The President and the Seven Deadly Sins: Envy

So, I was thinking that it might be interesting to explore the extent to which Trump’s behavior can be fruitfully considered through the lens of the seven deadly sins.  He has certainly made a serious commitment to several of them.  And then something I heard on 1A, NPR’s replacement for the Diane Rehm Show, prompted me to begin with envy.

     It might seem that there is very little for Trump to envy.  He is the leader of what is still the most powerful nation in the world (although Trump himself may bring an end to that).  He is obscenely rich; there are others who are richer, but only a few, and they do not seem to be of particular concern to him.  He has a beautiful, intelligent wife, and successful children.  His followers come to his rallies in huge numbers to sing his praises.

     Yet…he is so frustrated.  Congress remains a recalcitrant obstacle to much of his agenda.  His administration is riddled with leaks.  People all over the country are suing and protesting and otherwise harassing him all the time.  And the nasty, lying press persists in telling their nasty lies about him, and there is nothing he can do about it.

     Meanwhile, one cannot help but notice that Trump is sucking up to about every dictator he can find.  He has, of course, been licking Putin’s boots at least since his presidential campaign began.  He congratulated Erdogan when he won a referendum that gave him near dictatorial powers.  He has invited Duterte—the Philippine president who has orchestrated mass murder—to visit the White House for a chat.  Even Kim Jong Un is getting a positive spin.  And so on and on.

     This was the topic of the first hour of 1A on May 2.*  Thomas Countryman, a career diplomat until Trump started eviscerating the State Department, got it exactly right when he said that Trump envies these dictators.  And when the moderator questioned such a serious charge against the President, the other participants were quick to agree with Countryman.  Trump envies the ability of these “strongmen” to silence dissent, punish those who obstruct them, and rule by executive decree.  

     All the discussants were quick to add that envy doesn’t entail intent.  They were all quick to insist that they were not saying that Trump intended to start imprisoning people and silencing the press.  But….

     Trump wants to weaken the 1st Amendment; Priebus confirms that the WH has considered how to do this.  He wants to change the libel laws to make it easier for him to sue the press.  The DOJ insists that laughing at some bloviating politician is enough to justify a conviction for disrupting Congress.  Trump has just signed an executive order that provides some cover for religious bigotry.  He may not intend to do anything in particular; sometimes I think he is too mentally disordered to form a coherent intention.  But what he is willing to do is much less clear.

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*The entire show is here, and a slightly edited version that retains the thread of the discussion can be found in the podcast section of the1A.org.  The discussion format of this show is interesting because it allows the participants to make points that require more than two sentences.