John Irving was born 81 years ago in Exeter, exactly where Trump's Republican primary challenger Nikki Haley held her busiest rally in New Hampshire. The author, an Oscar winner for the screenplay of “The Cider House Rules” – a novel recently banned from all school libraries by Texas because it advocates abortion – is already looking further into the Biden-Trump future November challenge. We reach him by phone in Canada, where he lives with dual citizenship. He speaks out strongly against Trump and the rise of the right in Europe, but at the same time calls on his “democratic comrades”: “I hope they go and vote.” I am convinced that Trump won the only election that he won because his fellow Democrats didn’t support Hillary Clinton.”
And Nikki Haley?
“Whatever Haley says about Trump today, she will support him if he loses. And I wouldn't be surprised if she became his deputy. Many Republicans would be happy to see Trump go, but he has too many supporters and the party wants his supporters. Look at DeSantis, the governor of a right-wing state who passes laws against pregnant women and the LGBTQ+ community: first he attacks Trump, and as soon as he backs off, he approves him. I lived in Vermont for years and always voted for Bernie Sanders, but when he didn't win the nomination, I supported Hillary. How many pro-Bernie whiners didn't do that… There is a historic dispute among fellow Democrats. They didn't like Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and wanted Eugene McCarthy, but Humphrey won the nomination and they refused to vote for him. The result was Richard Nixon's entry into the White House and more years of the Vietnam War. The Democrats demand, the Republicans don't. Their enemy is progressive values, and even if there is a fascist tyrant who controls the majority of their voters, they support him. The Republicans are a minority, albeit a large one: they can be beaten. If Biden's only crime is that I'm so old, then he has my sympathy. There are worse things than being old. Lazy or indifferent Democrats who don’t vote are part of the problem.”
But there is a lack of enthusiasm for Biden among young people, minorities who are disillusioned with the war in Gaza, with the economy, with immigration.
“If Joe Biden is the only possible choice, Democrats should move.” If you've read my work, you know how much women's rights and LGBTQ+ rights mean to me, and you can understand how upset I am about the setbacks in my home country am: the Republican majority's terrible decision to overturn the Supreme Court Roe v. Wade, and now the more conservative states, will reverse all the progress made in recent years on women's rights and abortion. “Trump doesn’t align with these trends, but he has become their spokesman.”
What is the reason for Trump's success?
“Trump doesn't have the merit of having gathered this seemingly large majority of Republicans around him, that was something that already existed.” There is a sizeable minority of xenophobic people who are often poorly educated and prefer to blame others rather than them To take responsibility for their own mistakes. And a demagogue has come who speaks like them. The social conservative movement was embraced by Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s. Reagan wanted to abolish abortion rights. What a terrible man, and he wasn't even a good actor. The party has never freed itself from this social conservatism. I also think we need to look at the US in the context of what is happening in Europe, where right-wing populists are re-emerging even in a progressive country like the Netherlands. They’re leaning on anti-immigrant sentiment.”
There is a scene in The Cider House Rules where a child asks Michael Caine what an immigrant is. And he replies, “Someone not from Maine.”
“Exeter, where I was born, was home to a prestigious school, you might have expected it to seem less provincial, but in my day people looked at you with suspicion, even if you were from Massachusetts.” It was enough to make you a foreigner. So distrust of the stranger can extend to anything: pro-abortion feminists, blacks, Jews… Compared to Iowa and parts of the Midwest, Republicans in New England were less ultra-conservative and Democrats less progressive, the difference is more nuanced . But I haven't lived there for a long time, and that could have changed with Trump.
Is it painful for you that your books are banned?
“As my friend Margaret Atwood says, if you ban books, sales go up. But I think of the underage girl who gets pregnant or is about to come out and is looking for a book in the library that will give her the support she needs. Denying him is simply cruel.