When I was in school, there was a bully with more muscles than brains named Tippy. He had a small gang of fawning acolytes who, emboldened by his company, enjoyed ambushing smaller kids, taunting and pushing them around.
I hadn’t thought of Tippy until February 28 when a couple of thugs played the same ugly game on TV, ambushing a man smaller in size but way larger than both of them in courage and integrity.
Trump’s verdict on the performance — “It’s gonna be great television” — was, in a way, true since it immediately raised Zelensky’s already heroic stature around the world, especially in Ukraine.
Trump is a terrible role model. What are kids to think when a spectacle commonly found in school playgrounds shows up in the Oval Office?
He’s also a con artist, and a con artist feels nothing but contempt for the people he cons. They are, after all, losers, happily imprisoned in his fake world. As his former press secretary reported, one term he uses for them is “basement dwellers.”
But his greatest contempt is for those he hasn’t conned but are still willing to grovel. These are the Republican legislators who have given up on democracy and do exactly what he wants them to.
That leaves the people he actually fears — the people who are neither conned nor willing to grovel. They still believe in democracy and are determined to make it work again.
These are the people we need. May they keep the faith.
