What is due in the way of kindness and sympathy to people who have no kindness and sympathy for anyone else? Should we repay horrifying cruelty in equal measure? Then we reduce ourselves to their level. But if we return indecency with the decency due any other person in need, don’t we encourage appalling behavior? …
The pandemic was not Trump’s fault, but at every turn, he made things worse than they had to be—because at every turn, he cared only for himself, never for the country. And now he will care only for himself again.
Trump should never have been allowed anywhere near any public office. Wish him well, but recognize that his deformed spirit will never be well—and that nothing can be well for the country under his leadership.
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The shriveling of Trump makes UD think of that Philip Roth title — The Dying Animal. Or the Yeats poem from which the title comes – for Yeats too knew how nightmarish it was to be merely an animal.
What is due to this self-sickened man? The pity we feel for a dying animal.
October 3rd, 2020 at 7:16AM
He deserves all the sympathy accorded a drunk driver who crashed into a school bus.
October 3rd, 2020 at 12:38PM
Matt: You’ve got a point there.