This Latin translation from the original Greek is usually rendered in English as “speak no evil of the dead”.
This is an elementary requirement of decency and taste, meaning it doesn’t apply to Donald Trump. Every time one thinks he has reached the apogee of indecently bad taste, the Donald disabuses one of that notion. Even the sky isn’t his limit.
As far as he is concerned, bad taste has no glass ceiling to break through. There’s nothing but clear blue sky for his grossness to soar to previously unattainable heights. This Trump proved by his reaction to the tragic death of Rob Reiner and his wife, whose throats were slit by their deranged, drug-addled son.
Now, it has been announced that Trump is suing the BBC for zillions of dollars because that diabolical organisation doctored the text of his speech to make him sound bad. Lest he may hit me with a scaled-down version of a similar suit, I’m going to quote his revolting message in full:
“A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY with his raving obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”
First, a minor quibble – minor, that is in the context of the overall message. It’s my contention that actual and aspiring US presidents ought to be tested not only for cognitive ability and general health, but also for grammar.
No one as illiterate as Trump should qualify for any high office, an argument he reinforced by scattering numerous solecisms all over that ghoulish message.
One recalls John Adams, who once joined the debate between the Federalists and the Republicans by taking just a fortnight to write an 800-page essay that still remains a standard text of political science. Trump wouldn’t be able to read such a text in the same time, and I’m sure he hasn’t read a book that length in his whole life. His writing style certainly doesn’t betoken an habitual reader.
But, as I said, this is a minor quibble. Never mind the grammar, feel the content. And the content provides the grounds for doubting the accuracy of the cognitive test Trump took recently.
If one were to emulate Trump’s foray into the field of cracker-barrel psychiatry, even a rank amateur like me could draw a worrying clinical picture. For the Donald has clearly overstepped the line separating self-obsession from malignant megalomania.
This may come as news to him, but the world doesn’t really revolve around him. Trump has a number of duties, but commenting on every event that has nothing to do with him isn’t one of them. And insisting publicly that every event has everything to do with him is sheer lunacy.
I take it Trump didn’t care for the late director’s politics, and neither in all honesty did I. By the sound of it, the Reiners didn’t like Trump’s politics either, which I find easy to believe – they were ‘progressive’ Hollywood personalities after all (by the way, they were murdered in Brentwood, not, as Trump seems to believe, in Hollywood. A different area of LA altogether.)
However, that’s no reason to perform a savage, perverse dance on their grave while their bodies are still warm. When someone dies under such grotesquely tragic circumstances, only two types of commentary are valid: good or none.
Thus, if that 2024 bullet had hit Trump’s heart rather than his ear in Pennsylvania, I would have written nothing suggesting how deeply unpleasant I found the late president. To get out of the subjunctive mood, just read my obituary of Charlie Kirk who wasn’t my cup of vodka either. That’s how, I think, one should comment on the death of someone one disagreed with.
This vicious statement wasn’t Trump’s first attack on public figures following their death. He also ridiculed Senator John McCain and General Colin Powell after they died. But the present tirade goes beyond even those tasteless comments.
I don’t know if Trump is familiar with Mussolini’s formula of “all within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing agaisnt the state”, but, replacing ‘state’ with ‘Trump’, this is clearly how he sees the world.
Thus, even though the Reiners were murdered by an insane addict, Trump insists that their death was punishment for opposing him. The madman was supposed to be so enraged by that affront to everything Trump holds dear that he made a pro-MAGA statement with his knife.
What’s Trump’s evidence of any link between the murder and his own number one (and two, and three, and twenty)? The message seems to be that no evidence is needed. It’s self-evident that any Trump critic deserves to die, and if he is killed, it’s specifically for voicing such criticism. Does this sound sane to you?
Then there is that talking of himself in the third person and using his full title of President Donald J Trump. It takes more than common-or-garden egotism and narcissism to write that “the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, like never before.”
I can’t think of a single American statesman of the past, some of whom were considerably more accomplished than Trump, capable of making such a statement. Jefferson? Adams? Madison? Of course not – and these men actually founded the United States.
Trump’s obscene braggadocio would be unforgivable even if it were true. But it’s far from that, and, judging by Trump’s rapidly plunging approval ratings, Americans don’t see him as a saviour of their nation.
They, including many Republicans and even such MAGA enthusiasts as Marjorie Taylor Greene, were thoroughly disgusted by that awful diatribe. They ought to be worried as well – there’s no telling how much damage a man with that state of mind can cause.
In response to criticism, the Donald doubled down: “He [Reiner] was a deranged person. As far as Trump is concerned…” (Third person again. That’s sick by itself.) “So I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all, in any way shape or form. I thought he was very bad for our country.”
That’s another symptom of megalomania: equating himself with the country. People used to say, “What’s good for GM, is good for America.” Substituting ‘Trump’ for ‘GM’ doesn’t quite work.
Well, Reiner may have been a woke Leftie, but at least he left behind several films that made millions feel good. I’d say that did more good for the country than Trump will ever do.
Rob Reiner will be remembered for When Harry Met Sally and A Few Good Men long after Trump will be nothing but a foul aftertaste in people’s mouths. Well, I suppose this makes me a TDS sufferer too.
Rob and Michele Reiner, RIP.