WaPo: There is a shriveled emptiness where Trumps soul once resided

[babylonsister]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/there-is-a-shriveled-emptiness-where-trumps-soul-once-resided/2017/08/17/bb9edd22-8370-11e7-b359-15a3617c767b_story.html?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.26a77ec88c36

There is a shriveled emptiness where Trump’s soul once resided
By Michael Gerson Opinion writer August 17 at 7:23 PM

snip//

It would certainly be ironic for the alt-right conscience of the White House to be dismissed at the moment of his triumph. President Trump’s recantation of his staff-enforced moral clarity on the Charlottesville clash was a high point for the Breitbart worldview. About that unequivocal condemnation of Nazis, racists and murder? Never mind. The left is just as bad. Both sides share the blame.

This might be defensible — if you leave out the 400 years of oppression, segregation, violence and cruelty that black people have experienced in North America. If you leave out a bloody Civil War started by slave interests to defend an economic system based on theft of labor and the lash. If you leave out the millions shot, gassed and incinerated under the Nazi flag, their wedding rings and gold fillings carefully collected by their killers. If you leave out every grave of every American who fought and died to defeat fascism and militarism.

So moral equivalence is an option — for those who are willfully blind to history and have a shriveled emptiness where their soul once resided.

This is now, sadly, an accurate description of the United States’ 45th?president, who felt compelled to reveal his true convictions. Such compulsion has the virtue of honesty. It has the drawback (from Trump’s perspective) of leaving his defenders without excuse.

snip//

Loyalty to the president is a good thing, in the proper context. It is rooted in gratitude for the opportunity of a lifetime. There is a natural tendency, I can attest as a former White House staffer, to defend the leader you know from attacks by outsiders who know him not at all. Being a Cabinet officer or an assistant to the president is a chance to do great good — a chance that may never come again. Besides, the president won an election and has the right to set his own agenda. But Trump is knocking out the props that support this type of reasoning. He shows precious little downward loyalty, frequently subjecting his closest aides to public humiliation as a kind of management tool. The chance to do great good is dwindling day by day, as Trump systematically alienates natural allies and embitters enemies through compulsive taunting. His disordered character is preventing him from pursuing any sort of mandate that his election might have represented.

And it is not possible for a Cabinet officer or White House staffer to comfort himself or herself that “at least the president’s heart is good.” That is something I did not doubt when serving George W. Bush. Now Trump has opened his own chest for all to see. And the cavity is horrifyingly empty.

Every additional day of standing next to Trump — physically and metaphorically — destroys reputation and diminishes moral standing. The rationalizations are no longer credible. But resignation, in contrast, would be a contribution to the common good — showing that principled leadership in service to the Constitution is still possible, even in the age of Trump. When loyalty requires corruption, it is time to leave.

[Squinch]

1. Over the weekend, Axelrod posited that some of the people on the staff are staying because

they know they are the last line between Trump(Republicanazi) and our complete destruction.

I suspect that is the motive for two or three of them. And I suspect that those two or three know that they have to allow their reputations to be destroyed to perform that duty.

Everything that man touches becomes corrupted. He's just a distilled brick of walking, talking evil.

[tanyev]

2. He's assuming there was a time when Trump had a soul.

I was really surprised to find out that Trump had siblings, because you sure don't hear anything from them or about them. I suspect there's not much contact, and that the reasons go way back.

[Bettie]

3. You beat me to it

I suspect he is one of those people born without the ability to feel emotion and he didn't do well at learning to fake it either.

[PatSeg]

18. Yep

You can't lose what you never had. His whole life, he has been a willful, selfish brat, who only thinks of other people from the perspective of how they affect him.

[TNNurse]

6. My first thought

[They_Live]

9. same here.

[IronLionZion]

12. He cut off paying for medical care for a very sick nephew

he's a cruel bastard

[Duppers]

20. Yes, "once"?

It's never.

[roscoeroscoe]

4. Great conclusion

That sums it up

[Scarsdale]

5. tRump thinks being in the spotlight

means being admired, respected, looked up to. WRONG. Reality bit him squarely on his orange arse. Maybe he is FINALLY facing the truth about himself. The three wives married him not for love, but love of MONEY. He treats women (apart from daughter/wife Ivanka) very badly. He honestly thinks women admire him!! WRONG. Even if he were half as wealthy as he brags, most true females would steer clear of him. He is repulsive in every way.

[Girard442]

17. ...and if he hadn't got a bunch of $$$ from his daddy...

...and was able to use his inherited connections to set up a money-laundering operation, he'd be selling stuffed animals down on the Jersey Shore.

[CanonRay]

19. He will never face the truth about himself

He simply is unable to do it.

[Corgigal]

7. What the hell?

Didn't anyone look into what he did to his first wife? All that public bullshit with Marla Maples and how he made her say stupid shit like he is the greatest lover and was the cover of the New York Post. He's been abusing people for years, seriously press. You know this, hell I know this..

Come on, don't BS on what we already know. Find shit and destroy his administration. Quick, before our enemies really do some evil shit aimed at us because we have no federal government.

[George II]

8. I honestly don't think a soul ever resided in that body.

[Doreen]

22. That was my first thought.

[oppressedproletarian]

10. Outstanding analysis by Michael Gerson

Thanks for posting

[cagefreesoylentgreen]

11. There was never a soul

"The man had been born with a sense for raw opportunity where his soul should have been." -- James S.A. Corey

[Nitram]

13. And Gerson is a conservative. Maybe I should add, "old-fashioned" conservative.

[wryter2000]

14. K&R

For later

[NRaleighLiberal]

15. Soul? WHAT soul? Ever?

[joe_stampingbull]

16. The Anti-Christ never had a soul...

and I am not religious but it fits him.

[iluvtennis]

21. Yep, Anti-Christ is the right descriptor. And I agree I see no soul..There is a saying that the

eyes are the window to the soul. I alway see two dark holes in Trump's eyes, no light there whatsoever.