The State of Our Inhumanity

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I suppose watching the Presidential Address in its entirety is a form of masochism.

Guilty.

Many grim realities were drowned out by the deluge of grandiose pronouncements. Ironically, Trump’s tedious catchphrase, “like you’ve never seen before,” was accurate. We’ve never “seen” or heard anything like his embarrassing self-praise or breathtaking lack of self-awareness.

Every State of the Union (or title de jour) is seasoned with a few heart-tugging tales, always accompanied by fawning cameras focusing in on the object of sentiment in the balcony. One was a young survivor of brain cancer who was inducted into the Secret Service. Another was a young man who learned in real time that he was accepted at West Point.

Family members of Laken Riley, a young woman murdered by an immigrant, were “celebrated”with a standing ovation by Republicans, who never miss a pandering opportunity. An Act of Congress bears her name. Family members of Corey Comperatore, who was slain by a bullet intended for Trump, were guests of Melania.

These saccharine moments have a bitter aftertaste. The exploitation is obvious, especially when the tragedies are used in support of a petty tyrant, who hasn’t a compassionate bone in his body.

There is something grotesque about the American tenderness for our own poster children as we willfully enable and ignore brutality on an unimaginable scale. We tie yellow ribbons to trees for a child stuck in a well. Pictures of a missing child go viral and candlelight vigils light the sky as evidence of our deep concern.

And last night, as every night, there was no mention of the immense cruelty we cause.

As Trump et al grinned and giggled at the “triumphs” of his first 6 weeks, his actions, our actions, are killing children.

In Gaza,13,000 children have died - 25,000 more gravely wounded. Our weapons have done most of it.

In Ukraine, nearly 2,000 children have been slaughtered by Putin’s Russia and Donald Trump is withholding vital aid to both the Ukrainian military and humanitarian organizations.

The assault on USAID will accelerate infant mortality, lead to outbreaks of deadly disease and quite literally take food from the mouths of starving children.

Trump, Musk and the GOP Congress have Medicaid in their sights. 37 million children depend on Medicaid for health care. Any reduction in that meager support will kill children and they will be invisible.

Democrats held up polite little signs that struck me as pitifully inadequate. It seemed like saying, “Gee whiz, that’s not very nice!” as one watches a mass shooting. That analogy is sadly accurate, as our national response to mass shootings has been essentially, “Gee whiz, that’s not very nice.”

Only Representative Al Green had the decency to confront utter indecency with something more than a pink scarf and a sign.

I find it hard to look at even one child crouched in rubble in Gaza or starving to death in a country Trump can’t even locate on a map. I can’t see the pain or distant numbness in the eyes of suffering children without imagining them to be my grandchildren. I would give my life to rescue them.

If they were your children or grandchildren I suspect you would do the same.

Yet somehow, geographic distance creates psychological distance when the children are other than ours. Is that logical? Is it sane? If we would sacrifice anything for some children, how can we not do some damn thing for all children?

This is not revelatory. I, and perhaps you, reflect from time to time about the emotional asymmetry between personal comfort and distant, unthinkable misery. The magnitude is so great, even in our local communities (unhoused families, deepening poverty, and more ), that some dissociation is necessary for sanity.

Last night, watching the monstrous Trump, with the smirking Vance and Johnson smiling and nodding at his every perverse boast, was sickening.

Would it have been impolite or impolitic to yell out, “You are child killers!”?

Could the Democrats have had the courage and humanity to make Trump and his allies look at pictures of dead and maimed children, victims of our complicity in war?

We have normalized and compartmentalized the true consequences of our actions and inactions. We cannot claim to have moral authority when our authorities are immoral.

That, sadly, is the state of our union.