Yesterday, I spent a wonderful day with my son and stepson, which included going to watch the LA Dodgers and New York Yankees game at Dodger Stadium. As a result, I didn’t have time to write a new essay today, but I didn’t want to miss acknowledging one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century.
On June 5, 1968, Robert Francis Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, and died the next day. On the eve of the 55th anniversary of his death at the young age of 43, I am re-sharing an essay that I wrote last fall about two of the greatest speeches of all time — one from Martin Luther King, and the other from RFK.
This essay from September 17, 2022, also reinforces so many of the reasons why Ron DeSantis is unfit to be president. You can’t love your country when you hate half of the people in it. What this country requires in this moment is leadership. I would encourage you to watch both of these speeches, delivered by two extraordinary leaders.
Steve
Two of the greatest speeches in American history happened within 24 hours of one another. The first is Martin Luther King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, delivered on April 3, 1968.
King’s momentous speeches and urgent moral crescendo reached their apogee in his final address. This speech by King is almost biblical in its meaning, foreshadowing of death, optimism and grace. It is the most optimistic speech in American history.
It is separated by an assassin’s bullet from the words of another great man who, too, would be shot dead in the tumult of 1968. When Senator Robert Kennedy learned about Dr. King’s death, he was about to speak to a crowd of black people from the back of a pickup truck in Indianapolis. Moments before he stepped up, he was told that King was dead.
What followed was the greatest impromptu political speech in American history.
RFK’s speech will endure for the ages. It is an assertion of conviction about love in the face of hate, built on the connections of shared humanity. Earlier this summer, I wrote about the draining of connection and emotion from politics, and posed a question. I wondered what the pollsters would have advised RFK about quoting Aeschylus to a crowd of poor black people, who were unfamiliar with the Greek classics Kennedy consumed en route to Harvard. Regardless of what the pollsters would have advised, Kennedy understood the words would connect because they were about something elemental; they were about something that we all share. They were about grief and unfathomable pain. They were about love and hate. He shared his pain with an audience of strangers, who were both a different skin color, while being his fellow Americans. What resulted is one of the finest examples of political leadership in American history.
These speeches are important to process in the context of the DeSantis stunt. Cruelty begets more cruelty. Hate is reciprocated. DeSantis’ inability to see people who are less fortunate than him as anything other than “less than” is a warning about his danger. He is disordered. He is wearing his incapacity for empathy and decency like a MAGA merit badge.
Mostly, what DeSantis has demonstrated is his ability to hurt people for a political stunt. Extremism mixed with cruelty kills. Usually. At least in the end. In the end, he has decided to use his power to make problems in other people’s communities. He has chosen to use his time to incite, instead of build. The governor of Florida is an unfit clown, who will never be elected president. The speculation that it is his destiny to become president evidences little more than media corruption and professional insatiability for the inside information transaction track that can make a political reporter very wealthy in 2022.
Perhaps one day, Scott Walker and DeSantis will bring their president scrapbooks to a dark corner of The Villages. They will compare their headlines of '“woulda coulda shoulda” victimhood and self-pity. It will be a pathetic night, for sure.
The confusion, fear and humiliation inflicted on real human beings by Ron DeSantis was very real. He lacks mercy. He lacks judgement. He lacks temperament. He lacks decency. He lacks patriotism.
It’s simple.
You can’t love your country when you hate half of the people in it, and are ready to make war against them. Ron DeSantis doesn’t love his country or his neighbor. He is a vicious little man, who dreams of tyranny and power. He won’t be the last one.
There have always been Ron DeSantises in America, but there has always been better also. What this country demands in this moment is leadership.
Thanks for bringing focus to DeSantis. His rude, sarcastic and mean ,”are you stupid” comment he made to a reporter who asked, why he didn’t take questions after a speech clearly brings clarity to his character or lack of the same. He has no wit, no imagination, no sense of humor. This is not a good foundation for a leader of a democracy. This should be a huge red flag for voters who value democracy. Regrettably it is the type of comment; mean, scared and narrow minded voters eat up.
"The confusion, fear and humiliation inflicted on real human beings by Ron DeSantis was very real. He lacks mercy. He lacks judgement. He lacks temperament. He lacks decency. He lacks patriotism."
He Lacks.
On another note, did anyone here his wife speak the other day. Sounds like she should be the one running for Pres.. He looked like a whipped puppy; now I know why he looks like he does.