You are here

Home » Blogs » Steven D. Brewer's blog

Mean-spirited

On November 19, the President of the United States indicated that China, to curry favor with him, had released US citizens that its totalitarian regime might otherwise have incarcerated. But the father of one of those released was insufficently grateful to satisfy the enormous ego of Donald Trump, so he said this:

And then five hours later, said this:

What kind of human being acts like this? What kind of person doesn't understand flattery enough to recognize (1) that a foreign power was appealing to his narcissistic ego by releasing the US citizens that way and (2) that expecting people to kow-tow, or show fealty, for something that he, personally, had little or nothing to do with is asking people to lie to your face. I suppose that's what power means to Donald Trump: the power to hold people down, rather than to lift them up; the power to divide them, rather than unite them.

The words that come to my mind are "mean-spirited". But as Rush Limbaugh said:

The Democrats, the left has this 30-year playbook of how to destroy conservatives by simply exposing the horrible, the mean-spirited, insensitive things they say, but that isn't going to work on Trump the way it works on conservatives, for a whole host of reasons.

As I said yesterday, the Democrats have some work to do if they want to articulate a vision that isn't just pointing out what a horrible person Donald Trump is, because Americans don't seem to care anymore. They seem motivated more by revenge: looking for enemies to punish for their decline in fortunes. Why they choose to punish the powerless, rather than the ones who actually caused their misery is anyone's guess.