Pity, for Donald J. Trump.
I woke up with the strangest feeling in my heart; a feeling I would have denied with vehemence if asked a year ago. A feeling I can’t seem to shake. A feeling that makes me feel vile just to consider.
Pity, for Donald J. Trump.
I despise the man and everything he stands for; every tweet and every provocation. I revile him for the ways he has slowly degraded important cultural norms, and change loved one’s postures towards each other – plainly, it’s what he’s made acceptable. I hate myself for it, I really do, but I’m sick just looking at him – the fake orange glow on old sickly skin. An obese, waddling, aging, and increasingly unstable man. I have almost made a sport of the ways I’ve demonized him and debased him in my thoughts, never mind the words which I’ve permitted to exit my fingers via qwerty.
But I awoke this morning and heard a description of him as we’ve arrived post mid-terms and pre-Mueller report. It described a seventy-something year-old-man, spending most of his day in front of the television and eating fast food. It described a man slowly deteriorating mentally, whose vocabulary has noticeably degraded over the last ten years. I heard the description of a man who doesn’t sleep and isn’t loved. I looked at a man who knows no loyalty and has no friends. I see a condemned man with not enough to lose and with too much power to wield.
I pitied him for a moment, and then I pitied us for longer. I pitied how we allowed our world to get here.
The overcited quote, “A saint is a sinner who keeps trying” (attributed, St. Josemaría Escrivá) screams to me much more than it used to in my prayers. The systemic infection of cultural shifts due to the Trumpian movement backwards towards toxic masculine strong man leadership as the best means to achievement and financial success, well, it has made its way into our dinner tables and pews in ways we have not yet fully named or recognized. We have some trying we need to do.
I don’t know who loves you Mr. President, I really don’t. It seems like no one really does. But whoever it is, whoever really loves you… for you. The way I hope your mother did. Please find that person and ask them what you should do next. I pray that person really does love you and that person will be able to tell you truth in the midst of your world of lies.
You need to step down, Donald. You need to get help and so does the world who allowed you to be in this position of power. Every republican Senator who gave political support to you, every fearful Democratic Congressmen who stood silent as you took your country down this path, every voter who defended you for far too long, every social media inciter who twisted truth into needless lies, every MAGA vendor who capitalized on your financial coat tails, and every white nationalist and hate group who’ve been empowered to set the world on fire with your hate.
We all have to look deep down and do some introspection once in a while, don’t we? Moral inventory, confession and absolution, evening prayers, I hope we all find our way. Because we all need a spring cleaning from the infection this movement has caused in our culture. In the church. In our city. In our families and amongst our friends. But most of all, I need it removed from myself. I need it removed from the ways my own life needs correctives from his brand of leadership, and why every organization needs to take a long hard look at whose ladder is being climbed and how.
It's time to exorcise some demons from the degrading direction we find ourselves headed. In my world, we say, “Repent, and return to the Lord.”