Despicable people infect history with loathsome side effects. The despicable things they directly do are hateful, but they end. They leave behind, though, a legacy that lasts.
Take Hitler. (Let me re-phrase that – no one wants to “take Hitler). Hitler is an example. His very name is synonymous with evil. When Hitler lived, his family could not have been the only ones on the planet with that name. There must haven been other Hitlers living out very ordinary decent lives. But, now? Have you ever met or even heard of anyone named “Hitler”? His monstrous existence has erased his very name. It would be impossible to wade through life now with that moniker, even if you worked in the White House.
The parade of horribles that Hitler spawned directly need not be repeated. Indirectly, though, he left us with another awful legacy. He justifies war.
Whenever anyone argues that the repugnance of war is never worthwhile, there is one three-word response that stops that argument in its well greased tracks – “what about Hitler.” No rational person can say that we didn’t have to fight World War II.
And so with Trump. Not that Trump’s evil equates to Hitler. Virtually no one’s does. And not that our despicable President justifies war. No, his loathsome side effect is more subtle. His memory may result in the lowering of public discourse to a level that we never expected could ever be acceptable in our country. He has diminished the Presidency and tainted, maybe for a long time, the esteem that has traditionally been associated with that office.
Maybe I see if a little differently than others might. I knew Donald Trump personally when he was in the casino business. I see him as just a person – an awful person – but just a person. The other Presidents in my lifetime I saw as larger than life, beyond my experience. Maybe I started off thinking less of Trump.
But, I don’t think that’s it. Even if I hadn’t known him, I think it’s as obvious as the nose on Pinocchio’s face that his behavior is way below the standards we should rightly expect of the most powerful person in the world; that his vile disrespect for others coming, as it does, from the perch of the Oval Office despoils that Office; and, of course, that his aversion to the truth has created an America where facts have lost their meaning.
So, like we now ask “what about Hitler” when we seek the end of war, will some soon ask, “what about Trump,” when we seek to end the diminishment of our national character. I certainly hope not, but the longer we put up with this Orange Menace, the more likely it will be.
We were right 