While the jury was still considering the verdict of this century – a felony conviction of a former president — Donald Trump had begun his own pity party. It was laughable.
“Mother Teresa could not beat these charges, but we’ll see,’’ said Trump.
Whoa. The former leader of the free world was comparing himself to the Catholic missionary, Nobel Peace Prize winner and saint who ministered to the sick and poor in the slums of Calcutta, now known as Kolkata, India. The late-night TV pundits had a field day. The Internet exploded in criticism.
This self-declared martyrdom is a malaise, make that epidemic, that is sweeping the country. Never mind that your troubles are self-inflicted. The playbook is to blame everyone – prosecutors, judges, juries, the Department of Justice, the sitting president, probably Robert DeNiro too. Issue lies and baseless charges. Do anything and everything except take responsibility for your actions.
A martyr is defined as an individual who is killed for their religious beliefs. Think Joan of Arc, burned at the stake by the English in 1431. Or the Greek philosopher Socrates, accused of corrupting youth and executed in 399 B.C.
Both would merit a chapter in Eileen Holleran’s encyclopedia of martyrdom. I heard the author’s note a hundred times while growing up. “Enough of the crocodile tears. Get that look off your face. Quit feeling sorry for yourself because nobody else is going to.’’
In the current definition of the word, a martyr encompasses someone who exaggerates their plight to gain sympathy, even admiration. They make themselves the victim of circumstances.
Sound familiar? I hope the legacy of the Trump era won’t be decades of coarse incivility.
Society has changed a great deal in my lifetime. We’ve emerged from the conformist mode of the 1950s and seen the rise of challenges to authority fostered in the anti-war protests of the late 1960s. Fast forward to today. Our society still confronts racism, sexism and the backlash against LGBTQ rights. Today, everything is questioned. Everyone sues. If that isn’t enough, it’s commonplace to resort to namecalling and ridicule.
Another film clip struck me last week. Sympathizers for Ashli Babbitt tried to enter Arlington National Cemetery in a pickup truck to place a memorial stone in her honor but were turned away at the main gate. She was the Air Force veteran who tried to climb through a window into the Speaker’s Lobby during the Capitol riot and was shot by police. Two separate investigations justified the shooting, yet her family considers her a martyr.
I often see the disrespect for authority while refereeing high school sports. Obscenities and trash talk are infrequent, but when a 15-year-old lacrosse player commits an obvious foul and loses his cool, the results can be vitriolic.
“What the f— were you looking at?’’ bellered the boy on the way to the sideline to serve his one-minute penalty. I was stunned. This never happened before. I could have ejected him but I added two minutes for his outburst.
I discussed it later with the association president because the question lingered in my mind – “Was I enabling the behavior by not tossing the player?’’ We agreed that although he was 15 and cocky, we held out hope that, in the words of Eileen Holleran and John Wooden, raised often by the late Bill Walton, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.’’
We’ve got a lot of issues to improve life in America. Poverty, a comprehensive immigration policy, affordable healthcare and education top my list. But Congress has scuttled the art of compromise. To compromise is consider a weakness in many quarters. The polarization is maddening.
I’m hoping the pendulum of our collective future swings back toward more civility and kindness and away from the namecalling, ridiculing and pseudo-martyrdom that is too prevalent in today’s politics.
Morristown native Jim Holleran is a retired teacher and sports editor from Rochester. Reach him at jimholleran29@gmail.com or view past columns under “Reflections of River Rat’’ at https://hollerangetsitwrite.com/blog/
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