Did You Ever Wish Trump Would Die?
The racism of Ron DeSantis.
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There’s a lot of us who are convinced that Trump single-handedly made it in style to be racist again.
Not that he invented racism. Or that America was post-racial when he came onto the scene. Or that we didn’t still have so much work to do. Or even that our current president has such a clean past on race issues. We ought not to be naïve.
It’s just that Trump gave a renewed voice for the most racist to spew whatever horrific bigotry lay beneath the surface. Not just from their basements or hiding under their white sheets, but out loud in our legislatures, boardrooms, the streets, on the news, and online, of course.
With all of Trump’s racist rhetoric and presidential good people on both sides nod to Nazis, how many of us at some point secretly hoped that Trump would just die? How many of us prayed he would keel over after one of his Big Macs? Or at least dreamt of his demise.
You wouldn’t be human if it didn’t cross your mind at least once.
But there’s an old Jewish mashal (short parable with a lesson) we should take note of.
There once was a king who passed all kinds of laws that discriminated against the Jews in his kingdom. He made horrific statements about them. He taxed them extra. He even made certain professions illegal for Jews.
People were rightfully upset, so some of them began praying that the king would die. Some even fasted, hoping that would speed up his death.
After a month of these genuine prayers to end the life of the horrible king, lo and behold, the king died. The Jews celebrated.
Then the king’s son rose to power. The new king didn’t just dislike the Jews. He despised them. He not only continued his father’s evil, but he doubled down and began imprisoning and even killing Jews who dared speak against the crown.
Things got far worse than the Jews had it under the previous king.
Today, we face a similar situation, and we ought not lose sight of the bigger fight against racism just because Trump’s scorecard on race was dismal.
