Substance?

Disgusting. Depraved. Cruel. Evil. Ignorant. Choose your own...

A good man who did wonderful work, who was kind and wise and beloved by many across the political spectrum was murdered horrifically, in his own home, with his wife, by their own son. An insane act fueled, it would seem, by drug addiction. It is hard to imagine a more tragic event; nor one in which it would seem easier and more natural to empathize. To weep with the remaining family and friends. To feel great sorrow and shared grief and horror.

Except for Donald Trump. He instead published a screed in which he inserted himself (of course he did) into the story and attacked the victim, saying his death was caused by his deranged opposition to the Beloved Leader. He gloated in the violence and in the tragedy. I will not quote the screed. I will instead quote CONSERVATIVE columnist Mona Charen, who says Trump ‘evidently fantasizes about the violent death of every critic’. She accuses him of ‘a thirst for political violence’ (even when there is zero evidence that it is remotely political) and says he occupies a category all his own ‘in his breathtaking moral depravity.’ Finally she summarizes, ‘The man is a moral abomination, and so are his defenders.’

Well. She says it very well. I heard a different ‘conservative’ on a CNN panel, who after protesting weakly that ‘those wouldn’t be my words,’ and ‘He shouldn’t have said that.’ went on to praise Trump as ‘the most consequential, substantive political leader of the last half-century.’ Consequential and substantive. How can we argue? Except to say that Hitler was consequential, too. So was Stalin. And Mussolini. Big consequences. And even substance. But the man seemed to take zero account of the KIND of consequences and the sort of substance.

Evidently, that matters not to Trump defenders. Just as Mona Charen said. The only consequences Trump will leave behind will be tragic, amoral, and destructive ones. And as for substance, a pile of decaying, stinking manure is certainly substantive. Just as much as anything else, I guess. I wouldn’t want to be known for it.

Abraham Lincoln is remembered and honored for his Gettysburg Address, among other luminous statements. Trump will remain known forever for his lies, his ‘tweets,’ his insults, his immorality, his ignorance, and for a thousand quotes that end up being as timeless, admirable, and worth just as much as a pile of barnyard excrement.