Our New Pandemic: Moral Cowardice
It's contagious as hell, and spreading fast; plus, a word on what courage looks like from Alexei Navalny
Over the decades, I have offered up all manner of obloquy concerning Donald Trump. When shadowing him up close in the nineties – our Age of Innocence, back when America still thought he was a joke, before we became the joke by electing him twice — I noted that his hair looked “like an abandoned nest.” I added that when he focused his powers of concentration on something other than himself — which doesn’t happen often — his lips “fix in puckered protrusion,” making him “look like a distressed mallard.” I have since called him everything from the “Bullshitter-in-Chief” to “a walking rap sheet with a combover.” When running low on my own epithets, I have recycled those of others, calling him “Mango Mussolini,” “Cheeto Jesus,” and a “short-fingered vulgarian.”
But one slur I would never hang on Trump is to equate him to JD Vance. Even I wouldn’t stoop that low.
Because at least Trump has the courage of his own convictions. (His misguided assertions, I mean, not his felony convictions.) Trump’s lies are his own, and he sticks by them. He’s told them so often, that he’s probably even convinced himself 20 percent or so of them are true. Whereas, Vance chooses to tell the lies of others — namely, Trump’s — meaning he doesn’t even come by his dishonesty honestly.