Conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens is a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, though he took his criticism a step further after the president insulted the late actor-director Rob Reiner.
In a Tuesday column, Stephens castigated the commander-in-chief and lamented having to write about Trump, who he called a "petty, hollow, squalid, overstuffed man." He argued that dedicating a column to him was necessary as Trump was, in his words, "the most loathsome human being ever to occupy the White House."
Stephens referred to Trump as America's "ogre in chief" and reminded readers that he criticized Reiner as "deranged" even after he was found dead in his home after allegedly being fatally stabbed by his son. He posted Trump's Truth Social post in its entirety, saying that it "captures the combination of preposterous grandiosity, obsessive self-regard and gratuitous spite." And he argued that Trump's disrespect of a beloved cultural icon "is where history will record that the deepest damage by the Trump presidency was done."
"Right now, in every grotesque social media post; in every cabinet meeting devoted, North Korea-like, to adulating him; in every executive-order-signing ceremony intended to make him appear like a Chinese emperor; in every fawning reference to all the peace he’s supposedly brought the world; in every Neronic enlargement of the White House’s East Wing ... in all this and more, our standards as a nation are being debased, our manners barbarized," he added.
Stephens also differentiated Trump from other conservatives who put politics aside to mourn the Reiners, as actor James Woods did in a recent Fox News interview. He noted that Woods called Reiner "a great patriot," and that while they had different visions of how America could succeed, they both shared a love for country and a mutual respect for each other as Americans.
"Good people and good nations do not stomp on the grief of others. Politics is meant to end at the graveside. That’s not just some social nicety," Stephens wrote. "It’s a foundational taboo that any civilized society must enforce to prevent transient personal differences from becoming generational blood feuds."
The conservative columnist also observed that Trump's post came on the heels of a shooting at Brown University that killed two people, and an attack against Australia's Jewish community on the first day of Hannukah that left 15 people dead. Stephens asserted that Trump's second term was not a "golden age," but rather "a country that feels like a train coming off the rails, led by a driver whose own derangement was again laid bare in that contemptible assault on the Reiners, may their memories be for a blessing."
Click here to read Stephens' full column (subscription required).
