Donald Trump thinks Pope Francis is “too political” because he will visit a camp of migrants during his stop in Mexico.

This comes while Trump is seeking – and getting! – support from Christian voters. I bet he hates the idea of the Pope building showers and toilets in Rome for the homeless – those loafers – and speaking with tolerance about gays, asking “Who am I to judge?”

It seems clear to me that Trump does not have normal human compassion. His success with Americans as a sneering tyrant on a reality television show has further emboldened his unchecked infantile impulses.

Yet some Americans, professing religious values, fall for him.He’s their kind of guy.

Trump’s criticism of Pope Francis reminds me of another papal trip to Mexico, which I covered, oh my goodness, 37 years ago.

The new Pope, John Paul II, in his first overseas trip, arrived in the Zócalo, the center of ancient Mexico City.

The Pope issued a call for the Catholic clergy of Latin America to get back in uniform and deliver the sacraments and not bring some semblance of self-determination to the poor. Don’t be political, in other words.

The coded words sent a message all over Latin America, allowing governments to clamp down on activism toward the poor, including in Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s native Argentina. This Pope has seen repression up close, has been deeply scarred by it.

The latest Trump outburst reminds me of Mexico in February of 1979 when I twice met Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero of El Salvador, who spurned luxuries and slept in a peasant hammock and encouraged help for the poor.I wrote about my encounters with Romero a year ago:

I, too, had the good fortune to be covering that meeting in Mexico, and have so many memories of Archbishop Romero's words and presence there. If any of you would like to know a bit more about what he was like, Orbis has published an excellent book: Monseñor Romero: Memories in Mosaic. It captures so much about him.
http://www.amazon.com/Monsenor-Romero-Maria-Lopez-Vigil/dp/1626980101

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George Vecsey

2/12/2016 04:21:28 pm

Gene, as you know, I have read it, and it is a lovely book -- the memories of the staff that gave him a plush room, and how he resisted because he wanted to sleep in a hammock, a la gente.
Best,
GV

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Ed Martin

2/12/2016 12:24:50 pm

Years ago I read a column in the NYTimes sports pages by a writer I did not know, in California for the Super Bowl. In a week full of glitter and hype he wrote of a Latina housekeeper in the hotel.

It was GV, and this story shows why I have followed him closely ever since. Great humanist and great sports writer.

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George Vecsey

2/12/2016 04:24:19 pm

Ed thanks. I have to say, I cannot remember or locate that exact column. I do remember the Russian bellman at the little hotel in West Hollywood, when the excess rain was rushing down the hilly street, and I asked him if he'd ever seen it rain like that, and he said, "Well, during the war in Vladivostok." But that probably wasn't it., Anyway, thanks so much.

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bruce

2/13/2016 04:16:34 pm

ed,

don't recall the column, but you're right about george.

i spend many years in japan and first wrote him from there probably 8-9 years ago,

i can't remember the event--the tour de france perhaps--but i sent an email because i thought he was close to unique because of his interest, appreciation and knowledge of other countries' cultures and histories. i've mentioned that i enjoy his writing more in this format because he can show an edge when he feels the urge.

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Hansen Alexander

2/12/2016 12:46:11 pm

You hit Trump right on his massive ego. I am doing a satirical interview with HIS EGO right now if you want to consider running it soon on your space here.

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Brian Savin

2/12/2016 01:11:20 pm

George, two thoughts come to my mind in sharing your outrage. The first is, when does it end?

The jeremiadic commentator, minister, and occasional jailbird (at the behest of Goldman Sachs), Chris Hedges, sees our caring population at wits end. He recently said something dramatic, that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for Donald Trump or someone as bad as Donald Trump. He reasoned that politicians like Donald Trumps are the inevitable result of disenfranchisement, rage and despair and they will continue to be drawing ever-larger crowds until we wrest power out of the hands of the established elite.

