Did I mean daunting in the subhead above? Nope, I meant taunting. You may disagree, but I shall deconstruct the NYTimes editorial of this AM for our mutual edification. First, the editorial so you can read along if you like.
I believe that the worst unacknowledged human sin is characterization. We all do it and should seek daily forgiveness because it is so ingrained. When you paste for all the world to see the sign "trump, melting under criticism" you are not in a civil venue, you are in a school yard. Taunting.
Admittedly, you would not say this in a schoolyard but consider the insult.
In a movie, it has the once lofty figure President Trump morphing into a puddle and possibly evaporating. The schoolyard taunt is that Trump cannot take it.
The Times should have said Trump is risking a meltdown. I prefer collapse because Trump's collapses have a clear and definite quality. They do not dispatch him. He gets up. He survives. I have always assumed that, if and when he goes, he does it on his own terms.
A meltdown would be lovely
We are witnessing a drama where the protagonist is engaged in exposing the full degree of degradation that we deserve to be aware of. He is exposing the deep state. He is exposing the face of greed. He is exposing the way the GOP does not care for voters.
He is exposing the Democrat's woeful incapacity even to utter a straight sentence in public. When the full show is over, I think he will go.
He lives in the now
It appears that Trump for all his faults and sins lives in the moment. This is actually the only way to live if reality is of interest. When Trump tweets about nonexistent things in the past, or remembered events, he is not consulting a to-do list.
He is operating on a momentary impulse.
That this seems uninformed by ethics or aesthetics may well be the case. To be actually free and universal, you need to fuse ethics and aesthetics and act according to decent values. We all fall down, but this is the drill.
President Trump, Melting Under Criticism https://t.co/C8NtGKeDNj
— Stephen C. Rose (@stephencrose) July 1, 2017
The Times Editorial
The Times writer or writers sound a bit like offended relatives who wish ill but want to make such wishes seem laden with gravitas.
Instead of saying what a schmuck Trump is for allowing the world to be dragged into depression by wild rants, we hear he is melting down. But he isn't. He has already concluded that the failing New York Times is at it again, dreaming.
The Trump collapse
It is remarkable that Trump keeps collapsing. This is not how things were with George Washington believe me. Even Abe Lincoln could invest all manner of time in other things than fighting enemies. Trump is a one-time event that many Americans understand. It has some layers that are not comprehended by the media.
The media has little understanding of the actual dynamics of exclusion, either the basic one or the peculiar sense of exclusion that is the energy behind the Trump base. It's not that hard. But you will not get it from this editorial.
