The other day I picked up my wife and son from Reagan National and on the way home we decided to stop by The Italian Store, which offers perhaps the best Italian sub anywhere. My son Luke came to the counter with me and I ordered several menu items, which a nice young man began to make. Luke has autism and began to …Er, act autistic, bouncing around with little care as to conventional decorum. My teenaged sandwich maker took notice and asked politely if perhaps Luke had autism. I said yes and he offered a knowing smile. “My older brother has autism he confided, sometimes he acts kind of the same way.” Think about that. Some random kid making me sandwiches had been touched by the condition just as directly as I have. Of all the gin joints…..What are the odds? Sadly, way too good!
So many of the challenges America faces in the coming years are going to call for collective patience and empathy. Start with the disabled community. The autism epidemic ensures an unprecedented influx of adults who will require support and outside intervention their entire lives. When their parents and other family members pass on, so many will be alone and at the mercy of whatever safety nets we have created for them.
And speaking of parents, America is right now welcoming baby boomers into their golden years. With medicine and technology pushing forward life expectancies, the next few decades are going to challenge our children’s tender mercies and literally put our well being in their hands. Seniors without children are going to be alone as they give way to dependence on others. How will they be treated? Many in both of these vulnerable groups will be poor and unable to pay for the assurance of attention and care. Where will it come from? It’s going to require more than our best intentions; there is going to be a financial sacrifice to it, not to mention the collective patience to tolerate those with little left on offer but their faltering efforts to meet society’s expectations.
What about our veterans? After a generation of continuous war and occupation, we now have thousands returning home with an entire range of injuries, PTSD to brain damage. They served bravely and deserve the best care, and many will rely on it the rest of their lives. All agree it isn’t up for discussion, but as the years pass and resources tighten their level of care will surely come down to our collective compassion.
As the nation’s overcrowded prison system releases men sentenced to decades at the height of American justice’s “zero-tolerance” golden days, they, too, will be defenseless and most likely without funds just as their bodies and health begin to fail. Who will advocate for them? What slice of the pie will voters allocate them as they struggle after adulthoods regimented by institutional life? And on and on, the list is long and getting longer. Fact is, the tidal wave of adults at least partly dependent on the better nature of the rest of society will intertwine with every other facet of American life and governance; nobody will be able to ignore them.
The GOP since Reagan has held fast to the premise that our politics should be divorced from our better natures. Charity should be in the heart of every individual and not mandated by the state. Public policy should proceed on the maxim our better angels exist and can be counted on. Of course this presumption is at odds with the Hobbesian foundation of conservatism; that mankind is at our core fairly malevolent and, as a guiding rule, in need of structure to impel law and order. But no matter, consistency is the hobgoblin of simple minds and all that.
What counts is that for near 40 years Republicans, whether informed by the Reagan Revolution, or HW Bush’s “a thousand points of light,” or W Bush’s “compassionate conservatism,” held fast to the notion of compartmentalization of America’s goodness. One could be a John Kasich-like deficit hawk, prepared to make tough-love cuts to social programs, yet willing and able to step in with private largesse to fill the void. If one received a dollar for every time disgraced Fox prime timer Bill O’Reilly averred “we are the most generous people on Earth,” a substantial slush fund could be amassed.
Whatever confidence one could once muster that friends and neighbors who supported otherwise Scroogian political platforms went about life’s routines exhibiting essentially the opposite inclination toward those in need, surely has been decimated. Even the most ardent proponent of the necessity for segmentation of political and private sensibilities must surely be disheartened by what MAGA proponents are willing to, not simply look past, but enthusiastically cheer on. Forget the indifferent callousness of Trumpism’s policy agenda, the ability to abide their champion’s atrocious personal behavior should lead any discerning person to doubt a Republican’s commitment to the least of these on any level.
Education secretary Betsy DeVos smirking at lawmakers as she postured what a hard call cutting funding for Special Olympics was – something no Administration before this one even gave a moment’s consideration to – was a stunner, but quickly passed into the chaos of another news cycle. When Trump openly mocked a Washington Post reporter’s disability on the campaign trail it was rightfully seen as an unthinkable breach of established standards for decency, but it too faded as MAGA partisans shrilly declared our own eyes couldn’t be trusted. Ditto credible recollections of the President’s disdain for poor “shit hole” countries and the refugees they create.
This particular news round up features perhaps the ugliest evidence yet of Trump’s despicable nature. To settle a suit brought against the Trump Foundation a New York judge ordered the President to make good on $2 million worth of fraud his charity perpetrated on those naive enough to believe anything with the Trump name abided legitimacy. Back in January of 2016 Trump made a point of boycotting a GOP debate and holding a veterans fundraiser. Where did the donations go? According to the settlement, which Trump accepted, everywhere but to veterans. From using donations for political purposes to settling civil disputes to, incredibly, actually obtaining a portrait of himself to hang in the bowels of Mar-A-Lago…. no abuse seemed too outrageous.
The White House response? A typical Trump screed, completely ignoring the case itself and lying repeatedly about what the judgement entailed, and of course whining about the Clinton Foundation. By the usual sorry Trump numbers. Regardless, the gist of the suit’s resolution could not be clearer: as recently as 2016 the POTUS was actively scamming disabled veterans out of donations to their welfare. That is a fact.
MAGA sympathizers are flummoxed by what they now label as gratuitous “hate” they receive from “never Trumpers.” For the life of them they can’t understand why the traditional walls between politics and personal relationships are now suddenly being breached. Many a meme now circulates pleading for civility and perspective. Hey, it’s just politics…, quit being sore losers! It’s so unfair to make us suffer for our grievance and resentment. Trump has fully passed down his narcissistic victimhood to wretched core supporters. They deserve nothing but deaf ears.
Nobody sets out to think less of their friends and fellow citizens. What piece of mind can be achieved with the understanding many of your peers lack basic compassion? Yet and still, nasty self-absorption, antonymous to empathy and understanding, is a primary MAGA component. Go to most any Fox/AM thread and you’ll find boastful declarations about looking out for number one at the expense of the more vulnerable. Those in need are fraudsters, reliance a vice to be scorned. Who can take any satisfaction in that? But ignoring it can’t be an option or it becomes normal.
A vile bully, who instinctively mocks any weakness he detects in others, occupies the White House. The notion supporting such a disgrace shouldn’t taint one’s standing with peers seems as dense as Trump himself. As he daily spirals to deeper and deeper depths, the willingness of his supporters to shrug their shoulders, or worse, try to revise the record becomes ever less tolerable. The suggestion it’s just a difference of opinion politics typically creates, part and parcel of democratic life, is no longer simply oblivious, it’s willful ignorance on its best day.
The world we want to see is reflected in our politics; our governance can’t be some hobby or sidelight….. especially now. In the past there was more than enough moral ambiguity within the differences of our two major parties to permit one’s choice exemption from scrutiny as to good faith and best intentions. Now there isn’t. Trump and his customized GOP have obliterated any previous benefit of the doubt. What once could rightly be seen as self-righteous and judgmental intrusion, has become a modicum of civic responsibility, a shred of common decency. The President’s ceaseless preening about the economy aside, it’s the people who depend on us, stupid! BC
Perfect. And if a single one of them thinks the rest of us will forget? I sure as hell hope they don’t own businesses – because I will boycott every single one owned by a Trumpette.