“These times are so uncertain, there’s a yearning undefined and people filled with rage. We all need a little tenderness, how can love survive in such a graceless age?”
Something very strange happened to me this morning.
I got out of bed, read the news about Donald Trump testing positively for the Coronavirus and decided I should write something about it.
But what?
Aye, there’s the rub.
Have I become one of the “people filled with rage” from Don Henley’s “Heart of the Matter” … or have I always been like this? I have looked at posts from my friends on Facebook, and they get angrier and angrier every year. I have written before that we seem to have reached a tipping point in this country, a point where we can no longer find common ground.
Trump was the first successful candidate in my lifetime whose success essentially came from negativity — anger toward and scorn for his political opponents. When the biggest takeaway from his campaign rallies is him getting his audience to chant “Lock her up, lock her up” about his opponent Hillary Clinton, when he calls the media “the enemy of the people,” where can you go from there?
Pundits love to quote from W.B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming,” and I’m no exception. We all love the image of that rough beast, slouching toward Bethlehem, with which he concludes the poem.
But it’s the setup — the opening — that is every bit as evocative.
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
Sound familiar? Sound at all like the world we inhabit?
I don’t know anyone in my generation who hasn’t been shattered by the world in one way or another. The two happiest adults I know are my children — at least I hope they are. Both of them were born in the 1980s, so the world we have now is pretty much the one they grew up in.
It’s one reason my son gets on me from time to time about calling people “evil.” He says I use the term far too much. He’s right, but where does that leave me vis-a-vis Donald Trump? My closest friend in the world for more than half a century calls Clinton “the epitome of evil,” which makes me laugh. But am I so different when I talk about Trump?
Probably not.
I have tried many times to think if I have ever felt as much scorn for a political figure as I do for him. Certainly no presidents, although I was no fan at all of Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan. As far as wannabe presidents, George Wallace came close. The lesser political figures who would come closest would be Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan. Maybe Mitch McConnell.
But the cheese stands alone.
Do I want Trump to die? Well, someday. I certainly don’t want him to be immortal, but I don’t want him to die now from this virus.
I think that’s where I’ll leave it. In the end, wishing bad things will happen to other people just makes it easier for the rough beast.