Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 128th Edition. Attem...: The 127th edition of this was teed up to go before last night's White House Correspondence Dinner, or this would be that edition. Havin...
I tend to over empathetic.
That might be an easy thing to claim, but it's true. I'm often tortured in litigation by how little Plaintiff's lawyers care about their clients. Indeed, I think it's a hallmark of being a Plaintiff's lawyer, which I'm not, to not really give a rat's ass about them. Most of them are callous to it. I'm also tortured, however, by the extent to which litigation is regarded as a mere business transaction while it wrecks the lives an livelihoods of real people.
I'm bothered by the personal plights of people I don't know. In movies with sad situations I'll find myself tearing up. The killing of the Iranian schoolgirls in the current war bothers me so much that I couldn't tell my wife about it without starting to tear up and saying "think about their poor parents". I can hardly stand to think about it now and it fills me with rage that we killed them, even if it was a targeting accident. We have excuses, but we have no sympathy.
I note all of this as I'm bothered today by the extent to which the horrible human being and his acolytes in the White House have actually made me so fatigued that I'm having a hard time caring about what occurred at the Press Dinner.
Intellectually, I know it was awful. I don't support killing people. I'm opposed to abortion. I'm opposed to the death penalty. I'm opposed to wars save in the case of absolute need, a part of which his self defense. I'm realistic enough to know that people can take the lives of others in self defense, but murder of a person is never justified.
But day after day of Trump's assault on human dignity has worn me down so much that I'm not empathetic about yesterdays events. I know that they were wrong, but it's just an intellectual acknowledgement of it.
Sooner or later, most likely sooner given his advanced age, Donald Trump is going to pass on and go to his reward. He's publicly wondered if he's damned. As a Catholic, I hold to the belief that we should hope and pray for his salvation and that we do not know who is amongst the damned. Hans Von Baltazar posed the question if we might dare to hope that all men are saved, and while we might dare to hope it, I very much doubt that is the case. Still, we have no idea who is amongst the damned and who is amongst the saved, but just by objective Christian criteria, there's not a single member of Trump's administration that I hear about often whom I would not regard as having their souls in jeopardy.
I hate fact that Trump is so vile that he's made it so that I'm having a hard time being empathetic about a horrible event. If Trump was to choke on a Big Mac today I'd say a prayer for his salvation, but it wouldn't be one of those things were I consciously morn a death, as I usually do. I'm not wishing for his death, but I'm so burnt out about all things Trump I'd say a prayer for the dead and then probably move on to other things.
Trump has made many things that way. He's done such violence to our society and its norms that its reached the state where it's almost impossible to care about them. At this point, if the next President had to tear out the Reflecting Pool, I wouldn't care.
When Trump is gone the nation is going to have a monumental time repairing itself. I guess we have the example of the post Civil War era, in which the country manage to come back together in spite of actually fighting itself. How it managed that isn't really clear. It seems like it just decided it would.
Here's to hoping that the Better Angels of Our Mercy might return.
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Labels: 2020s, 2025 White House Vandalization, 2026, Conspiracy Theories, Donald Trump, Men, Military, News, Secret Service, The Press, The roles of men and women, Weapons, Women, Zeitgeist
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