Tom Friedman begins his latest column with a series of rhetorical questions:
What if Mitch McConnell, at the close of his scalding speech on the Senate floor blaming Donald Trump for the riot that occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6, had promised to use his every last breath to ensure that Trump was convicted on impeachment charges and could never, ever become president again?
What if Melania Trump, after the porn star Stormy Daniels said Trump had unprotected sex with her less than four months after Melania gave birth to their son, had thrown all of Trump’s clothes, golf clubs, MAGA hats and hair spray onto the White House lawn with this note, “Never come back, you despicable creep!”
What if the influential evangelical leader Robert Jeffress, after Trump was caught on tape explaining that as a TV star he felt entitled to “grab” women in the most intimate places — or after Trump was found liable by a Manhattan jury of having done pretty much just that to E. Jean Carroll — declared that he would lead a campaign to ensure that anyone but Trump was elected in 2024 because Trump was a moral deviant whom Jeffress would not let babysit his two daughters, let alone the country?
The questions explain why Donald Trump continues to get away with what he does. Trump, Friedman writes, is like a drug dealer
who thrives in a broken neighborhood, getting everyone hooked on his warped values. That is why he is doing everything he can to break our national neighborhood in two fundamental ways.
Trump has consistently tried to denigrate people who have demonstrated character and courage, by labeling them losers and weaklings. This comes easy to Trump because he is a man utterly without character — devoid of any sense of ethics or loyalty to any value system or person other than himself. And for him, politics is a blood sport in which you bludgeon the other guys and gals — whether they are in your party or not — with smears and nicknames and lies until they get out of your way.
Drug dealers thrive in neighborhoods where the residents don't have the courage to confront them. In other words, Trump continues to get away with his behaviour because of national cowardice. There's a lot of that going around in the United States.
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12 comments:
Calling it cowardice is letting people off lightly. Cowardice is turning a blind eye or running away, but the people around Trump are active participants, complicit in what he does.
Mitch McConnell drove Trump's agenda on repealing Obamacare, he rammed Trump's incompetent and unethical judicial picks through, and he fully backed the billionaires' tax cut and the cruelty at the US borders. Speaking of borders, Melania wore her "I don't care, do you?" jacket while touring the conditions on the Texas border. And Jeffress said after the January 6 insurrection that he absolutely doesn't regret backing Trump. These aren't cowards, they're co-conspirators! Friedman's the one showing cowardice by giving them an out.
Point well taken, Cap. They are guilty co-conspirators.
Trump supporters may not like Donald, but they like his opposition a lot less. AN
That's true, AN. But, then, they're not known for their ability to think critically.
That's true, AN. But, then, they're not known for their ability to think critically.
That nearly cost me a keyboard.
The costs are much greater than that, jrk.
If only tRump had a ghost-writer that matches Ted Sorensen's caliber!
Profiles in Courage was a bestseller in 1956, 1961 and 1963.
Meanwhile we can reflect on Eugene Debs/'national courage' ....
On this day in 1918, Debs delivered the anti-war speech that sent him to prison.
“The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.”
And Debs won a million votes (3.5%) as the socialist candidate ...
while residing in a prison cell! (Donald take heart!)
The guy who ghost-wrote The Art of the Deal keeps apologizing for his mistake, PoV.
The two men are not equivalents, PoV. And Debs didn't win the election.
If a socialist convict can get 3.5%, just think what a Rethuglican jailbird could do. ;-)
And on the courage file, RIP Daniel Ellsberg.
His exposures and warnings about nuclear war now more important than the Viet Pentagon Papers.
Ellsberg was a true profile in courage, PoV. Such men are rare, indeed.
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