The second thought that came to me was of Hedges’ great Colgate forebear, Rev. Harry Fosdick, and I had the epiphany of President Bernie Sanders joined in procession with the Pope, all singing Fosdick’s great Protestant Hymn that seems in point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc7_GLCRLkI

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Sam Toperoff

2/13/2016 05:45:37 am

When you've got the old mojo going, you're tough to beat one-on-one. Smart and edgy.
What was the name of that old umpire who said about balls and strikes, "It ain't nothin' till I call it!" I think it may have been Oswald Spengler. No, that was the guy who wrote "The Decline of the West." And he may have called it right.

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George Vecsey

2/13/2016 09:20:06 am

Sam: Merci.
It was Bill Klem. When I was a kid, Arthur Daley wrote a column a year about Bill Klem. The quote:

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/quotes/quoklem.shtml

Decline of the West was written before Trump and Cruz and Rubio.

Tu as raison.

GV

Bill Klem

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bruce

2/13/2016 03:20:06 pm

George,

sent a comment and it seems to have disappeared into the ether so i'll try again.

trump going too far is kind of a non sequitur or oxymoron or somethin'.....

it's amazing that a country that professes its religiosity so often and so loudly--much more than any other western democracy--that it often seems the opposite of what Christianity is supposed to be about.

and that so many followers of trump are supposedly good Christian folk.

as bad as trump and cruz et al are, you can't really blame them. they'd be shouting in a vacuum if only a few 'folks' followed or believed their blathering.

bruce.

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Brian Savin

2/13/2016 03:49:22 pm

Today's NY Times editorial is on point of this thread, in the sense of using migrants, even children, to pander for votes. This one isn't about Trump:

The view from Europe is not encouraging. People here are appalled by the idea that Trump might actually become the President of the USA. The Germans had the great Helmut Schmidt, who recently died in his '90's. Now they have the courageous Angela Merkel who probably doesn't get enough credit, but still qualifies as a "stateswoman", the noblest form of political life. The Italians, who repeatedly chose their version of Trump, Silvio Berlusconi, as their leader, don't understand Trump and Americans' support of such a crass and crude figure. Compared to Trump, Berlusconi was Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mostly what I hear from people over here is "What has happened to America? What is going on there? How can America even think about a Trump as the leader of the free world?". I don't know how to answer them and only say that all countries change, all cultures evolve, and that while America has been going down the wrong road now for a while and Trump will only take it further in that direction, I believe the majority of Americans would still never support someone like him. I only hope I am correct.

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George Vecsey

2/14/2016 03:34:02 pm

John, I hope you are right...You've been here until recently.
A steady diet of Fox and reality shows has turned a huge swath of the country's brains into polenta., .
Maybe not a majority but enough to make my skin crawl.
Last night's "debate" was a horror. The other five mugs are nearly as bad, particularly Cruz.
Berlusconi was a goat in a suit. Trump is worse.
a presto,
GV

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John McDermott

2/16/2016 04:00:47 am

George, I can't escape this vision I have of Trump closing the door at night, laughing out loud and toasting all the "Suckers!". You are right, there are a lot of Americans who allow themselves to be directed by crass and vulgar television, propaganda masquerading as journalism and garbage "reality" and "talk" shows. They are looking for, and will support, anyone who will tell them their fears and their anger are justified. Sounds like the Germany of eighty years ago, a people looking for a strong leader to take them out of their misery and restore their country to its former state of unquestioned world supremacy.

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George Vecsey

2/16/2016 01:06:44 pm

I think I saw the Brown Shirts mugging protestors at some of the Trump rallies, with him egging them on. In his genes, from what I read...GV

Brian Savin

2/14/2016 04:18:47 pm

An interesting analysis of how the U.S. culture has evolved to give rise to candidates like Donald Trump is published in this Weekend’s Wall Street Journal, entitled “Trump’s America” by a political scientist, Charles Murray, whom I do not know but has strong ties to corporate America through his affiliation with the American Enterprise Institute:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-america-1455290458

It says many things strikingly similar to commentators on the so-called “far” left, such as the Chris Hedges reference I made earlier in this thread, in that it identifies a new stratification of American society and fierce unemployment hidden from view and proper discussion which, he opines, have given rise to a rage held by virtually the entire American working class who feel betrayed and have grounds for feeling that way.

