When I look at him, I see a man who fairly oozes rage and
hostility, thinly disguised at times as “humor” or pseudo-congeniality or bluster. Or
pretense at depth. But the entitled sense of alcoholic umbrage is still always
already there beneath it all. It is truly painful to watch.
I see a wounded little boy who was raised with the horribly
mistaken notion that money is the key to everything, including especially
happiness. A little boy who grew into a youth and then a man and has long since
realized, unconsciously, that money cannot buy everything, least of all the
most important things. But now it is far, far too late to acknowledge the
truth. He is invested, literally and figuratively. He is all-in on money and
power, and the animal soul that will never be satiated, but it will never really satisfy that little boy.
And so he rages on, loudly and quietly, by day and in the dark
of night, against anyone who gainsays him, anyone who doesn't like him, anyone
who doesn't look like him but dares to speak anyway. For that rage will
never be assuaged. That greed will never be sated. That wound cannot be healed,
no matter how hard he tries to bandage it with “success” that is not success at
all.
And meanwhile, that helpless little child is in there, just
wanting to be loved for who he is, not for what he can earn. One can have pity for him, at least, as indeed one may have for Mary Shelley's monster. For they have this much in common: They want only to be human, to have what others have in abundance. But they cannot, because they have been created otherwise.
Alas he is indeed the apotheosis of American exceptionalism itself, the
living, breathing, blond incarnation of all the intoxicated selfishness and entitlement
that we have foisted on the rest of the world. As a nation, we are capable of
great feats of generosity (we have the resources to do that, anyway). But true generosity
must be selfless and cannot come with strings attached. Are we capable of that? Is
he?
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