Good Morning, Mister Good Morning,

Do you welcome conversation as you claim or are you b-s-ing like the rest of the Internet? “We value your opinion!” announces an algorithm, which values nothing.

 In case you meant it, one plea from a had-it-up-to-here reader: Enough of Trump! Not that I disagree with you, I just don’t want to start with my day with that harpy polluting my breakfast. Pundits like Krugman, Friedman, Josh Marshall, Heather Cox Richardson, Taegan Godard, tell me stuff I didn’t know, but all you add to the whirlwind is alliterative bombast. Morality, shmorality, I need joy not moaning in the morning. Your other stuff I like – family, literature, Rome, Henry especially – why not retire yourself and let Henry romp? Or do like the streaming services with their ad-free versions, pay extra for Trump-free? I know I can skip, but sometimes you trick me into thinking you’re schmoozing about something else, then the Trump-thump. Do cancer patients want to be greeted, “How’s our cancer today?”

VTY, Fed-Up

Dear F.U.

Thanks for reading – and caring enough to write. Not many readers drop me but the few who do don’t even wave goodbye.

I agree with you about Trump – I’m sick of him too – to death. And you’re right, I don’t add fresh reporting or insights. All I know is what we all read – bug-eyed with horror.

Quit me if you must but I can’t quit Trump. Two reasons.

First, my beat is morality: how best to live in this bewildering hour. It’s a topic as neglected as civics or cursive handwriting, but I like it, it engages me in its toils. Trump, IMO, is an existential as much as a political threat. He undermines and countermands pretty much everything I hold dear. His reelection would deal a mortal blow not just to America, not just to freedom and self-government, but to civilization and the future of the planet. My grandkids face no more dire threat.

The public’s response to Trump radically resets my opinion of mankind. Daily I’m dumbfounded by seemingly decent folks’ tolerance of his turpitude. I thought we were better than this, people in general and we the people in particular. Is this evil – for acquiescence to evil is as culpable as its perpetration – an aberration – a massive collective brain-fart – or our true nature, which I mistook all along? If the latter, democracy can’t work as an organizational principle, for democracy depends on a well-meaning citizenry, not chummy perhaps, but all for one and one for all at the end of the day. If we need a new plan for coexistence, we’d better rev up our moral thinking, for morality is the basis of government, not an afterthought. Our glorious founding documents commence with moral fanfare, as they should.

The second reason I’m stuck with Trump is that he sticks to me – I can’t shake him – and these missives, if they do anything, recount the passage of a consciousness through time, showing how attitudes evolve. Many birddog themselves in private journals, but I know of no comparable instance of a person publicly tracking his consciousness every frigging day for a decade. To omit Trump would distort my story unrecognizably, for Trump above all is its antagonist, the human quandary we must cope with, as Hitler was for my father’s generation. Trump’s my war and words my swords.

I’d hate to lose you – what’s a writer without readers? I agree with you, Henry’s worldview is sunnier and funnier – a hoot. But we can only be who we are. Trump is my incubus – and mankind’s. Till death us do part.