Now, there is stuff in this essay that will drive many people to distraction, such as the allegation that civil rights and feminist movements stoke the fire, just as the leftist commentators drive many people nuts by railing at the collective corporatist influence on political outcomes. But instigating causes are, perhaps, not the first thing to consider. I submit that perhaps the first thing is to understand, and admit to, the magnitude of the rage being felt by very, very many people.

murray got into some trouble a number of years ago with some study that caused some accusations of racism, if I remember correctly.

I recall him defending his work on a number of talk shows and forums.

probably longer ago than i'd like to think, could google it, but.....

bruce

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Brian Savin

2/15/2016 01:55:43 pm

Bruce, thanks. I had no idea that Murray was one of the authors of "The Bell Curve" that caused both consternation among many interest groups and much intellectual study twenty years ago. No wonder the WSJ gave his Trump essay a banner headline. It is a damn thoughtful essay that I read as implicitly condemning the new stratification of American society and identifying some of its causes. I also read it as ratifying much of what Chris Hedges has been railing about from the left for years in a way that makes Spengler look like a pussycat (I hope that isn't a Trumpism). Indeed, doesn't Spengler criticize democracy as nothing but the political weapon of money?

George, I don't have much patience for "hate studies" -- commentaries that seek to divide people into "thems and "us's" or call groups of people names to show their inferiority. I believe, outside of the deranged, people are basically good. I'm much more interested, therefore, in understanding the causes of anger and disaffection, because responding to those causes, I believe, is the only basis for creating and maintaining a just society.

I wonder if, between Bernie followers and Trump followers, there may be a majority of the population. Are their followers so very different? Are there similarities? If there are, the herrenvolk, in this place and time, may well be those in power and may also explain why the establishment candidates in both parties are having so much trouble.

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bruce

2/15/2016 02:06:26 pm

brian,

forgotten the bell curve title until you posted this.

i think the cat on the end of pussy makes it ok.

up here in the socialist haven of canuckistan, those of us interested in american presidential politics feel like we're watching a fatal car accident--sickening to watch, happy it's not us, but unable to turn our eyes away. it's like rob ford is running for potus.....

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Brian Savin

2/15/2016 07:24:41 pm

I have been following the blog of the former Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, since the Greek government's confrontation with the debt "solution" imposed on them last year by the EU at Germany's insistence. Just now, he commented on the ludicrous proposition that Bernie Sanders is an extremist and unrealistic. I think his two paragraphs, quoted in the reference below, brings American discussion back to reality:

i came to the conclusion many years ago that many americans have no clue what socialism is. they seem to think it's communism.

bernie sanders might a radical in the usa. not so much in most other western democracies.

bruce

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Brian Savin

2/16/2016 09:09:52 am

George certainly has an interesting collection of friends, and I'm honored to be allowed to participate some. As to the American political scene, the international perspectives on this blog are fascinating and hard to get at this truly human level.

What I hear from this thread puts into perspective and adds needed color to comments such as Yanis Yaroufakis’ blog gave this morning to the question, what do you think about Donald Trump’s political success in the United States?”

“Anger is prevalent. Common folks follow a good instinct when they want to punish an establishment that has lied to them for decades, that has treated them with contempt, that considers them ‘useful idiots’ to be bought by the highest bidder.
Unfortunately, this good instinct often leads fed up conservatives to the wrong leader, camp, campaign. We saw this in the 1930s, we are seeing it today in France (the rise of Le Pen). Our duty as democrats is to offer disaffected voters, including conservatives, a way to indulge their impulsive urge to punish the establishment without becoming hostage to misanthropic narratives, like Trump’s, Le Pen’s etc.”

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