As one way to keep tabs on President Trump\u2019s state of mind, I\u2019m on his email fundraising lists. Lately his 79-year-old mind has seemed to be on his mortality.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to try and get to heaven\u201d has been the subject line on roughly a half-dozen Trump emails since mid-August. Oddly, one arrived earlier this month on the same day that the commander in chief separately posted<\/a> on social media a meme of himself as \u201cApocalypse Now\u201d character Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, satisfyingly surveying the hellish conflagration that his helicopters had wreaked, not on Vietnam but on Chicago. \u201cChipocalypse\u201d was Trump\u2019s warning to the next U.S. city that he might militarize.<\/p>\n Mixed messages, to be sure.<\/p>\n The president hasn\u2019t limited his celestial contemplations to online outlets. \u201cI want to try and get to heaven, if possible,\u201d he told<\/a> the hosts of \u201cFox & Friends\u201d in August, by way of explaining his (failed) effort to bring peace to Ukraine. \u201cI\u2019m hearing I\u2019m not doing well.\u201d<\/p>\n Well, Mr. President, here\u2019s some advice: I don\u2019t think you\u2019ll get to heaven by wishing that many of your fellow citizens go to hell.<\/p>\n The disconnect between Trump\u2019s dreams of eternal reward and his earthly avenging \u2014 against Democrat-run cities, political rivals, late-show hosts and other celebrity critics, universities, law firms, cultural institutions, TV networks and newspapers, liberal groups and donors, government employees, insufficiently loyal allies and even harmless protesters<\/a> at a Washington restaurant \u2014 was rarely so evident as it was at the Christian revival that was Sunday\u2019s memorial for the slain<\/a> MAGA activist Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.<\/p>\n Mere minutes after Erika Kirk, Kirk\u2019s widow and successor as head of the conservative group Turning Point USA, had tearfully forgiven her husband\u2019s accused killer, the president explicitly contradicted her with a message of hate toward his own enemies, and his continued determination to exact revenge.<\/p>\n Erika Kirk spoke<\/a> of \u201cCharlie\u2019s mission\u201d of engaging his critics and working \u201cto save young men just like the one who took his life.\u201d She recalled the crucified Christ absolving his executioners on Calvary, then emotionally added: \u201cThat young man. I forgive him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI forgive him because it was what Christ did and what Charlie would do,\u201d she said to applause. \u201cThe answer to hate is not hate. The answer, we know from the Gospel, is love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.\u201d<\/p>\n Then it was Trump\u2019s turn<\/a>.<\/p>\n Just one minute in, he called the 22-year-old suspect \u201ca radicalized cold-blooded monster.\u201d And throughout, despite investigators\u2019 belief that the man acted alone, Trump reiterated for the umpteenth time since Kirk\u2019s death that \u201cradical left lunatics\u201d \u2014 his phrase for Democrats \u2014 actually were responsible and that the Justice Department would round up those complicit for retribution.<\/p>\n Trump acknowledged that Charlie Kirk probably wouldn\u2019t agree with his approach: \u201cHe did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them.\u201d Then Teleprompter Trump went off script, reverting to real Trump and ad-libbing: \u201cThat\u2019s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don\u2019t want the best for them.\u201d He spat the word \u201chate\u201d with venom. And he got applause, just as Erika Kirk had for a very different message.<\/p>\n Jesus counseled \u201cturn the other cheek\u201d<\/a> to rebuke those who harm us. Trump boasts that he always punches back. \u201cIf someone screws you, screw them back 10 times harder,\u201d he once said<\/a>. Love your enemies, as Christ commanded in his Sermon on the Mount? Nah. You heard Trump in Arizona: \u201cI hate my opponent.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump might have some explaining to do when he seeks admittance at the pearly gates.<\/p>\n The Bible\u2019s words aside, a president is supposed to be the comforter in chief after a tragedy and a uniter when divisions rend the American fabric. Think of President Clinton<\/a>, whose oratory bridged partisan fissures after antigovernment domestic terrorists bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people, and of President George W. Bush<\/a>, who visited a mosque in Washington after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, in a healing gesture intended to blunt rising anti-Muslim reactions. (Later, of course, Bush would cleave the nation by invading Iraq based on a lie about its complicity.)<\/p>\n Trump, by contrast, is the inciter in chief. Just hours after Kirk\u2019s death on Sept. 10, and before a suspect was in custody, he addressed<\/a> the nation, blaming \u201cradical left political violence.\u201d He has repeated that indictment nearly every day since, though the FBI has reported for years \u2014 including during his first term \u2014 that domestic right-wing violence is the greater<\/a> threat<\/a>. \u201cWe have to beat the hell out of them,\u201d Trump told<\/a> reporters. When even one of his friends on \u201cFox & Friends\u201d noted radicals are on the right as well, Trump replied: \u201cI couldn\u2019t care less. \u2026 The radicals on the left are the problem, and they\u2019re vicious and they\u2019re horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n All of this vituperation and vengeance suggests a big \u201cwhat if\u201d: What if Trump were more like Charlie Kirk? To ask is not to gloss over Kirk\u2019s controversial utterances<\/a> against Black Americans<\/a>, gay and transgender Americans and others, but he did respectfully deal with those who disagreed with him \u2014 as he was doing when he was shot.<\/p>\n What if Trump, since 2016, had sincerely tried to broaden his political reach, as presidential nominees and presidents of each party historically did, to embrace his opponents and to compromise with them? What if he governed for all Americans and not just his MAGA voters? He might well have enacted bipartisan laws of the sort that Trump 1.0 promised on immigration, gun safety, infrastructure and more. In general we\u2019d all be better off, less polarized.<\/p>\n And with a more magnanimous approach like that, Trump just might have a better chance at getting into heaven.<\/p>\n Bluesky: @jackiecalmes<\/a>
Threads: @jkcalmes<\/a>
X: @jackiekcalmes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As one way to keep tabs on President Trump\u2019s state of mind, I\u2019m on his email fundraising lists.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":250916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,19719,10082,89762,132859,4446,132856,120792,88511,132857,10754,2961,224,5337,37476,1807,9557,132860,132858],"class_list":["post-250915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-charlie-kirk","tag-chief","tag-christ","tag-col","tag-death","tag-enemy","tag-erika-kirk","tag-hate","tag-heaven","tag-host","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-opponent","tag-president-trump","tag-same-day","tag-washington-restaurant","tag-young-man"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115258919689724764","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}