We are back in familiar territory.  Is it possible for Donald Trump to get any worse, or to sink even lower? 

If an English, Canadian or Australian prime minister responded to a national tragedy in the way that Trump just did, he or she would be run out of town – it was so gross and offensive and bigoted and stupid and cruel that the culprit could not survive politically. 

What is it about the United States that allows a president to get away with being so utterly unpresidential?  Why do Americans tolerate what no other civilized nation would tolerate?

For reasons I can understand, U S psychiatrists agreed not to debate the mental health of the most powerful man on the planet.  But you do not need medical training to see that this man’s ego is so dominant, that there is little or no room for compassion, or even feelings, for others – or even conscience.  Trump would not know the meaning of the word ‘empathy.’  We should not be bullied or conned from stating the obvious.  This conduct of Trump was an affront to humanity at large.

Trump is in it for Trump – and those who toe his line.  He is not in it for all Americans.  If you are a grieving parent or child in Wichita, but a Democrat – bad luck.  You picked the wrong horse, and you are a loser.  You are in truth the enemy.

A two-party system cannot survive that moral blindness.  In thirty years of hearing cases against the government, I endeavored to recall the maxim that the most important person in the room was the loser – and that I at least had to try to be fair to both sides – even the bloody government!  Sane politicians recognize just that on election night.  Not Trump.

And now we have a new justification for bigotry against people who do not conform – ‘common sense’.  Why not?  It is a perfectly natural reaction to seek scapegoats.  It all started with Eve and the snake, and neither has had a good press since.  Just ask people of colour or queers or migrants or religious minorities.  Or cripples.

But we have a justified hope that people in high office can rise above the gutter – not least when the prejudice is magnified by the complete absence of evidence to support the abuse of the chosen culprit.

Trump is now boasting about how much time he gives the press.  This is because he loves the sound of his own voice.  He embodies the insight of Blaise Pascal:

I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. 

Trump was followed by two toadies whose own position is so precarious that they must just play follow the leader at all costs – Hegseth and Vance.  They both saluted – dutifully and mindlessly – and revoltingly.  As if in a cabinet presided over by Kim Jong Un – just as it was in 2016.  (Do you remember Kim?  The mad murderer that Trump ‘fell in love’ with – probably just to spite the other murderer Trump admires, Vladimir Putin.)

Go back over a century or so and ask when a government succeeded by being presided over by a greedy illiterate convict surrounded by mindless and gutless sycophants.

It passes all understanding that a nation like the United States could have sunk so low, so fast. 

And there are worrying symptoms that the disease may spread – even to our shores.  We should therefore watch out for people – yes, especially men – who have an affinity for authority, division, and conflict, and who come from an area on the fringe that specialises in festering chips on the shoulder.