George Saunders

that then interferes with the judgment that you have to have.

Like this guy in the book, he kind of is a pretty good father, I think.

Pretty good, maybe.

We don't really know, but at least he would say he is.

Yes, yes, she does, and she's disappointed in him, and he seems to love her.

If I had said, well, he's evil, I don't want him, he's going to be a terrible father, I think that's a less convincing portrait of him.

So for me, that empathy thing, both in a book, but when we're imagining our political enemies...

It has to be scientific.

It has to be objective.

And then you can get to where you need to be emotionally.

But I think that the feeling, maybe on the left especially, is I'm going to understand the Trump supporters and then I won't have this anxiety about disliking them.

But you can understand somebody deeply and dislike them or let's say oppose them.

And I think at the highest level, you can oppose somebody in this way we're talking about, which is

lacking facile judgment, but very firm.

It's the Cruella de Vil falsity.

They really cared about aesthetics.

Yeah, but I don't think I've ever made the argument that art enlarges everyone's soul and will therefore solve everything.

I think more like if you say—

You know, somebody went into a gym and said, this doesn't work.

There's still chubby people in here.