When Robert F. Kennedy spoke on the topic of
national division at the Cleveland City Club shortly before his death, it was
the culmination of a very different public role. “Too often we honor swagger
and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are
willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others.”
That is exactly what many in the corporate world, and many conservative
Christian leaders, are doing in their devotion to Trump: honoring swagger,
bluster and force, and excusing a leader who constructs his political success
on the cultivation of contempt and slanders against the weak. By their nearly
blind support, such leaders are complicit in Trump’s rule by resentment.
“But we can perhaps remember,” said Kennedy, “that those who live with us
are our brothers, that they share with us the same short movement of life, that
they seek — as we do — nothing but the chance to live out their lives in
purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.”
It is only on empathy — the virtue most foreign to the president — that
unity can be built.
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