The V I E W from here
Trump makes it clear why character matters most
All of us are bleeding from wounds suffered in the daily fusillade of obscenities, vulgarities, insults, bullying, crudities — from the outright cruelty that flows from the Donald Trump White House on what at times seems like an hourly basis.
It is a veritable ruptured sewer pipe of filth.
— “Quiet, Piggy,” Trump said to Bloomberg White House correspondent Catherine Lucey late last year.
— “We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Mr. Trump said, in a reference to U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.”
— “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said in 2018, only to return and strengthen his argument last year by again questioning, “why the U.S. accepts people from these nations,” calling countries like Somalia “disastrous, filthy, dirty, disgusting, and crime-ridden.”
— “Fuck you,” Trump said on Jan. 13 this year on a tour of the Ford River Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan, using his middle finger to further emphasise his crudity.
Many of us no longer much notice the stink, because as any honest plumber will tell you, olfactory adaptation — nose blindness — is a real thing. Stink loses some of its sting.
Habituation inures us to so many things.
And here we are talking of a stink more damaging than the stink of ordure. What is wafting across our land is, instead, the stink of amorality — a spread of human debasement that rots the core of community and already has created a meaner, nastier version of America than many of us could have imagined ever seeing a few years back.
And even those of us who may at one time have been Trump fans — Marjorie Taylor Greene, we’re looking at you — are recognizing more and more each day that Trump owns this. It is, of course, a cliche to say that the American president, whomever that may be, enjoys a bully pulpit. The presidency is a bully pulpit like no other. And, unquestionably, Trump has used his pulpit to the detriment of our country.
But there’s a critical part of this that’s not on Trump: We’ve always known this about him. We’ve always known his moral core is as thin as the atmosphere of our moon, we’ve known for years that he not only lacks character, but that he lacks the basic ability of sincere self-reflection that is a first essential if character is to develop and mature.
So Trump not only lacks aspirations to be better than he is, he lacks the ability to have those aspirations. How many of us did not know already know when we voted for him that he was the author of:
— “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. … Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
— “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, just knock the hell… I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees,” Trump said of hecklers at a campaign rally.
— “If I weren’t happily married and, you know, her father . . . ” of his sexual attraction to his daughter Ivanka.
— “Now the poor guy, you gotta see this guy,” Trump said in 2015, before launching into an impression of disabled New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, waving his arms around his head with his hands at an odd angle. “Uhh I don’t know what I said. Uhh I don’t remember. He’s going like ‘I don’t remember. Maybe that’s what I said.'” Kovaleski has arthrogryposis, a condition that affects the movement of joints and is noticeable on his right side and his right arm and hand.
What Trump has, exactly, is a bit unclear. But he is a crude, weak, adolescent of a man. Bone spurs — the made-up bunk and bologna that helped him dodge the Vietnam-era draft five times — is the least of his problems, and his problems are much higher up — head high, not heel high.
The damage he is inflicting on America will be lasting and long.
Consider his extraordinary text message sent in January to the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre*” as just one example of his childish and unhinged world leadership:
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace,” he wrote to Støre, adding that the US needed “complete and total control” of Greenland.
It’s both easy to imagine, and sad that one would, that after hitting “send,” Trump flipped a bird Støre’s way, but one need not imagine, you can bank on it, that under his breath he uttered a resounding FUCK YOU to Støre and all the other weak and woke leaders like him.
Take a look at some of the official “Wins and Achievements” of the Trump Administration listed on the official White House website:
- Privately funded White House Ballroom construction broke ground.
- White House launched a TikTok account.
- Administration joined Bluesky.
- White House South Lawn Halloween hosted for children and families.
- Kuala Lumpur Peace Accords signed to end Cambodia-Thailands conflict.
- White House launched a TikTok account.
- President and First Lady led multiple public events.
- President Trump gave rousing UNGA speech with 145 world leaders.
- Antifa designated domestic terrorist organization.
- White House launched a TikTok account.
- Polish President Nawrocki hosted for bilateral meeting.
Little to nothing about grocery prices, but the White House is bragging about joining the social media network Bluesky! Launching a TikTok account!
Data released early in 2026 shows food prices rose by 0.7 percent in December alone, the highest one-month increase since 2022.
Beef and veal prices edged up 1 percent in December and are up 16.4 percent for the year, and forget orange juice: That little breakfast delight is up 37.6 percent from a year ago.
Coffee cost 20 percent more today than it did a year back, if you can afford it at all.
All those uncomfortable price hikes at Ingles and Walmart Grocery are more understandable when you realize how busy Trump has been with his naps, Venezuela, and Greenland — not to mention the clueless Nobel Peace Prize committee.
But busy aside, does anybody remember Venezuela First! from the campaign? Greenland First?
Trump repeatedly said he was “gonna fix it” and was the only one who could, and maybe he’s already getting ready to throw some more tariffs at whomever or shout out another social media tirade on his Truth Social. But I suspect we’ve seen his hand and already know he holds no winning cards.
We’re in for a rocky road over the next three years and have no one to blame but ourselves and — let’s be blunt here — ourselves and our stupid, stupid vote.
Because we should have known then that character counts. Character is the spring from which the person himself flows, and if the spring is foul, fetid and polluted only a fool would expect to find clear water flowing from it.