Base in his motives and cruel in his targets

Richard Cohen at the Post explains Trump.

Trump does not possess an ounce of compassion. He is reptilian, knowing only to show his fangs, hiss and attack. This is why he mocked a physically disabled reporter for the New York Times, why he derided the heroism of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and why he dismissed the authenticity of the Khans, who had lost their son in Iraq.

This inability to feel the pain of others — even to acknowledge it — is not a minor tick in an otherwise good man. It is the salient characteristic of a sadist, of someone so wrapped up in himself that he has contempt for victims. Trump’s name for them is “losers.” They are the poor and the unlucky. They deserve what they get.

This is the heart of it. If it weren’t for this, the rest of it – the incompetence and stupidity and ignorance, the corruption and greed, the vulgar trashy crassitude – would still be horrendous, but not agonizing in the same way. It’s his hideous brutal meanness and cruelty and contempt for all other human beings that make us feel so degraded.

Trump is not a conservative nor a nationalist nor some reality show creation. He is a mean S.O.B., base in his motives and cruel in his targets and, until he won in November, unthinkable in American history — a brat in the Oval Office. He’s not man enough to throw an arm around a grieving widow. He disgraces his office and will be remembered by history as a lout. It is now a fate he cannot escape. Sorry, but he knew what he was signing up for.

But so did we. So did we.

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