Last week my granddaughter asked why we didn’t like Donald Trump. We didn’t really answer her. I suppose no one wanted to upset someone that young.
American history is packed with bad Presidents, most of them chosen to provide quicker service for the 1%. Many Presidents have had sex with hookers, held down people of color, fought stupid wars, denied children needed medicine and misled voters. Trump is different. He’s added a new element.
Trump isn’t taking us back to the eras of Nixon or Hoover or Andrew Jackson. He resembles more ancient, weirder characters we’ve read about (and forgotten) from deeper in our sordid human history, nutty rulers-in-chaos like the Roman Emperor Nero, who murdered his mother, executed his first wife, etc. Like Trump, Nero loved real estate and burned Rome (most but not all historians say) to make room for a golden mansion and 300 acres of garden. Like Trump, Nero bought golden replicas of himself. Nero coped with the outcry by blaming Christians and burning them. He kicked another pregnant wife to death. The Roman Senate eventually revolted, and Nero ran until cornered and then had his secretary kill him, lacking even the courage of a Hitler.
Trump lacks courage and lacks much of what makes us human. He’s leaked his own wild chaos into our system. We have no way to predict what this looney will do next, nor does he. But his thrashing about has made the brittle bones of the American system more visible.
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