Easter is many things to many people. Before the resurrection of Christ, spring and the rebirth of nature was celebrated at this time of year in pagan ritual. Both spring and the Resurrection speak to renewal and metamorphosis. This is a spiritual time of year. The planet sloughs off winter and begins its cycle of growth, while we ponder our identity as people and our place in the cosmos. It is a time in the Judeo-Christian calendar when we gather together and draw closer to God.
But not if you’re Donald Trump. No, Easter is just another opportunity to take a shot at one’s enemies. So climb down from your ivory tower, or come out of your sanctum, where you were contemplating the mysteries of the universe, and roll in the mud with Trumpty Dumpty for a few minutes. And then we’re going to have a laugh at his expense.
Letitia James is never far from his mind.
And Trumpty hasn’t forgotten the yous and mes, aren’t you thriled?
“I hate your guts, you’re terrible people, but I wish you the best.”
Now that you have been disgusted, per usual, prepare to be uplifted. This is, after all, Easter. It is a time to be uplifted.
I found these descriptions of Trump, written by the philosophers and authors, C.S. Lewis and George Santayana, back in the day. They had him pegged. Trump has walked on this earth before. Maybe not the exact man himself, but his kind of a man. Here are their descriptions, shared with Charlie Sykes at the Bulwark and published in his newsletter today.
From: Eve Fisher
C. S. Lewis had Donald Trump’s number back in the 1950s:
“Picture to yourself a man who has risen to wealth or power by a continued course of treachery and cruelty, by exploiting for purely selfish ends the noble motions of his victims, laughing the while at their simplicity; who, having thus attained success, uses it for the gratification of lust and hatred and finally parts with the last rag of honour among thieves by betraying his own accomplices and jeering at their last moments of bewildered disillusionment. Suppose, further, that he does all this, not (as we like to imagine) tormented by remorse or even misgiving, but eating like a schoolboy and sleeping like a healthy infant — a jolly, ruddy-cheeked man, without a care in the world, unshakably confident to the very end that he alone has found the answer to the riddle of life, that God and man are fools whom he has got the better of, that his way of life is utterly successful, satisfactory, unassailable….” – C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Welcome to your leader, MAGA.
From: Lewis Grotelueschen
I like this description from Santayana:
“For the barbarian is the man who regards his passions as their own excuse for being; who does not domesticate them either by understanding their cause or by conceiving their ideal goal. He is the man who does not know his derivations nor perceive his tendencies, but who merely feels and acts, valuing in his life its force and its filling, but being careless of its purpose and its form. His delight is in abundance and vehemence; his art, like his life, shows an exclusive respect for quantity and splendour of materials. His scorn for what is poorer and weaker than himself is only surpassed by his ignorance of what is higher.”
Trump is ignorant of what is higher than himself, that’s spot on. But I think on some level he longs for it. I say that, not to give him credit for any kind of awareness, are you kidding, but merely to remark that we all, as human beings, long for a connection with that which is beyond the normal sphere of the senses, the kind of completion that is only found in a spiritual connection.
I think that’s what his run for president was about. It’s well known that Trump loves being in front of the footlights and the crowds and hearing them roar. Celebrity is not only his drug, it’s his religion. He interprets the world in terms of celebrity. It’s the closest he can come to even contemplating spiritual values. Not knowing anything of real love, he has found the substitute of attention. Infamy is a perverse form of love but if it’s all you can get because of your own perversity, then it will have to do, right?
And Trump may not know this Jesus guy, but he knows he built a hell of a brand and still gets good numbers. And that, my friends, is as far as his thinking goes.
Happy Easter from Murfster, Mopsy, Denis and myself, Ursula.
I have to agree, both of those descriptions are spot-on.
I hadn’t seen the Santayana, but I know the Lewis quote very well. It was offered as a partial explanation (or, if you like, a defense) of why people believe in hell, or karma, or reincarnation – because it would kill our spirits to believe that such awfulness could exist unchallenged. And I don’t think he was wrong.