The loneliest man in America

Donald Trump has never described himself so perfectly. At 10:52 last night, he posted this on his social media site: "Colbert is finally finished at CBS. Amazing that he lasted so long! No talent, no ratings, no life. He was like a dead person. You could take any person off of the street and they would be better than this total jerk. Thank goodness he's finally gone!"

He was talking about Stephen Colbert, of course.

But allegations are confessions when they come out of Donald Trump's mouth.

The celebrated comedian shuttered his show Thursday, a year after Paramount surrendered to the president's bullying. Trump got what he wanted from his corporate toadies, but unsurprisingly, that wasn't enough. No words are too shameful, or as screenwriter David Simon put it: "The smallest, most soulless creature to ever be over-stuffed into a human form has thoughts about quality television. With a world and nation in disarray and requiring remedy, the president of the United States feels the need to opine on this passionately.

"Our republic is so debased."

"The 'Late Show' crew, [Colbert] said, always referred to the program as the 'joy machine,'" according to the Times' James Poniewozik. "The daily grind means the production has to be a kind of machine, he said, 'but if you choose to do it with joy, it doesn’t hurt as much when your fingers get caught in the gears.'" That way of thinking, Poniewozik said, gave "an energy to Colbert’s satire that I think of as 'hopeful despair.' ... When you suffer a loss, you pull yourself out of the rubble, you dust off your clown suit, and you put on a show."

In an exchange about faith and grief, Dua Lipa once asked him if religion and comedy ever come in conflict. "Does one of them ever win out?" Colbert answered by referring to Belfast, a movie he said evoked his Catholicism. "It's funny and it’s sad and it’s funny about being sad in the same way that sadness is like a little bit of an emotional death, but not a defeat if you can find a way to laugh about it, because that laughter keeps you from having fear of it, and fear is the thing that keeps you from turning to evil devices to save you from the sadness."

The comedian went on to quote Robert Hayden's famous poem:

“We must not be frightened nor cajoled
into accepting evil as deliverance from evil.
We must go on struggling to be human,
though monsters of abstraction
police and threaten us."

Colbert concluded by saying: "So if there’s some relationship between my faith and my comedy, it’s that no matter what happens you are never defeated. You must understand and see this in the light of eternity and find some way to love and laugh with each other."

Does that sound "like a dead person" to you?

Of course not. Donald Trump was talking about himself.

Given that Trump's poll numbers are sinking and that even some Republicans are standing up to him, there's lots of enthusiasm right now. Even so, I don't have much confidence in justice being served in the end. I fear the Democrats, once they reclaim power, which seems likely, will take a few steps toward accountability, then move on. I will gladly accept being proven wrong. However, all things considered, I don't think I am. Justice won't likely come.

That said, I take comfort in knowing one thing.

Donald Trump is dead inside.

More than that, I take comfort in knowing that he knows it, and that also he knows everyone, including his family, will celebrate the day of his demise. "Amazing that he lasted so long!" people everywhere will say. "No talent, no ratings, no life. He was like a dead person. You could take any person off of the street and they would be better than this total jerk.

"Thank goodness he's finally gone!"

Such is the fate of tyrants. To illustrate, I'm going to quote from Stephen Greenblatt's brilliant 2018 book about them. I'm going to put Donald Trump where Richard III's name is.

Our tyrant has caused irreparable harm. Beyond the death and war, beyond the crimes against humanity and the Constitution, beyond him literally making all of us poorer, sicker and meaner, there's this – the end of those decades between the conclusion of the Second World War and last month, when the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Acts, therefore bringing to a close the chapter in our history in which America failed multiracial democracy.

It isn't coming back in our lifetimes. Future elections alone can't revive it. But at least there's solace in knowing the man who destroyed multiracial democracy knows how much he's hated. In the end, he defeated himself. He's soulless. He's friendless. He's not even going to his own son's wedding. For all his power, he's the loneliest, most miserable man in America.

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