Fealty to the Truth, and Nothing But the Truth. Pity the Man Today.

“We do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a speech on Wednesday. “We take an oath to the Constitution.” 

I felt better when I read that General Milley had made this statement but within moments I gasped at the fact that it was necessary. Upon reflection, I have not even a shred of doubt that it was. 

I cannot be the only person dreaming of highly-trained teams from our armed services swooping into the White House on a black ops mission at dawn on January 20, 2021 to ‘extract’ the current occupant. That’s what Mr. Trump’s behavior seems to mandate, no? 

Yesterday, when I posted my essay on Twitter, a hashtag caught my eye: #TrumpConceded. What?!?!?! went my startled brain. 

Today I read the actual text of his tweet: “On Sunday, in reference to Biden, he tweeted: ‘He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!’” 

Opinion columnist Charles M. Blow writes, “If he didn’t win, he insists he must have been cheated because, in his mind, failure is not a possibility.”  

And, dang, if I didn’t feel a drop of compassion for the poor man. One drop.  

But drops multiply.  

Consider Mr. Blow’s further musings: “But Trump is not going to allow this transition to be smooth. He rose in spectacle and he will flame out in it. We should put nothing beyond him. He will do everything he can do not to assume the posture of the defeated. He will do everything to secure a future for himself and his family that is comfortable and secure. He will do everything with the last bits of power from his presidency. 

“His attack on the election system is doing damage to our democracy. So is his refusal to concede. So is his sulking. But, of course, Trump doesn’t care about our democracy. He doesn’t care about democracy, period. He cares about money and power. He cares about managing the mob. He cares about adoration.” 

I have said all these things and worse since the charlatan in the White House took up residence. I, too, am tired of his shenanigans—which, FWIW, we would not tolerate in a three-year-old, but we seem to have to tolerate in the leader of the free world.

He cannot bear failure.
He cannot bear to be defeated.
He cannot bear to lose. 

What would that feel like from the inside? I wondered. 

Mr. Blow again: “Trump is depressingly predictable: constantly lying and denying, constructing a world in which he is the winner and hero.” 

He must be bigger than life.
He must be the winner.
He must be the hero. 

I know what it’s like to want these things. I should think we all do, but not all of us has a corps of sycophants willing to yessir or yesmaam us in our delusions no matter how fond. 

Donald J. Trump is a man who is broken on the inside, and now, on the outside, too. I would submit further that he’s broken at the Humpty Dumpty level of broken. King’s horses? King’s men? Neither all tyrant’s horses nor all tyrant’s men can put baby Donald together again. 

It is a small lurch from compassion—the genuine ability to feel with others—to pity. The more I read this morning, the faster those drops reconfigured themselves. Compassion lasted for a few minutes, but the far greater feeling is pity. 

Mr. Trump is a pitiful president, a pitiful man, and a pitiful human being. 

He does not want our pity. He wants our adulation. But adulation arises when there is something worth admiration, no? What, exactly, in Mr. Trump’s presidency or his current flame-out is worth admiration?  

In an article called, “When a Leader Just Won’t Go: Wisdom from Shakespeare to Dickens to ‘Seinfeld’ on President Trump’s long non-goodbye,” Sarah Lyall writes, “Is Trump like King Lear, raging naked on the heath and desperately hanging on to the increasingly diminished trappings of power even as they are stripped from him?” 

I think not, Ms. Lyall. Lear, at the very least, cared for those in his care despite his own weaknesses of character. Lear had been noble, a ruler of consequence, a political actor worthy of sometime admiration.  

That is not the case here. “As Dan Rather, an elder statesman of American journalism, said on Twitter: ‘Dude. You lost.’” 

He lost the election, yes. But he lost a lot more long, long before he ever even dreamed of winning an election. Donald J. Trump lost the core of a healthy self as a child, and we have been subject to the agonizing manipulation of self and others that such a loss engenders. 

He must be a hero. He cannot accept reality. He is the world’s victim. 

I return, Beloved, to a drop of compassion and a bucket of pity. 

Any of us could have suffered the blasphemous nature of the nurture that formed a person like this. That’s why compassion is in order. 

The pity is for a will so lacking in spine that he clings to what have become known with tattooed air quotes as “alternative facts.” 

One of my favorite nature writers, Margaret Renkl, wrote this morning, “If this pandemic has taught us anything it’s that we cannot escape the world we have shaped.” 

Neither can Mr. Trump. 

There are no alternative facts, Beloved. No election was stolen. 45 lost his bid for re-election.  

Offer him pity, and in his need for adulation, I’ll wager we won’t need those special ops teams. Instead, he’ll tear out of the White House under his own steam. Pity will horrify him because it will humiliate him. 

Good riddance, and God bless your aching heart, Mr. Trump. 

Dr. Susan Corso is a spiritual teacher, the founder of iAmpersand, and the author of The Mex Mysteries, the Boots & Boas Books, and spiritual nonfiction. Her website is susancorso.com.