When We Turn on the Light, Darkness Vanishes
There is no path forward when truth is perceived as “a mortal enmity.”
When I listened to President Biden’s State of the Union address, I heard an angry old man with declining facilities shouting words he didn’t write to the world.
A few days later, at a campaign rally in Georgia, we witnessed Trump displaying his angry, pathetic, bullying behavior. Trump mocked Biden’s stutter, adding to his public record of ridiculing those with handicaps. Sadly, some of his supporters crudely laughed along with him, giving Trump’s critics another opportunity to characterize all Trump supporters unfairly.
Trump’s reelection depends on attracting independent voters. To do that, Trump needs to behave with decorum and decency. Why can’t Trump control himself?
I found an explanation for Trump’s behavior in the Pensées, of French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal, posthumously published in 1670.
Pascal’s insight is that in the extreme, we devote “all [our] attention to hiding [our] faults both from others and from [ourselves] and [we] cannot endure either that others should point them out to [us], or that they should see them.”
Many who have worked with Trump describe him in similar terms.
Pascal added, “Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them, and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.”
Pascal observed that such a man “wants to be the object of love and esteem among men, and he sees that his faults merit only their hatred and contempt. This embarrassment in which he finds himself produces in him the most unrighteous passion that can be imagined; for he conceives a mortal enmity against that truth which reproves him and which convinces him of his faults.”
There is no path forward when truth is perceived as “a mortal enmity.”
Like Biden, I grew up with a stutter I have never fully overcome. (Tomorrow, I will share a FEE essay that considers adversity and tells my story.) Mercifully, as a young teenager, I encountered few bullies, but those I did encounter, like Trump, were persistent in their cruelty. They were wounded beasts trying to eliminate their shame by projecting it onto others.
When Pascal was writing, people did not have the psychological concept of projection, but Pascal understood that attempting to hide our faults from ourselves is destructive.
The life I lived then is long gone, but Trump is still gleefully living as a thirteen-year-old. In a country of mostly decent people, Trump, like Biden, should be nowhere near the White House.
Sadly, too many partisans are cheering for unfit-to-be-president candidates. They are cheering for the worst in human nature, and as a consequence, America's decline will continue. America will never be great again under Trump or Biden because both men lack character and are profoundly ignorant of and disrespect America’s founding principles.
In November, voting against someone is not enough to save America.
Last fall, a Gallup poll found broad support for a new political party. 63% of Americans think Republicans and Democrats are doing a “poor job.”
Not surprisingly, the media establishment and social media controllers are ignoring and censoring the candidacy of RFK Jr. If they are not censoring him, they tell you he is a dangerous heretic. They would like you to believe that Biden is the only legitimate candidate.
Despite the treatment in the media, RFK Jr has the highest favorability rating of any candidate.
The nine minutes it takes to consider RFK Jr.’s “How I See the State of Our Union” address is well worth it.
Here are just a few highlights:
“People are tired of being manipulated by fear. We learned that lesson during COVID. We recognize that the same techniques of manipulating fear are being used by elites today to corral us into voting for one political candidate or the other. Americans are tired of these dire warnings that to preserve democracy itself you better vote for our guy.”
“We’ve printed nine centuries worth of money in a little over a decade and spent $8 trillion on regime change wars. Those wars have made America less safe, our country less strong, while soaring prices through the roof as our infrastructure falls apart.”
“Out of the richest countries in the world, the United States is 35th in child poverty rates just above Mexico. We rank 36th in literacy and 45th in press freedom. We have one of the highest cancer rates in the world and our life expectancy now ranks 59th according to the World Bank. That’s right behind Algeria which spends less than 130th per capita of what we spend.”
“We have become a nation of chronic illness and violence, of depression and division, and poverty. Our great cities are becoming modern-day Hoovervilles, filled with undocumented immigrants, dispossessed Americans, and people living in their cars with mental illness and addiction and despair.”
The United States is ranked only the 23rd freest country in the world on the “Human Freedom Index” published by the Cato and Fraser Institutes.
How can Biden proclaim this is “the greatest comeback story never told”?
And remember, while Trump tells you he is going to make America great again, he boasts of his role in inflicting COVID vaccines on the world and is clueless of the dire consequences.
These are profoundly ignorant men without commitment to America’s great principles.
If you tell me RFK Jr. can’t win, here are my responses:
If you tell me RFK Jr. supports some collectivist solutions, I say that I’m not seeking the impossible goal of ideological purity. And to what end is that “purity” used?
In the past few years, I have witnessed libertarians, who present as ideological purists, advocate for government vaccines and continued open borders. I have read libertarians argue against Israel’s right to self-defense.
If you read and listen to RFK Jr., you will learn he is more of a classical liberal than are many libertarians.
No one is coming to save us. Each of us must renew our understanding of the principles and conditions under which humanity flourishes.
The darkness cannot vanish until we turn on the light.
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Thank You Barry for once again. telling it like it is. Your assessment of our two “choices” is spot on. I’m enthusiastically supporting RFK Jr. He’s demonstrating great courage in answering the call. As always, words are insufficient to express the value of your presence and contributions.
In parallel with Marcus Aurelius' meditations, I am preparing spiritually for Easter with the Jesuit community (not my confession, but they welcomed me as a spiritual pilgrim, in fact a very
lost sheep -:)).
Since you mentioned Pascal, who gave up science for religion, I'll make a reference to a passage in the Bible, which I came across these days, and which Pascal probably knew it very well.
John 3:19 ... light came into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil things hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be revealed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light...".
I am shocked by many passages that seem so timely and yet written more than two millennia ago. Just as Marcus Aurelius said nothing ever changes...