How are we to respond to the times in which we find ourselves? Should we retreat, understanding that they are beyond our control? Or should we, knowing they are beyond our control, respond Stoically — with courage and calm, understanding, in the words of Rev. Sydney Smith, that “it is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing, because you could only do a little.”
As I pondered this over the Christmas break and into January — the so-called “wellness month” — I got very sick and lost my voice, an apt metaphor for losing the inner voice that has always been my North Star.
In the end, I concluded that reticence — even when you cannot physically “speak” — is a kind of cowardice, and that it is incumbent on us all to speak out.
I will acknowledge that the Democrats have made mistakes by emphasizing multicultural issues, identity politics and form over function with talk of pronouns and the like. But what we are now experiencing is not the answer. Where is the compassion, never mind the logic? Where is the sympathy, never mind the rationality? You don’t have to empathize with people, in which you literally feel their pain. Indeed, there are professions such as medicine in which empathy — rather than sympathy, which is more intellectual, and compassion, more spiritual — could paralyze a physician’s diagnoses and treatments.
But how could President Donald J. Trump consider 67 dead in the mid-air collision of an American Airlines jet and a Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and not stop at the anguish he spoke of? Why did he have to push on to anger and aggression? Why blame DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion), which is not the opposite of meritocracy but rather an initiative to give qualified — emphasis on the word “qualified” — women and minorities a leg up in what has been an unequal playing field? Why castigate former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, especially when he talked Obama’s ear off at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral?
People have talked a great deal about the failure of the Democrats to understand the working class they once championed and the price of eggs. (Wait until the tariffs that Trump has imposed unceremoniously on sister countries Canada and Mexico kick in.)
We have heard about Fascism, Marxism, Communism, Catholicism, sexism, racism and every “ism” but the only that matters here — narcissism. Narcissists have no core identity. Each day they must reinvent themselves with adoring fans — narcissists themselves or enablers — who reflect and refract the narcissism in a kind of psychologically damaged house of mirrors.
The narcissist is always right. The narcissist must crush any perceived opposition utterly. The narcissist is always the center of attention. It may be your tragedy, but it’s always the narcissist’s moment in the spotlight.
Here’s the thing that’s often overlooked: The narcissist is terrified of death, more than most of us, perhaps because death’s earthly oblivion is a metaphor for the narcissist’s lack of identity. The narcissist views death as a kind of weakness at best and contagion at worst. That’s why Trump is terrible at tragedy. It’s not just a lack of compassion that begins with imagination and identification. You can’t identify with someone when you have no identity with which to begin.
It’s the fear of contamination by the death that will come for us all. Trump could’ve pivoted to what skating has meant to the United States, as many young skaters, parents and coaches died in the crash. He might’ve remarked on the 1961 plane crash at Brussels Airport that wiped out the entire U.S. Skating Team.
In office less than a month, President John F. Kennedy said then: “Our country has sustained a great loss of talent and grace, which had brought pleasure to people all over the world. Mrs. Kennedy and I extend our deepest sympathy to the families and friends of all the passengers and crew who died in this crash.”
Trump could’ve talk about what figure skating — one of the glamour sports of the Winter Olympics — has meant to this country. He could’ve talked about how Peggy Fleming’s medal was our only gold at the 1968 games in Grenoble, France. He could’ve talked about how far the United States has come, receiving team gold in figure skating at the Summer Games in Paris, after the investigation into the Russian doping scandal in Beijing where the event actually took place.
He could’ve talked about the 2009 plane crash on the Hudson and how lucky those 155 souls were to survive. He could’ve talked about how death ends a life but it does not end a relationship. The dead live on in the hearts and minds of those they loved and who loved them. And they will be with them always.
He could’ve talked about all this or none of this. Instead he has inaugurated a mean season of cold and ice in which his supporters are onboard as long as their voices are heard, never mind the rest of us.
But we will not be silent.