Phillip Roth on Donald Trump

Phillip Roth on Donald Trump

“A massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies, devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac.”

“Humanly impoverished” and “ignorant of government, history, of science of philosophy of art, incapable of expressing or recognizing subtlety or nuance” and “destitute of all decency”.

[JB] Trump is not the cause of the current malaise in our democratic system. When personal and partisan self-interest trumps the common good, then the corruption of democracy is inevitable.

When the majority of the citizens in a country is willing to trade off the values of the common good for the price of personal material goods, then the problem is not the demagogue taking advantage of the opportunity but the materialism suffocating the spiritual life of the country.

A dying country cannot always be resuscitated by a new leadership. JFK, MLK and Robert Kennedy were assassinated five decades ago for attempting to resume Lincoln’s mission, as were Carter and Obama, not with bullets but with regressive obstructionism.

A dying country may need to rise from the ashes, reborn like the Phoenix. A worldwide economic collapse may accomplish this collective transition, if  planet Earth still remains to live in after hurricane Trump.

The latent seeds of racist fascism and divisive self-interest must die before a country can rise again to lead the world in the quest for goodness, beauty and truth. We need to make the world good, beautiful and true, again.  –José Becerra

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