How normal is Trump’s sadism?

Donald Trump was in Georgia over the weekend. He said: “I will seal the border … I will stop the plunder of our cities, the sacking of our towns and the conquest of our country, the conquering of our country. These people are conquering our country. They're horrible people.”

He doesn’t care. I’ll keep repeating myself. He. Does. Not. Care.

If he cared about stopping “horrible people” from “conquering our country,” he would have supported solutions, like those found in the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform bill that would have given the Republicans virtually everything they’ve wanted for two decades, including $650 million for the construction of a border wall. Instead, Trump killed that legislation (by way of House Speaker Mike Johnson) because he doesn’t care about solving “the problem,” only exploiting it.

His supporters don’t care either. If they did, according to radio host Reecie Colbert, they would have nominated someone like Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley, whose policy positions were practically the same as Trump’s. They didn’t, though, because “they wanted the boastfulness and the brazenness of the bigotry that Donald Trump normalizes,” she said. “That’s why a person who supports Trump feels emboldened to get on national TV and make a blatantly sexist comment. That’s the future of America even more so under another term of Donald Trump.”

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I would take this further to say policy solutions, even for make-believe problems like “the plunder of our cities,” are a form of caring that takes all the fun out of sadism. Yes, sadism – the deriving of pleasure from others’ suffering. More than anything, Trump represents that. More than anything, his supporters want that. As Humam Abd al-Salam said: “‘Why are people so easily offended these days?’ is code for ‘Why can't I bully everyone like I used to?’" Policy solutions are party-poopers.

If the current reaction to his sadism is any indication, Trump has already succeeded in normalizing it. During that Georgia rally over the weekend, he mocked Joe Biden’s stutter. “‘I’m gonna bring the country tuh-tuh-tuh-together,’” he said. The audience roared with laughter.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on strongman politics, said: “He does it to evoke the laughter that makes the crowd complicit and reinforces the culture of cruelty he requires to realize his dreams of mass repression.”

But McKay Coppins, a staff writer for The Atlantic, whom I take to be representative of the conventions of the Washington press corps, said: “It's hard to find anything new to say at this point when Trump does stuff like this. The smallness and meanness are hardly surprising.”

It’s so hard to find anything new about Trump’s sadism that it has little or no presence in “the narrative” about the election. USA Today’s Susan Page, whom I also take to be representative of the press corps, said that it’s a rematch “no one wanted” and “voters dismiss language that might once have caused a stir. 'Just Trump being Trump,' some say.”

A news analysis by the Times, published after President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday, went so far as to say that while voters have clamored for “change” since the American invasion of Iraq, more than 20 years ago, this year’s election is just more of the same. “Americans, who by nearly every measure are hungering for a new direction, are confronted with the choice between a continuation or a restoration,” wrote the Times’ Adam Nagourney and Shane Goldmacher.

But more than Trump’s sadism is erased.

So is Biden’s kindness.

After Trump mocked Biden’s stutter, a video went around showing the president, while on the 2020 campaign trail, encouraging a young boy who also stutters. “I'll tell you what,” Biden told him. “Don't let it define you. You are smart as hell, now you really are. You can do this."

He asked the boy for his phone number. He said he continues to work with 25 stutterers. “I can tell you the things that worked for me,” he said.

“I know by the way the hardest thing is talking on the telephone, so I don’t expect you to be able to do that,” Biden said. “When I stuttered, I used to t-t-t-talk like, like th-th-th-this. It took a lot of practice. But I promise you, I promise you, you can do it. And don’t let it define you. You’re handsome. You’re smart. You’re a good guy. I really mean it.”

“You know when I say I know about bullies. You know about bullies, the kids who make fun. It's going to change, honey. I promise you.”

This isn’t an isolated event. He’s been doing this kind of thing for his entire career, making “the connect,” as Jennifer Senior put it. Trump is renowned for his sadism, Biden his kindness. Both get erased, however, making it seem as if reviving kindness, caring and other “core values that define America,” as Biden said Thursday – such as “honesty, decency, dignity, equality. To respect everyone. To give everyone a fair shot. To give hate no safe harbor” – doesn’t count as “a new direction.”

It does.

“I am here tonight to show what I believe the way forward is, because I know how far we’ve come,” Biden said Thursday. “Four years ago next week, before I came to office, the country was hit by the worst pandemic and the worst economic crisis in a century. … A president, my predecessor, failed the most basic presidential duty that he owes to the American people: the duty to care. I think that’s unforgivable.”

How unforgivable? It depends.

On how normal sadism is.

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