Even when you have good health insurance and the best medical care. Even when you’re the president of the United States. Even when contracting this particular illness reeks of karma, of payback, of divine justice, the way it does for President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, who announced early Friday they have tested positive for COVID-19, the novel coronavirus that has killed a million people worldwide, including 206,000 Americans.
There will no doubt be a certain amount of gloating, of snide “thoughts and prayers” chortling. Guess that hydroxychloroquine didn’t do the trick after all, huh?
I can see why. Only Tuesday Trump was in full bore bullying mode at the first presidential debate in Cleveland, speaking over his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, insulting him and the rest of us.
“We’ve done a great job,” Trump said of his delayed, botched reaction to the pandemic, which he initially trivialized and ignored. The one thing Trump did do — haphazardly restrict travel with China — was again held up as if it had been adequate. He again pretended he was the one on top of the situation while his opponents dithered, Trump’s trademark move of blaming others for his own deficiencies.
“It’s China’s fault!” he complained, as if that matters. As if America’s response to the virus didn’t at least match their blundering, if not surpass it.
But the quality that ties one hand behind the back of Democrats in this fight is our ability to empathize with other people, even bad people. And in truth I have always felt sorry for Trump, clearly a broken man, his ego so damaged it must be constantly stroked. Living proof that you can be rich, famous, powerful and still a pathetic excuse for a human being who just can’t stop talking, mostly about himself.
“They give you good press,” he sniveled to Biden Tuesday. “They give me bad press.”
Boo hoo.
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Superb column, Mr. S.
ReplyDeleteI envy your ability to feel sorry for Trump. I just can't do it. I know someone a little like him: narcissistic, full of himself, a real jerk. But he does have some redeeming qualities. He's good at his profession, he's a good father and has helped raise a couple of really nice kids. They're little but they're smart, personable, friendly. He does sometimes think about others - he'll ask me if I need something from the store on a snowy day - that sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteI can't find anything redeeming about Trump. I agree that he's horribly damaged to be such a miserable excuse for a human being. He's just so repulsive on every level and I can't find any sympathy for him. You're a better person than I am.
He'll come through this like he came through the impeachment, having learned absolutely nothing and will be even more insufferable than before. It frightening to think that's possible. I think he will eventually lose the election, but the next three months are going to be a nightmare.
Whew Shari, for a moment I thought your "couple of really nice kids" remark referred to Trump's kids. I was thinking "Eric? Donny Jr.? You've got to be fuckin' kidding me." Sometimes kids turn out well despite their fathers. I mean, look at mine...
ReplyDeleteI used to feel sorry for Donald Trump, thinking that his need for constant adulation was pathetic. His blustery pontifications seemed agonizing -- how could he have the courage to get up there and pretend that he knew something about a subject when it was patently obvious that the janitor was better informed. However, I now realize that it was my personality that was in question, not Trump's. He glories in all the attention he gets and feels vindicated when he's able to dismiss rational thought with nonsensical bluster -- of course, Ronald Reagan did it better and nobody in his right mind felt sorry for him.
ReplyDeletejohn
The GOP seems to have suffered from a bad case of hubris. Perhaps they were shooting for herd immunity. But Nemesis has arrived.
ReplyDeleteTom
Perhaps karma will do him in...maybe sooner...maybe later. Payback is a bitch.
ReplyDeleteHe has to stay alive until January 20th, as a lame duck who is too sick to mount an effective challenge of the results. I don't want Pence to succeed him, though. He's probably worse. So I don't want Orangy the Clown to die...not for a while yet. Not until he suffers a bit.
First, by losing the election, by as big a margin as possible, thus precluding any substantial post-campaign chicanery or shenanigans or brazen cheatery. Then I want to see him in an orange jumpsuit, convicted of state-level crimes in New York, and given a one-way bus ride to Attica.
There, he can finally die, preferably by wheezing his life away in the infirmary, alone, unmourned, and without fanfare, from lung damage brought on by what he always claimed was a hoax, and no worse thn the flu.
Loss of office, loss of freedom, loss of life. It's the fate he deserves. Maybe all that sounds more than a little harsh. I don't care anymore.
I wasn't born until after Hitler left the bunker, feet first. I hated Nixon, Reagan, and Bush. But now, I almost miss them. I never knew what pure hatred really meant. Not until five years ago. I've never hated any human being as much as I hate Donald Trump. So back up the truck.
And then, after he's gone, it's time to start putting a hex on Mark Zuckerberg.
Grizz, I am far closer to you than Neil on this matter, but I understand the compassion. If I held on to my faith past seventh grade I would have already forgiven Herr Drumpf. If I knew that he would face justice in our courts I would be ambivalent about his health. But the chances of an American President standing before a jury of his betters are infinitesimal. His suffering is all we have. Losing the election by seven digits would hurt him, but not enough. This Cowardly Liar deliberately ignored the serious situation of Covid, resulting in thousands of dead Americans. He instituted an immigration policy that deliberately terrorized refugees and their children, for this alone he should be sitting in a concrete cell today. The phrase "Lock him up" is not a political overreach, it is a call for the minimum. But with incarceration a pipe dream, a long painful battle for his life, followed by multiple debilitating complications is the best we can hope for.
DeleteGreat piece and the comments have said all I'd have said. It's hard to be sympathetic, but feels wrong not to be.
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