It Is What It Is

 Of all the things Donald Trump has said and done as President, this really sums up his attitude toward his job and the American people he was elected to serve. And he's done and said a lot of troubling things:

- "Good people on both sides" at Charlottesville, after a white supremacist plowed his car into a group of peaceful protesters, killing one;

- Calling for boycotts of great American companies like Harley-Davidson and, this week, Goodyear;

- Quietly acquiescing to the Russian government putting bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan;

- Openly claiming that if he loses the 2020 election, it will be because it was "rigged";

- Telling the Gold Star widow of a US soldier killed in Niger that "he knew what he signed up for."

Many of you can add to that list, no doubt.

But "It Is What It Is" signals unconditional surrender. The declaratory statement says that we don't know what to do, we don't care to seriously investigate what to do, and even if we knew what to do, it's not worth the effort to try it. It tells the families of the 170,000-plus who have died from COVID-19 over the past 7 months that they simply are the victims of a fate for which we can do nothing. It is worse than a simple failure of leadership. It is the complete and utter absence of any capacity for empathy, which is prerequisite to being a leader.

We have had corrupt Presidents in our history. We have had inept Presidents in our history. We have had clueless, in over their heads Presidents in our history. We have had Presidents whose policies and agenda I vehemently opposed. But we have never, at least in my lifetime, had a President so completely devoid of concern for the well-being of the American people, or some basic acknowledgement of the nation's founding principles and governing documents.

It is what it is. But it doesn't have to be that way. We The People have the opportunity to demand better from our leaders on November 3. Vote like the future of the Republic depends on it, because it does. Vote like our lives depend on it, because they do.