In another tragic instance of ongoing internecine urban violence, the cousin of basketball star Dwyane Wade was just tragically shot and killed while pushing a baby stroller. Donald Trump wasted no time in exploiting this horrific tragedy to serve his own interests (while misspelling Wade’s name in the process):
Now it is no secret that politicians regularly exploit tragedies for political gain. What is truly striking about this beastly tweet is the complete lack of emotional intelligence, the sheer crassness, the shocking ignorance of human compassion, that it demonstrates. And of course with Donald Trump this is a well-established pattern. In the wake of the Orlando tragedy he posted a tweet much like this.
The fact is, however, that this tweet demonstrates in chilling fashion the barren internal landscape of the clinical psychopath. This is the person who is blind to the affective and volitional dimensions of moral tragedy much like the color-blind person is blind to the difference between green and blue.
In other words, it isn’t that Trump is callous to human suffering, for callousness assumes some ability on the part of the individual to sympathize with and show compassion for others. Trump completely lacks that ability: in his small world it’s all Trump all the time. And the misery of others is nothing more than another shovel full of coal into the self-aggrandizing Trump train.
This leaves me in the curious place of pity. I pity Trump and his small world bereft of care and compassion for others. And with that in mind, I’d encourage you to frame your own condemnation of the man with a dose of pity.
Pity Trump, but for goodness sake, don’t vote for him.
