New Orleans I won’t speculate, as experts do in the Times, about whether or not Trump is losing it, because I can’t verify that he ever “had it,” given his nth degree of narcissism. I can say that if he was borderline before, he’s crossed over into another territory now with his recent rants at Pope Leo. Who in their right mind tries to threaten and bully a pope? What’s even the most remote prospect of gain there? What could he have been thinking, if thinking at all? What can anyone say when Trump is pictured as Jesus, and now claiming he thought it was as a doctor? Come on, man!
Trump also seems to have forgotten that this particular pope is not some foreigner, but an American, and a native of Chicago with roots in New Orleans. These aren’t cities where people backdown from bullies. These are hardfisted, punch back towns. Sure enough, Pope Leo, when interviewed in Africa where the Catholic Church is growing like gangbusters, said he “had no fear” about Trump’s threats. Why would he? He’s the pope, the head of church, not a country. Sure, the Vatican has historic status dating over a thousand years, when they were a power in Europe. They continue to have diplomats and, if you will, foreign affairs, but the Swiss Guard is no army. The church has no nuclear ambition; its role is moral and spiritual when it’s at its best. Maybe that’s Trump’s problem with it?
- D. Vance, the vice-president, as a Catholic convert and someone who has visited with Pope Leo this year, was clearly asked to take one for the team, once again. Farcically, he seems to have issued a statement telling the pope to keep out of US domestic affairs. What? There seems to be some confusion. Trump and Netanyahu’s war against Iran is not a domestic problem for the US and Israel, but a global catastrophe spreading personal and economic pain around the world. If the pope has any role outside of the Catholic Church and minding his flock there, it’s to be an advocate for peace in the world. It might chap Trump and Vance a bit, but that’s actually his job. Most of those who speak truth to power are just blowing smoke, but for the pope, that’s right at the top of his job description and the only reason any of us pay any attention to what he does outside of his paying and praying gig.
Trump is ranting and raving, cursing and howling at the moon these days, because he got himself, and sadly, all of us, in such a mess. It was scary when he was threaten Iran into the Stone Age, like he has clue, but threatening the pope is just stupid. Unsurprisingly, he is being condemned and criticized for these threats from the right and left, red and blue, Republicans and Democrats. While foaming in the mind and mouth, he may have forgotten evangelicals are part of what props up his plays, and not even that crowd are willing to come out as anti-papists anymore, no matter what they really think.
In commentary on another autocrat’s fall, Viktor Orban in Hungary, a Russian political maxim found its way into the explanation for his defeat, saying he lost by paying too much attention “to the television” and too little to “the refrigerator.” If anyone was capable of giving Trump advice that he might hear, the same should be said to him, though social media might be his weakness as much as television, and the gas pump should be twined with the refrigerator. If he doesn’t listen, he’s about to be taught a similar lesson in November.