I’ve written enough about the warped malicious mind of Trump, what has become the field of psychological study known now as Trumpology. Politico Magazine even publishes all their articles about Trump’s mental health, or lack thereof, under a section with that title.
Eight years ago I had my own life-changing experience with what it means to hear a doctor say the words “stage 4 cancer.” Right now am waiting to get a biopsy report to see if a lesion on the thin skin under my eye is a squamous cell carcinoma. The worst case is that I will need MOS surgery and some plastic reconstruction but it won’t kill me.
Malignant is one of the most frightening medical words in the English language. Combined with “metastisized” (or stage four) it portends the most frightening journey anyone can take for themselves and their loved ones. These words often mean death is on the horizon.
The passing of Senator John McCain and Trump’s callous vengeful reaction in his Tweet (rejecting a tribute statement prepared by his staff) and his breaking precedent by only keeping the White House flag at half-staff over the weekend led me to write this.
Trump has to be seething as tributes to John McCain, a true American hero, fill the media, even on Fox News:
Trump is a metastasized malignancy on the country any way you want to look at it. His cancer has spread across the country and his unchanged support among Republicans demonstrates he has infected them.
Trump’s cancer is uniquely deadly. However, it won’t kill or hurt him or his supporters.
Fred Hiatt puts it well in today’s NY Times: The wound that may long outlive Donald Trump .
When it’s all over, the most enduring damage may be not to civility, the rule of law or even America’s standing in the world.
The wound that may longest outlive President Trump and his enablers will be the racial and ethnic fear and hatred they so cynically stoked and exploited.
In addition to what Hiatt warns, Trump’s cancer will kill (some of those who can’t get healthcare or succumb to air pollution for example) or hurt thousands of innocents in myriad ways.
No matter what else happens this week as McCain is eulogized Trump will be demonstrating his sickness of the soul by lashing out at his enemies (pulling more security clearances perhaps) and trying to aggrandize himself as he already did with his phone call to President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico. (Right: a smug Trump hanging up the phone after talking to the President of Mexico with whom he still has major differences not only about immigration and the wall, but on including Canada in NAFTA.)
I predict Trump will do something major which is symptomatic of his aggressive malignancy this week not only to distract from the coverage of John McCain’s lifetime of service but also to divert attention from any more breaking news out of all the ongoing investigations. If Mueller issues more indictments I think, to quote Omarosa's book title, I think we will see some eye-popping unraveling.