This Conservative columnist slammed Donald Trump as a coward and accused him of singlehandedly transforming the Republican Party. But it is the words of the commenter that got to the essence of who Donald Trump is.
New York Times Conservative columnist David Brooks wrote a piece that blasted Trump for the tenor of fear he is bringing the country. He contrasted a comparatively positive Ronald Reagan to Trump, a man desperate to be liked.
If Reagan’s dominant emotional note was optimism, Trump’s is fear. If Reagan’s optimism was expansive, Trump’s fear propels him to close in: Pull in from Asian entanglements through rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Pull in from European entanglements by disparaging NATO. It’s not a cowering, timid fear; it’s more a dark, resentful porcupine fear.
We have a word for people who are dominated by fear. We call them cowards. Trump was not a coward in the business or campaign worlds. He could take on enormous debt and had the audacity to appear at televised national debates with no clue what he was talking about. But as president, his is a policy of cowardice. On every front, he wants to shrink the country into a shell.
Brook’s entire article is worth the read. But it was one of the commenters to his article that made the most prescient statement.
El Jamon
New York 7 hours ago
I am not a wealthy man. According to Donald Trump, I would be a loser. I changed diapers. I am an attentive, nurturing father. I built a modest business.
I am devoted to my spouse. We’ve been through thick and thin, better or worse and we still remain devoted and deeply in love.
Our home is modest. Our car is not luxurious. I served my country and paid for college myself, without ever taking a loan or dime from my parents.
And I am happy because I am grateful.
Every single day, I am grateful for this life, better or worse, rich or poor. I’m even grateful for the trials and struggles I’ve had. I’m grateful for the wisdom life’s difficulties and set backs have provided.
The man in the gilded tower is not grateful. He is not wise. He is steeped in fears that, though we see the same television news stations, and read many of the same papers, I do not share.
Why is it that someone who had never wondered how he was going to pay for college, someone who (unlike myself) was backed by the generosity of the happenstance of wealthy parents, someone who cycles through luxury, why is he not grateful? Why is he so angry?
Look at this wealthy, powerful man’s face. He is tormented, even twisted by his fears, and envy and pride, despite the evidence and, as he often brags, the rewards of his greed and gluttony.
Why do I, a poor man by comparison, live in a state of gratitude, while he is in service to his envy and wrath? I view Mr. Trump’s fear, lust and sloth and I do not envy him.
Understanding Donald Trump allows one to hone the resistance that must be effected now. That he made it to the white house is a scar that will forever live with every American who voted for him when his completeness of the mistake is realized.
(h/t DailyKos)