A reader objects to the concept of the Trump Time Capsule series:
Thank you for your thorough documentation of Trumpisms and Trumpeting with your "Time Capsule" journal. However, I think you and The Atlantic make a grave error in its title.
Calling it a "Time Capsule" puts the readers--and you--in a helpless position. To psychologically frame the greatest American political disaster unfolding in decades as if it has already happened makes Trump into something inevitable, something historical, something unstoppable.
This is more than a quibble. I think it points to the essence of our societal failure in the YouTube age of watching instead of acting. The media is complicit in this mass mindset more than anything, covering news and politics in ways that do not seek to inform proactive citizens, but create content for the entertainment of passive consumers. To cover Trump as a proverbial trainwreck and not a current political and cultural crisis which will affect Americans and policy for years to come represents the failure of the soundbite Tweet-bloid media that gave Trump his unprecedented clout.
Your valuable reporting is not a time capsule. The neon Trump sign is not yet affixed to the White House facade. Trump is a demagogue of now. The Atlantic should inform, not observe, and especially not in the past tense. If the media stops giving Trump millions of free advertising for his controversial one liners and starts covering who he is and what he stands for--as the Times did today on his failed casinos--only then will the celebrity windbag deflate. No time capsule needed.
I understand the point. Response below.