His column for today’s New York Times is titled It's the Cruelty, Stupid and reminds us of so many of what I cannot help but describe as the transgressions against humanity and violations of American principles committed under the leadershipo/direction of the current occupant of the Oval Office, with the tolerance and even active support of far too many in positions of power, most (not all) Republican office holders and/orm those whose wealth or associations with same somehow give them more power than the ordinary folks of “We the people of the United States” who are the true sovereigns of this nation.
That’s a long, run-on sentence.
I could support it with many examples from the column, but I won ‘t. That’s because many of us could make the same observations as those made by Blow, and perhaps offer even more on-point examples than he is able to share in his column.
But there is something much more important in this column.
Blow approaches it by acknowledging that he worries about being redundant when he once again writes about how much of what we are seeing flows from Trump’s viewing the worlod throught the lens of White cultural dominance, both domestically and in international relations (despite his willingness I might note to want to affiliate and be like strongmen whom most Americans would not consider “White” such as Dutarte, Erdogan, Kim Jong Un, and Xi.
What I consider the heart of the column is the latter portion, in which he asserts that there will eventually be an historical accounting, from which NONE of us will be immune.
Please keep reading.
Consider the paragraph which commences this section:
The questions will come without room for equivocation or adjustment: Where were you when the bodies floated in the Rio Grande? What did you say when this president bragged about assaulting women and defended men accused of doing the same? What was your reaction when he saw very good people among the Nazis? Where was your outrage when thousands died in Puerto Rico?
Already I hope that you are examining your own past words and actions.
As I look back, I wonder if I have allowed myself to become inured, because there are so many outrages it seems as if there is not enough time and energy to oppose them all. And I realize the real danger that represents. Here I think of the original trial of the four police officers who abused Rodney King, sparking riots in Los Angeles. His defense lawyers played the video over and over, and for the jurors the shock value wore off, and in the California case the abusive police officers were acquitted.
The paragraph I have quoted is just the start of what some might call a screed.
Beyond my own previous actions/inactions, I have to also consider my forthcoming role as a teacher of Government in a distinguished Catholic school, and how I approach these issues. I am still wrestling with that as I also read through Michael Sandel’s Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do?, which is the required reading for the faculty this summer.
I do not know as of yet what my future words and actions will entail. I often note that as a teacher the scariest words I know are from Henry Adams, that a teacher influences eternity, he never knows where his influence stops. I ponder that question regularly.
To that, in the current time in which we find ourselves, I think I now have to include the questioning that Blow offers.
So without further commentary from me, allow me to offer the rest of what he offers. Combine these words with the quoted paragraph above, and consider how these words might apply to all of us:
What did you do? What did you say? And for others in my profession, what did you write?
I plan to say, or have my work say, that I never faltered, that it never became normal to me, that my heart bled as well as my pen.
What will you say?