View from K Street: Trump’s Theatre of Cruelty

Poet T.S. Eliot wrote, “April is the cruelest month,” but he didn’t live through the last 30 days. As the first year of Trump’s second term ends, a series of calamities brought out aspects of a man who instinctively views anything—even the most heartrending human tragedies—as nothing more than reflections of his often narcissistic, frequently cruel temperament. Unfortunately, that same spirit has informed and shaped the entire government, so that thoughtless cruelty seems to be the motivating force behind Trump’s conduct and that of his obedient acolytes.

The immediate cause for these comments is the president’s response to a series of recent horrific murders here and abroad. National Guardsmen gunned down in the quiet streets of downtown Washington by a deranged man who drove 3,000 miles to kill strangers. A classroom of college students at a prestigious university randomly shot by a gunman, leaving two dead and the peaceful serenity of their academic enclave shattered. Iowa Guardsman slain in Syria by a revanchist ISIS sniper. Dozens of Jews in Australia, celebrating a holiday of freedom and light, massacred by a father-son team enflamed by antisemitic hatred, casually shooting strangers, made targets by their religious beliefs. An admired star of TV and movies and his talented wife, struck down by their drug-dazed son, an Oedipal tragedy in contemporary Hollywood.

In times like these, a stunned and baffled nation looks to its leader for consolation and resolve, for some unifying words based on our common humanity. That was not to be.