By Charles M. Blow
New York Times
We are leaderless. America doesn’t have a president. America has a man in the White House holding the spot, and wreaking havoc as he waits for the day when a real president arrives to replace him.
Donald Trump is many things – most of them despicable– but the leader of a nation he is not. He is not a great man. Hell, he isn’t even a good man.
Donald Trump is a man of flawed character and a moral cavity. He cannot offer moral guidance because he has no moral compass. He is too small to see over his inflated ego.
Trump has personalized the presidency in unprecedented ways – making every battle and every war about his personal feelings. Did the person across the street or around the world say good or bad things about him? Does the media treat him fairly? Is someone in his coterie of corruption outshining him or casting negative light on him?
His interests center on the self; country be damned.
What some have always known about Trump, others are slowly coming to realize, and with great shock and horror. The presidency is revealing the essence of the man and that essence is dark. What America saw clearly in Trump’s disastrous handling of the violence in Charlottesville was a Nazi/white nationalist apologist if not sympathizer, a reactionary rage-aholic, a liar, and a person who has absolutely no sense or understanding of history.
By claiming that there were some "very fine people" among the extremists marching in Charlottesville, the president made a profound declaration: The accommodation of racists is his creed.
As Susan Bro, whose daughter, Heather Heyer, was killed in Charlottesville, said last week, “You can’t wash this one away by shaking my hand and saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ ” Heather Heyer was killed when James Alex Fields Jr. used a speeding car to mow down a crowd of protesters who had gathered to rebuke the Nazis and white nationalists.
According to Chicago Tribune, one of Fields’s high school teachers said he once “wrote a three-page homework paper that extolled Nazi ideology and the prowess of the Führer’s armed forces,” and that even before then, the teacher said, “he had been well aware of Fields’s racist and anti-Semitic beliefs from private discussions he had with Fields during his junior year.”
And even worse, The Tribune reported:
“At least four times when the boy was in the eighth and ninth grades, Florence police were summoned to his home, mostly by his frantic mother, Samantha Bloom, an I.T. specialist. It was just the two of them living together, and young James, among other incidents, was reported to have spat in her face, smacked her head with a phone and frightened her with a foot-long knife, according to records of the 911 calls. Neighbors, in interviews, similarly described a troubled youth who treated his mother cruelly.”
This was no fine person, and no person who walked shoulder-to-shoulder with him is a fine person. There are no good Nazis. There are no good white nationalist accommodators. There are no good people who see racists and don’t want to retch.
We are leaderless. America doesn’t have a president. America has a man in the White House holding the spot, and wreaking havoc as he waits for the day when a real president arrives to replace him.
Donald Trump is many things – most of them despicable– but the leader of a nation he is not. He is not a great man. Hell, he isn’t even a good man.
Donald Trump is a man of flawed character and a moral cavity. He cannot offer moral guidance because he has no moral compass. He is too small to see over his inflated ego.
Trump has personalized the presidency in unprecedented ways – making every battle and every war about his personal feelings. Did the person across the street or around the world say good or bad things about him? Does the media treat him fairly? Is someone in his coterie of corruption outshining him or casting negative light on him?
His interests center on the self; country be damned.
What some have always known about Trump, others are slowly coming to realize, and with great shock and horror. The presidency is revealing the essence of the man and that essence is dark. What America saw clearly in Trump’s disastrous handling of the violence in Charlottesville was a Nazi/white nationalist apologist if not sympathizer, a reactionary rage-aholic, a liar, and a person who has absolutely no sense or understanding of history.
By claiming that there were some "very fine people" among the extremists marching in Charlottesville, the president made a profound declaration: The accommodation of racists is his creed.
As Susan Bro, whose daughter, Heather Heyer, was killed in Charlottesville, said last week, “You can’t wash this one away by shaking my hand and saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ ” Heather Heyer was killed when James Alex Fields Jr. used a speeding car to mow down a crowd of protesters who had gathered to rebuke the Nazis and white nationalists.
According to Chicago Tribune, one of Fields’s high school teachers said he once “wrote a three-page homework paper that extolled Nazi ideology and the prowess of the Führer’s armed forces,” and that even before then, the teacher said, “he had been well aware of Fields’s racist and anti-Semitic beliefs from private discussions he had with Fields during his junior year.”
And even worse, The Tribune reported:
“At least four times when the boy was in the eighth and ninth grades, Florence police were summoned to his home, mostly by his frantic mother, Samantha Bloom, an I.T. specialist. It was just the two of them living together, and young James, among other incidents, was reported to have spat in her face, smacked her head with a phone and frightened her with a foot-long knife, according to records of the 911 calls. Neighbors, in interviews, similarly described a troubled youth who treated his mother cruelly.”
This was no fine person, and no person who walked shoulder-to-shoulder with him is a fine person. There are no good Nazis. There are no good white nationalist accommodators. There are no good people who see racists and don’t want to retch.
To read rest of editorial, click on link: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/opinion/donald-trump-leadership-failing-presidency.html?mcubz=3
5 comments:
Great writing! Read & learn, Juan!
As a great man (unknown) said, "Believe nothing you read only half of what you see." Since the media has taken upon themselves to attack Trump....we hear an orchestrated attack, regardless of "real" news.
Anyone who reads or listens to opinions in the New York Times needs to go into deep meditation to regrasp reality. Many years ago the NYT philosophically changed its masthead slogan to its accurate wording: "All the news that fits we print."
The only accurate information on any printed media outlet is - the date.
What excuse does anyone have make us accept the rhetoric that our so-called president makes every time he opens his big mouth and sticks his big foot in it. As Ann Richards said about one former president, this one has a big silver foot in his mouth too. When a young 4 or 5 year old child is able to listen to him talk and turn around and ask an adult why acts like he does, something is wrong. He reminds me of the times we argued while playing ball and if we didn't agree with the bully in the crowd, he would take his bat and go home. He didn't realize that we would use a broom stick to keep playing so maybe that is what Trump needs. I wonder what his young son thinks about what he hears his father say and if he is even allowed to watch the media. I feel for this young boy, whom I believe is probably the most-bullied young man in any school. The older ones have already been brained washed and can really make up excuses for their Dad, but the little one looks so spaced out that I seriously doubt that he even knows what is going on. Does he even have a puppy to play with at the White House? How sad.
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