Character is destiny
Donald Trump lacks character, integrity, judgement, decency, strength and courage. His pathologies are not hidden, though they remain resolutely out of focus thanks to America’s broken corporate media. It sees such accuracies as problematic, given the looming probabilities of revenge against their bottom line by a mercurial fascist ensconced behind the Resolute Desk.
Forty days remain until the votes are counted, and America’s consequential choice is made.
Donald Trump will bring catastrophe to America, but he won’t do it alone. Like always, the real damage will be done by his henchmen and women, who are given real power to inflict real control and real consequences on real people’s lives.
I have used the term once common and understood, and now out of use, but no less important as a marker and descriptor. The word is “Little Eichmanns,” and they swirl all about Trump. I have written and spoken about the Israeli police captain Avner Less, who lost his entire family in the Holocaust and interrogated Eichmann for 275 hours. Less articulated his takeaway from the experience 20 years later:
Who are the people around Trump? They include Ivan Raiklin, a former US army reserve lieutenant colonel and US Defense Intelligence Agency employee and sick man who calls himself Trump’s future “secretary of retribution.” Then there’s Kevin Roberts, the man behind Project 2025, who once regaled his colleagues with a story about how he bludgeoned the neighbor’s dog to death for barking too much with a shovel. Unlike, Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor and Corey Lewandowski’s alleged mistress, he didn’t publish his act of animal cruelty as a qualification for the presidency in a psychotic biography, but rather recounted the depravity in verbal form at a dinner party. My question is why do so many people around Trump seem to have so much passion for sadism?
Here is the admonition and prayer left behind in the White House by John Adams. It is carved into the mantle of the state dining room:
I Pray Heaven To Bestow The Best Of Blessings On This House And All that shall hereafter Inhabit it.
General Stanley McChrystal was the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, who was relieved of command by President Obama for his intemperate comments about the commander in chief published in Rolling Stone. General McChrystal has just endorsed Vice President Harris. His reasoning is worth reading and sharing with your undecided friends. His essay is a perfect distillation about the only issue and only policy that matters: character
Character is the only thing that matters. Harris has plenty and Trump has none. Zero. Nada.
I'm embarrassed to say this now but at least I feel like I've made up for it in the years since but I was just 34 years old when I voted for the very first time. I remember it exactly. I voted for Senator Robert Dole. I wasn't a Democrat at the time and didn't care for Bill Clinton. (Can't believe I'm saying this now) My Mother said to me before I Voted, "Character matters." I asked her that in 2016 when Trump came on the scene. I said why didn't it apply then?! She really didn't have an excuse except the "All politicians are corrupt so he's the lesser of two evils" excuse. Give me a break. And she calls herself a Christian. A very brainwashed by Fox News and the Church Christian. My point is and we all know this is that Character DOES matter and it's how we got in this colossal mess. Because we allowed the abnormal to become normal. No more!! Brilliant piece Steve. Thanks for the repeat about Avner Less. That was fascinating. I always learn something new from you. ❤️🇺🇸💙
I was talking the other day to a friend about character. Sadly, we agreed that character does not matter to 40 percent of the electorate. A perfect example: some voters in North Carolina have said that Mark Robinson’s character does not matter. The only thing that matters is that they agree with his Medieval views.
Let us pray that the 60 percent knows what is needed. I saw a sign this morning: Make America Kind Again.