The Weakness of a Violent Man

He pretends to be a strongman, but his desperation is always on display

Time for the man who thinks he’s strong to leave the stage. (Photo by Scott Olson via Getty Images)

He attacks a judge’s daughter to stir up hate and conflict. He posts a video of the President of the United States, bound and gagged. He condemns millions of humans as poison, who, in their struggle to survive, have come to the United States to seek better lives. This is not a strong man, a man displaying his strength to lead; this is a malignant man who’s revealing his essential weakness and dangerously exacerbating a climate of violence.

Bereft of any vision of positive change, this is a man who is only capable of exploiting an aggrieved people’s worst instincts—who has figured out that he can get what he wants by stoking the fear, hatred and anger of others. He uses violence, not imagination. Conflict, not collaboration. Cruelty, never kindness. Retribution, not affirmation. These are the tools of a weak man inciting the mob to satisfy his hunger for carnage.

A man like this sells bibles wrapped in an American flag. Desperate for dollars and loyalty, he laughably claims the bible is his “favorite” book and that he has many of them. Empty and broken inside, he needs to compare himself to Jesus Christ on the holy weekend of Easter.

But this is a weak man, a narcissist in the extreme, who cannot tolerate his own failures or the painfully obvious reality that he will never get the total adoration that his bottomless pit of need seeks. This is a sad creature, utterly lacking self-consciousness. When he looks in a mirror, he never sees the truth.

We are living in complex, challenging times, in which our problems are increasingly global and often seem insurmountable. Climate change. Immigration driven by displacement. Murderous rulers set upon stealing their neighbors’ sovereignty, ending their commitment to democracy and exploiting their limited resources by undermining their allies’ commitment to support them.

In such times, we hope for leaders possessed of the necessary intellect and imagination, compassion and competence to engage the public in the arduous task of self-governance. At a time when the problems we face depend on genuinely strong leaders, capable of inspiring the public to pursue their better selves and work together, a weak man relies on scapegoating the most vulnerable among us and promising that he alone can fix our most intractable problems—and do it quick. The demagoguery is as old as the hills, only the details and the targets of hate change over time.

In less troubled times, a man like this would remain in the darkened fringes of society, limited in his ability to incite stochastic terrorism. In times like this, such a man can not only ascend to the nation’s highest office once, he has the potential to regain that office even after he’s been disgraced with two impeachments, engaged in a violent insurrection, lied more than a documented 30,000 times, and has been indicted four times and charged with 88 felony charges. Still today, his followers remain devoted to him, even after he was found guilty of raping and defaming E. Jean Carroll, as well as committing widespread tax and business fraud and facing fines of more than half a billion dollars. For Trump and his cult, rising political violence is assuredly a feature, not a bug.

Times like these make the weak man masquerading as the strong man look like a real answer for the aggrieved voters who are attracted to cruelty and brute force as a promised path to easy solutions. The increasingly poisonous hostility between parties only intensifies their dark desires.

I’ve quoted it before, but the prophetic insight and warning of George Washington bears repeating. In his farewell address from 1796, America’s first president worried about the dangers of factionalism and revenge-filled hostility between factions. “The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual,” he wisely said. “And sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”

I have also noted before the necessary insight of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on the topic of cruelty and kindness, but this too bears repeating. “When someone’s path through this world is marked with acts of cruelty, they have failed the first test of an advanced society,” he told newly minted college graduates in a commencement address. “They never forced their animal brain to evolve past its first instinct. They never forged new mental pathways to overcome their instinctual fears and so their thinking and problem-solving will lack the imagination and creativity that the kindest people have in spades.”

The responsibility to defeat Donald Trump and the Trump Republicans could not be clearer. In another time, that may sound like a partisan urging. But this is about our commitment to sustaining America’s centuries-old democratic experiment.

Many of our fellow citizens look at Joe Biden and insist he lacks something they want. But his capacity for compassion and kindness, his commitment to democracy, and his record of competence and achievement should be more than enough for doubters to find a reason to support him.

The failure to achieve massive voter turnout can lead to a dark, fascistic future, led by a weak and desperate man who thinks he’s strong. That is a dangerous combination, which each of us has the power to help overcome.

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