The Daily Populous Tuesday October 1st, 2024 morning edition
Authored by vanityfair.com and submitted by vanityfairmagazine

I am constantly asking myself how America is back here, even considering the possibility of electing Donald Trump again, after all of the damage he has caused, both in office and since. While Kamala Harris has gained extraordinary momentum by infusing this election with vitality and hope, I worry that too many Americans remain disconnected from the visceral, psychologically draining memory of Trump’s deeply destabilizing presidency. If enough people truly remembered what that chaos felt like, another Trump term wouldn’t even be on the table. But for those open to seeing the bare and unvarnished truth, there are unmistakable reminders of Trump’s destructive trail all around us, and it has broken my heart to watch my dad become one of them.

As Rudy Giuliani’s daughter, I’m unfortunately well-suited to remind Americans of just how calamitous being associated with Trump can be, even for those who are convinced he’s on their side. Watching my dad’s life crumble since he joined forces with Trump has been extraordinarily painful, both on a personal level and because his demise feels linked to a dark force that threatens to once again consume America. Not to disregard individual accountability in the slightest, but it would be naive for us to ignore the fact that many of those closest to Trump have descended into catastrophic downward spirals. If we let Trump back into the driver’s seat this fall, our country will be no exception.

My dad and I have a cartoonishly complicated relationship. But he is still my father, and despite his faults, I love him. I’ve seen him experience surreal heights, and, now, unfathomable lows. The last thing I want to do is hurt him, especially when he’s already down. Plus we never know how much time we have left with our parents. The totality of that makes this the most difficult piece I’ve ever written. Yet this moment and this election are so much bigger than any of us.

From reproductive rights and the economy, to foreign and environmental policy, we need experienced, sane, and fundamentally decent leaders who will fight for us instead of against us—who will safeguard our democracy rather than dismantle it. And as a recently engaged-to-be-married, 35-year-old who hopes to feel more joyous than fearful about the potential of becoming a parent myself, I need to advocate for a future worth bringing children into, which is why I am voicing my adamant support for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

I’ll never forget the night my dad told me he was considering becoming Trump’s lawyer. I was with him at the Grand Havana Room, a cigar bar at the top of 666 Fifth Avenue, an address too fitting given the unholy alliance my father was about to enter into.

Surrounded by thick smoke and powerful men, I ugly-cried for a few minutes, then spent the next three hours making my vehement case to my father that he not go down this morally perilous path.

It was extremely rare for my dad to tell me he was going to do anything before actually doing it, so this moment of connection with him also felt like a cosmic opportunity to do my part to limit the spread of Trump’s sinister shadow. I held nothing back. I voiced all of my concerns about Trump’s open racism, rampant misogyny, and total lack of empathy. I even told my dad that I already felt ashamed of my last name whenever I saw headlines connecting him with Trump, and that this escalation would only deepen that feeling. For the rest of that night, I held onto hope that a daughter’s emotional entreaty might actually sway a father.

That fantasy was dispelled the next morning when a news story popped onto my feed: Rudy Giuliani was going to work for Donald Trump. The pit I felt in my stomach then was a warning, but I had no idea how much destruction my father would come to face due to his one-sided fealty to a con-man. Growing up in Gracie Mansion, I always knew I had a privileged life. But a particular set of challenges came along with being Rudy Giuliani’s daughter, and by that point in my life, I had mostly learned how to navigate them.

But nothing I have experienced prepared me for the very public and relentless implosion of my father’s life.

As someone who overcame a deeply ingrained eating disorder and has worked through various other manifestations of anxiety and depression, I’m no stranger to processing complicated feelings. But this new albatross left me floored by a potent mix of fear, anger, confusion, and sadness that often had me crying over my dad, and for him, at the same time. I always saw flaws in my dad that people blinded by his celebrity couldn’t see, but on some level, the absurd scale of his success and notoriety also made it hard to believe that anything could actually take him down. I spent a lot of my life wishing my father had less power. But I never wanted it to happen like this. And selfishly, the deeper my dad gets stuck in the quicksand of his problems, the more fleeting our opportunities to connect as father and daughter become. After months of feeling the type of sorrow that comes from the death of a loved one, it dawned on me that I’ve been grieving the loss of my dad to Trump. I cannot bear to lose our country to him too.

TheRealYou on September 30th, 2024 at 18:03 UTC »

I'd wager Trump took a lot of dads from people. Or at least opened their eyes to who they always were.

knotml on September 30th, 2024 at 17:56 UTC »

Rudy Giuliani became a willing partner of Donald Trump for money and power. They're both vile and disgusting fascists.

sugarlessdeathbear on September 30th, 2024 at 17:54 UTC »

Rudy is not some rube to be taken in by what amounts to an overgrown street hustler. He went along willingly. He wasn't taken, he left.