During the midterm elections recently past, President Trump befriended a former political enemy whose father Trump accused of killing John F. Kennedy and whose wife Trump once made offensive, disparaging remarks. Politics breeds strange bedfellows.
Trump, desperate for the Republicans to keep control of the Congress and advance his agenda, was in Texas stumping for GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, himself feeling desperate. He narrowly defeated Democrat Beto O’Rourke in a race he should have won easily.
Smiling and praising his new friend, who he called “Texas Ted” to a gaggle of reporters, Trump was asked whether he regretted his claim during the 2016 election about Cruz’s father killing Kennedy. Trump waved the question off: “I never have any regrets.”
Trump is not a man to have regrets, but this is something that even some of those who ardently oppose him doubt. Everyone has regrets. Why would Trump not have any regrets? Yet, we should believe him. When Trump speaks, for anyone who listens, he reveals himself.
A friend and an astute observer of people who is appalled by Trump asked me recently how the president, at age 71, could have learned so few life lessons at his age. That’s a question I’ve heard many people ask, as if Trump missed class those days life lessons were taught.
Truth is, Trump did learn the lessons humanity lives by and cherishes – honesty, integrity, fairness, empathy, sacrifice, generosity, selflessness, kindness and sympathy. But Trump could not see how virtue would get him ahead in life, how it would make him wealthy beyond measure, how it would earn his father’s approval.
So, he chose dishonesty, deceit, deception, cruelty, hate, unfairness and pain to make his way in the world. Democracy doesn’t work for him because it doesn’t give him unfettered political power to reward his loyalists and punish his opponents, to rule with an iron fist in order to smash any obstacles or constituencies he perceives as threatening his wealth and power.
Trump is the man in the high tower. He’s unreachable through interaction because that requires meeting someone at a common level; he’s transactional – what can someone do for him; what can he get from someone at minimal cost to him. Trump is just about power and money, as much power and as much money as he can get.
The anger Trump’s opponents feel is born from frustration that an individual could deny empathetic traits such as regret. In life’s interactions, people expect honest, integrity, empathy, selflessness and fairness. However, Trump is a blank screen. He reserves those character traits for the transaction to ensure he gets what he wants.
In October, when CBS reporter Lesley Stahl in a “60 Minutes” interview asked Trump whether he had any regrets looking back at his first two years in office, Trump said, “I regret that the press treats me so badly.” A few weeks later, Trump shared what Sinclair Broadcasting characterized as a regret: "I would like to have a much softer tone. I feel to a certain extent I have no choice, but maybe I do,"
As former New York Times editor and longtime journalist Howell Raines recently said of Trump, “To have regrets in life or in politics means you have principles.”
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