Trump cannot grieve

Charlie Kirk's funeral service in Glendale was the most corny, insincere, and disgusting I've ever seen. I watched it for several hours on CNN overnight, because as a columnist, you have to do what you can for your readers, especially now that they regularly hear, thanks to TV ads, a somewhat timid girl's voice: " NRC will take you further."

I'd love to help non-NRC readers, but since that meeting for Kirk, I've had my doubts. What was so bad about it? The kitsch of imposed sentimentality and pseudo-religiosity, combined with the false political motives. Here, the memory of a murdered man was being exploited for political ends. This, of course, was spearheaded by Donald Trump himself, for whom the entire meeting was tailored: he had to be the last to speak.

But what happened? Something we could have anticipated: Trump doesn't know what grief is. Grief is foreign to him. Grief presupposes concern for the fate of others. Trump will only experience grief when he realizes he himself is mortal, and he will then immediately instruct his speechwriters on what should and shouldn't be included in the eulogy: mention the successes, especially if there's a Nobel Prize involved, but not the defeats. He will also, with satanic delight, compile the list of invitees: Putin, Bolsonaro, and Orbán, but not Biden, the Clintons, and Zelenskyy.

Trump's 45-minute speech in Glendale, rambling as ever, consisted of two components: the obligatory eulogies to the deceased, undoubtedly written by others, which he read from the teleprompters, and the self-congratulations he improvised. So, that things were still "incredibly good" for the country, and that he would be able to crush cities where things weren't going so well, like Chicago.

He spoke of "martyr" Kirk in the clichés we'd already heard from others: that he'd been a good and devout man. Trump had known Kirk personally, and I suspect he must have considered him a wimp, because he made it clear that his adage "don't hate your opponent" wasn't for him, Trump: "I didn't agree with Charlie on that. I hate my opponent. I don't want what's best for them, sorry."

It was a rare moment of self-awareness. I thought of Wilders for a moment: another hater. The only difference is that Trump openly declares his hatred. Trump also continues to support the people who follow his hatred, even bailing them out, while Wilders now calls the people he inspired to acts of hatred "scum," as if he has nothing to do with them.

The low point of the funeral service in Glendale was saved for the end. Trump summoned the grieving widow Kirk to join her on stage and immerse herself in the appreciative cheers and groans of the watching crowd. The widow, too, couldn't seem to get enough, pressing herself again and again against the revelry of the man she perhaps saw as the new Savior—just like the tens of thousands of followers in that stadium. What possesses her? God only knows.