For many viewers of the Sept. 10 presidential debate, the standout moment might have been the false claim by a former president that immigrants in Ohio were stealing and eating people’s pets. This is an obviously ludicrous story, and one that one of the debate moderators tried to debunk in real time, but Donald Trump was not deterred. “I saw it on television,” he insisted.
This cemented for us a growing observation that Mr. Trump was the real-life embodiment of Mike Teavee, one of the ill-fated characters in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” a boy for whom television is everything. Mike’s fate is instructive — he insists on jumping in front of a TV camera in the Wonka factory and is shrunk to a few inches high. For Mr. Trump, there seems to be no line between fact and fiction: If he saw something on television, it must be true. In this he is no less credulous than so many of his followers, the ones who believe the lies because he is the one telling them.
Mr. Trump was due in Nassau County yesterday for a rally intended to help down-ballot Republicans by boosting their voters’ enthusiasm and, therefore, turnout. How the top of the ticket fares on Long Island is more important than ever this cycle, with control of the House of Representatives coming down to a handful of races. Two years ago, Nick LaLota’s win over Bridget Fleming helped cement the G.O.P. position in Washington. In New York’s 4th District, Anthony D’Esposito hopes to stave off a strong challenge from Laura Gillen; the Democrats had long held that seat until he flipped it in 2022.
Turnout is what ultimately determines tight elections. To a great extent, the idea of swing voters is outdated in these highly polarized times. What matters now is which party can get more of its side off the couch than the other. So the question is whether the Republican message of fear and repression rings louder than the Democrats’ call for freedom and self-determination. We will see soon enough which message prevails.