Charles M. Blow is a powerful writer, who has been on the attack after Trump since before the election. Thus one might be inclined to ignore column titled as is this one. That would be a mistake.
Consider its beginning:
We are leaderless. America doesn’t have a president. America has a man in the White House holding the spot, and wreaking havoc as he waits for the day when a real president arrives to replace him.
Donald Trump is many things — most of them despicable — but the leader of a nation he is not. He is not a great man. Hell, he isn’t even a good man.
Donald Trump is a man of flawed character and a moral cavity. He cannot offer moral guidance because he has no moral compass. He is too small to see over his inflated ego.
Ouch!
Blow goes on to land blow after blow, directly on Trump to be sure, but also in providing us with detail on the murderer in Charlottesville who killed Heather Heyer (I will not dignify him by repeating his name), telling those who did not know about his pro-Nazi paper in high school and his history of threatening his mother to the point that authorities had to be called.
On Trump, Blow puts it simply:
His interests center on the self; country be damned.
And after reciting the material on the murderer, Blow offers this paragraph:
This was no fine person, and no person who walked shoulder-to-shoulder with him is a fine person. There are no good Nazis. There are no good white nationalist accommodators. There are no good people who see racists and don’t want to retch.
After reminding us of the back and forth of Trump’s responses to Charlottesville — Saturday, Monday, and then the horror of last Tuesday — Blow provides us with a succinct summary of what we experienced from Trump:
He was not there to heal the nation or to uplift it. He was there for personal exoneration and redemption. He wasn’t there to plead the case that America could rise on the wings of its better angels. He was there to defend the demons.
The demons of racism and White Supremacy and Nazism. And of whatever is in lieu of a soul or moral compass inside the current occupant of the Oval Office.
After a brief mention of Trump’s totally inappropriate and inaccurate reaction to the events in Boston this past Saturday, Blow closes with two brief paragraphs. The first of these is
This man doesn’t wait for facts. This man doesn’t care about facts, or much else for that matter. He only cares about himself, his image and his positioning.
Facts be damned. Truth be damned. And damnation and the tweet-fueled ire of Trump directed at anyone who dare gainsay what he offers, who deigns to try to call him to account.
Which leads Blow to these final words:
America is functioning, barely, without a functioning president. Trump is failing every test of the office. How frightening is that?
Perhaps the only thing more frightening would be if Trump were effective enough to enact whatever it is that passes for his “agenda.” As it is, he is doing horrible damage to this nation — its economy, its polity, its standing in the world.
Read all of what Blow has to say. It is worth your time.