[Note: this is now the second time I have posted what might be construed as a political comment; but with Trump we are nowhere near being able to talk about government policy. Trump is apallingly unfit to be the President of the United States, so we can't get past his character and nature.]
A recent article in the Atlantic makes the very sensible argument that Trump is the most unmanly president in history, by the standards of the white blue-collar workers of his base. I think it ends up being an argument that it is not working men of good character that constitute his base, but rather the juvenile bullies that love how he justifies their lack of maturity.
Many of those arrested-development types claim to be Christians, which is what gets my attention. If you love, and indeed worship, Jesus Christ, you are supposed to become a new creature, part of the new Adam. Following the living Jesus gives both men and women a path and the power to take it that leads us away from childish self-centeredness and toward adult compassion. Many juvenile, mean-spirited, abusive,cowardly people have managed to grow and be transformed, not into someone else, but into their best selves by giving themselves to the living Christ.
Donald Trump has exhibited no sign of this process of repentance and transformation.
Indeed, he exemplifies the fallen Adam, whose reaction when confronted by God in the Garden is to try to duck responsibility and whine that it was the woman's fault. "The woman that you gave to be with me, she put it in front of me and I ate it." (Gen. 3:12) Adam actually tries to imply it was God's fault too, anybody's but his. God wasn't having it. By cursing the very dust of the earth from which he made the Adam, God provided a path of redemption through hard work, something Donald Trump has almost entirely avoided, along with its benefits. Donald Trump never takes responsibility for anything.
Thus, in Tom Nichols' words, "Donald Trump is unmanly because he has never chosen to become a man. He has weathered few trials that create an adult of any kind. He is, instead, working-class America’s dysfunctional son, and his supporters, male and female alike, have become the worried parent explaining what a good boy he is to terrorized teachers even while he continues to set fires in the hallway right outside.”
