Traditionally, virtue constitutes what the idealized and fictional President Andrew Shepherd means by ‘character’. Rightly understood, it is an opportunity and a faculty for realizing human potential, and the disposition to enhance that potential in ourselves, and honor it in others. Among the most essential virtues, empathy is both fundamental and recognizable, encouraging us to employ our power and will to act in the most humane way that we can rightfully discern – the obligation to act in accordance with our fully realized potential for good.
While it was always clear to many, what has now become inescapably obvious to all, is the dangerous absence of any and all virtue in the character of Donald J. Trump; and that very absence of virtue revealed the perceived personal qualities that were instrumental to his election. But, in the age of the Coronavirus19 pandemic, this dearth of virtue and character may make it impossible for him to be re-elected.
Donald Trump’s election was due, in large part, to the revelation of his true character and the cult of personality that he sought, developed, and traded upon. The show was on, and the actor sold to America was no Jimmy Stewart as an idealistic Mr. Smith, no Martin Sheen as an honorable Josiah Bartlet, doing his ethical best in a frenetic ‘West Wing’. They were representative of the establishment, the swamp; too politically correct to make great deals, too wimpy to be the real men from Trump’s scattered remembrance; neither shrewd enough, nor sufficiently crass enough to match his vision of the old rough and tumble leaders from when ‘America was Great’. His supporters loved this. In his uneducated and uncultured rudeness, racism, and nastiness, he projected both his, and his supporters’, idealized selves.
Regrettably, for Mr. Trump, that is the exact opposite of what the country needs now. Soon, very soon, as the temporary morgues fill, as the bodies pile higher, the nation will need less a Commander-in-Chief than a Consoler-in-Chief; someone to turn to because society’s standard tools for managing tragedy have been shuttered. The structures of mourning, those traditions both civic and spiritual, created and practiced to ease the pain of loss, to help answer the anguished cries of ‘why?’ will be inaccessible: there will be no wakes, no funerals, no sitting Shiva, no community memorial speeches at high school gymnasiums. For now, the process of grief has been suspended, and everywhere sorrow runs like a river; unimpeded by culture’s dams, unassuaged by human comfort, unaddressed by Presidential sympathy.
Gradually, as the death toll steadily climbs, Trump will demonstrate that he is uniquely unsuited to the task at hand, because he can’t be both what he has always been, and what is called for now. Trump’s authentic and revealed character will be recognized as devoid of empathy, sympathy, or compassion; not to mention: prudence, temperance, fortitude, or mercy. Many already knew this, but some of those who didn’t, may be forced to recognize it, as they suffer through it.
Those who directly experience loss, and all those who grieve with them, will long for a leader who demonstrates both symbolically and through the policies and programs created in response to this crisis, that both he, and your government, will be there for you; sit with you when you suffer, walk with you when you hurt, extend support because it is the only path to justice and righteousness. But Trump cannot and will not; he will never be included in the pantheon of Presidents who sought to soothe a nation’s wounded soul: Lincoln at Gettysburg, Roosevelt fighting fear, Reagan reflecting on Challenger, Bush praying at the National Cathedral, or Obama singing ‘Amazing Grace’ in Charleston.
There will be posturing efforts to dissemble, to try to re-write history, to cast blame, to shun responsibility, to point towards so called fake news, to excoriate, insult, demean, and distort a way out of the fallen house of cards. From among the true Trump believers, from the legions of the blindly faithful, many will fall for it, but not all, and not enough. Because there will be those influential few who will become disgusted by it. Repulsed because someone they know suffered through this and died alone, comforted in their final moments only by the nurse, doctor, or health aide who courageously chose to blend together the virtues of generosity and gentleness, creating the kindness they give to all in their care. A kindness unknown, and unappreciated by the empty soul of the White House – our house. The contrast between those who truly serve and sacrifice on the broad front lines of this pandemic and the person who occupies our symbolic ‘home’ will be stark and revealing.
Every day, from those who give of themselves, an amalgam of virtue is on display for all to see: the gentleness and generosity mentioned above; the courage and dignity in giving care to others; that care combined with the humility, commitment, and gratitude in having the opportunity to ‘sing the sacred chorus of How Can I Help?’; the sympathy and compassion for those who suffer; and the sense of responsibility, sadness and loss for those they could not save. This, after all, is what constitutes true greatness – an authentic greatness that those who so serve have always possessed. A greatness unrecognizable to Mr. Trump, because it is undeniable that these virtues are not now, and never have been, discoverable in his own character. The arrogance of claimed perfection will result in more death than this or any culture can absorb without damage. And this we can sorrowfully deduce from the very demographic statistics that have been repeatedly disparaged and intentionally misrepresented by the President and his administration for months.
It is painfully likely, that the sheer number of deaths and the six-degrees-of-separation formula that such a huge number pre-sages, means that everyone will have some traceable connection to someone who dies. And very few things in life carry such pain, weight and burden as does the unnecessary death of one who is beloved. Once sorrow has receded from being the thing that survivors feel every hour, to the thing they merely think of every day; just when time has started to soften the misery, the social strictures will be eased, and the delayed and postponed rituals will begin, re-awakening both the suffering and the anger. Soon, the mind will shift its attention, as it so often and inevitably does, to a ‘hold-someone-responsible’ sense of justice. All the claims of perfect action, all the excuses, all the pointing of the finger elsewhere, will ring as empty as the government that has been hollowed out. Then, more than a handful of people will re-assess their previous choices, because they will be left only with the sad apology of T.S. Elliot: “That is not what I meant at all, that is not it, at all.”
And with that in mind, they will vote.