I know it’s old news now, but I can’t help but go back to it.

This is what I can’t stand.

This is what I think is so unhelpful.

This is why I have come to loathe political tribalism. 

President Trump, as he is accustomed to doing regularly, couldn’t resist his alarming natural tendency to lash out at his enemies recently – this time, Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland.  The President and Congressman have been embroiled in a racially charged tit for tat over the dreadful conditions of Cummings’ home district in Baltimore.

So when news broke that the home of Elijah Cummings had been broken into and robbed, the President did something remarkably un-presidential and oafish.  He taunted Cummings publicly:

Really bad news! The Baltimore house of Elijah Cummings was robbed. Too bad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019

Politically, it was needless – if the point was to show everyone how this incident vindicated what Trump had said about the deplorable conditions of Baltimore, that would have happened regardless.  Personally, it was just embarrassing; and it’s the kind of thing that everyone of conscience and decency, right or left, should be quick to denounce.

Conservatives are still up in arms about the lack of universal condemnation of Antifa’s vandalism and harassment at Fox host Tucker Carlson’s home.  Anyone who understands how important it is for civilized people to vocally oppose threats to a fellow citizen’s home and property when that citizen is a conservative talker, should also recognize it’s just as important to vocally oppose the same when the citizen is a Democrat lawmaker.  And vice versa. 

That’s how civility works.  That’s how decency works.  That’s how a society persists.

Yet when former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley demonstrated the courage to chastise the President for his insensitivity by tweeting that his remarks were “so unnecessary,” the Trump apologists came after her.  Remember, this is a woman who served the president faithfully at the UN and who even went so far as to defend Trump’s rhetorical unpredictability as something she was able to use effectively in international negotiations.

But when she expects civility and decorum from the President, she’s attacked for it.  I get that so much of the right is enamored right now having a bully that they can call their own.  After years of being pushed around and degraded by shameless leftists with media protection, they’ve made friends with the neighborhood tough guy.

But if in the process we lose our souls, our decency towards our fellow man, what’s the point?