The true tragedy is not the gesture itself, but what it reveals: a shrinking idea of the office and a swelling belief that authority is best exercised through contempt.
The finger was not aimed merely at a heckler. It was aimed at the notion that power requires discipline.
We must recognize tyranny and call it what it is.
We must also remember that when tyranny comes it is also accompanied by hardship and poverty.
We were told the tariffs were about fairness. American workers would be protected from unfair competition, though no one could identify the American banana industry in need of rescue.
We were told the tariffs were about leverage, though the principal result was leverage applied to grocery bills.
Recent events concerning Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, provide a useful illustration of how Donald Trump uses the DOJ when he feels insufficiently obeyed.
Must we all bow down to Donald Trump?
Who among us, after all, has not, in a moment of moral misplacement, desired to run another’s house for them?
Were it not for benevolence and kindness, some would maintain, how else could one ensure that a neighbor’s affairs remain consistent with one’s own comfort?
