The Wrath of Khan

I watched not one second of the coverage of either convention this month.  But even I knew about the father of a Muslim soldier killed in Iraq addressing the Democratic National Convention.  It was a poignant story, but it no doubt would have quickly been forgotten if not for the Donald.

The whole point of Khizr Khan's appearance in Philadelphia was to criticize Trump's proposal to ban Muslim immigration into the United States by presenting an example of a Muslim patriot giving his life for his country.   Khan made his challenge personal by addressing Trump directly.  What sacrifices has Trump made for his country?  Has he ever read the Constitution?  Somebody had to know that was like waving a red cape at a bull.

Naturally a reporter chose to prompt Trump for a response to Khan' challenge and he obliged.  Trump said he's made sacrifices by putting up buildings and creating jobs.  He then pointed out that Khan's wife, the mother of the fallen soldier, stood silently next to Khan while he delivered his address.  Trump suggested that she wasn't allowed to speak because she is a Muslim woman.

This episode illustrates several of Trump's serious character defects.  First, nothing can ever not be about him.  It would have been so easy to say simply that he appreciates and honors the sacrifice of this American soldier and move on.  But he, at his core, is incapable of that kind of restraint.

He asserts that he made sacrifices by developing real estate.  He didn't make sacrifices; he made money (usually).  His decades-old claim that avoiding VD in the seventies was his personal Vietnam war could have been left in the past had he not demonstrated that this narcissistic attitude is very much a part of him still.  His assumption about Mrs. Khan's silence may have an element of truth.  She apparently comes from a culture where women are discouraged or outright forbidden from speaking out.  But that's entirely irrelevant to her son's sacrifice.

It was obvious the Democrats were going long on grieving mothers in Philadelphia, particularly mothers of sons killed by police.  I'm sure they would have preferred to have Mrs. Khan address the convention directly.  Maybe she was culturally inhibited or just shy.  So they had her stand on stage as a silent endorsement of her husband's speech while presenting another grieving mother for the assemble delegates to fetishize.

I don't credit Democrats with an ounce of intellectual honesty or genuine concern but sometimes you let these things lie so as not to extend their cultural lifespan.  Donald can't do that.

Secondly, it's quite obvious Trump hasn't read the Constitution.  It's obvious from many of his public pronouncements.  He hasn't read it for the same reason Bobby Jindal said he hadn't read the Bible - he isn't in it.  If he had, he could have addressed his Muslim immigration ban with a modicum of intelligence the way Andrew McCarthy did in National Review Online.

Trump lacks all self-discipline.  This is why he announced his intention to fund super PACs to defeat two candidates he's already defeated.  This vindictive self-obsession should be disqualifying in a presidential candidate.  That his legions of Trumpswabs can't see this does not bode well for the republic.  A country can survive ignorant leaders far more readily than it can survive ignorant voters.