Quick show of hands, how many of you have children? Now, remember when they were 7 years old? What was it like when you walked in the door after being gone for 9-10 hours at work? Remember the squealed “Mommy! or “Daddy!” and the hug? What if you had to go away for a week on business? You got home to find that you just grew a new appendage on your left hip. And if you brought home a $7 toy from the airport gift shop? Forget about it, you were King Shit for a week.
Living in this paradise on earth called Trumpmenistan, I find myself looking more and more often for little “feel good” stories to lift the fog of despair for a moment or two. And what could be more uplifting and emotionally positive than watching a 7 year old reunited with his mother after a month in an Alex Azar version of a “Sandals” resort for kids, right? You tell me.
What was that?!? The boy’s mother is overjoyed, the part of her that was torn from her by a bunch of thugs in bulletproof vests, and now he’s back in her arms again. just watch the child though. He won’t even remove his arms from the blanket to hug her. His head just rests on her shoulder, but where is the emotion? And I don’t wanna hear about “the cameras,” when pure emotion takes over, outside surrounding cease to exist, that’s what makes news coverage of tragic events so compelling.
But worst of all is his eyes. Watch the video again, and look into the boys eyes. You’ve seen those eyes before, we all have. We’ve seen them on the survivors of train wrecks, and natural disasters. The eyes of someone who has looked into an abyss that they never even thought existed. The eyes of the lost, and the emotionally scarred. The eyes of a survivor.
And as far as that child is concerned, we did that. After all, the government speaks and acts in our name. What experts bemoan in cases of abusive relationships is the “loss of childhood” that the children suffer. These people made that 1,000 mile journey to give their children a shot at a childhood, and this is what we gave them instead. sad, empty, survivor eyes.
I’m not even wasting a single thought on a moral degenerate like Trump. After all, this is a man who never changed a diaper, bragged about the only time he spent with his kids was when they played on the carpet of his office while he screwed investors, and hosed vendors, and who once slapped his oldest son in the chops for wanting to wear a Yankees jersey to a game they were going to. When his daughter hugs him, you can almost hear her thinking “Ewww! Steady Ivanka, think of the will.”
No, I’m thinking of Paul Ryan, “Mr family.” This is the polyester pig who publicly bitched about not wanting to be Speaker of the House because it would take him away from his family too much. This is a man who runs from the bully, and his voters, by piously explaining that his children are growing up so fast without him. A man who is gone from home 4 nights a week, separated from his beloved children, but while he’s gone, his wife still tucks them into bed every night.
So, Paul Ryan, and Matt Gaetz, and Jim Jordan, and all of the rest of the spineless, soulless ghouls of Team Trump, take your victory lap. Look into those sad, haunted eyes every night on television, raise your glass, and say “A job well done.” But know this. There is nowhere you can go where you won’t be recognized, and where we won’t spit on the ground after you walk by. The rest of us really don’t feel much like celebrating right now, and its all because of you. I guess it’s a good thing that the GOP leadership handbook has a section in it on how to sleep with your eyes open. And don’t forget to hug your precious children, while so many others can’t. After all, it’s the children that make us human, right?
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