legal wrath on Democratic counties that did.
Giuliani
did not sound like an attorney delivering a logical, if biased, argument. He
was a pitchman trying to make his case with intonations full of incredulity and
outrage. The hearing was not as animated as it could have been because while
there was audio from the courtroom, there was no video.
In the
flesh, Giuliani has always been a man of dramatic gestures and expressions. Whether on
television or, more recently, at Four Seasons Total Landscaping complaining
about bad ballots, his eyes widen and narrow to punctuate a sentence. He wears
a Yankees World Series ring even though he did not earn it. The diamonds
sparkle next to a pinkie ring. A pinkie ring. The mere fact of
it is an abomination. Whether accusing voters of bad behavior or arguing that
networks don’t call elections, “courts do,” his lips peel back in a toothy
sneer.
No,
Giuliani was never America’s mayor — a fact that if recognized makes it much
easier to contend with the ease with which he has become one of Trump’s boys.
The
patriotic label was bestowed on him by the media after the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks, during which Giuliani was the mayor of New York City. He was
known for cracking down on quality-of-life crimes, for treating squeegee men —
panhandling windshield washers — as menaces to society.
But for
months after 9/11, he kept firm, reassuring and empathetic control of a city
that was in an unimaginable crisis — and his sure hand helped to contain the
rippling circles of fear and uncertainty that was spreading across the country.
Giuliani was tested in ways that few mayors have ever been. He rose to the
challenge and for that he was rightfully admired.
His
being labeled America’s mayor was more marketing than fact. What did it even
mean? It didn’t matter. The country needed heroes and villains. The country
needed clarity. The country was needy. And Giuliani was there.
The
title stuck and eventually became more than mere harmless hyperbole. It
situated Giuliani within the first draft of history as a flawlessly patriotic
hero. It put him in the pantheon of those who run toward danger for the good
and grace of others, not those who solemnly and thankfully survive it.
The
label sold him as someone who rose up and carried an entire country on his back
to safety — rather than as simply a man who did not let the circumstances
overwhelm him. The label reduced Giuliani to a white knight draped in the
American flag.
There
was little room in that image for the rest of his story, which included trying
to extend his New York mayoral term beyond its limits by delaying the
inauguration of his successor, rebranding himself as a security expert
lucratively advising a wide range of companies and countries, and running a
catastrophically un-self-aware 2008 campaign for president.
And now
he’s going after American voters who didn’t vote for his guy.
Giuliani
attached himself to Trump as a vehicle for power. All the law-and-order,
brute-force business was not foreign to him. The man who believed himself to be
America’s mayor also seemed to believe that wherever he went, he would be
surrounded by the scent of patriotism and he would duly perfume whatever he
touched.
He
believed in the power of his own myth. But he didn’t create it.
