Every man out there needs to pay attention to the hate stirred by this self-pitying madman and his posse of people who hate, and he needs to think about the repercussions for real people who live out here in America, the real-world repercussions of such sanctioned hate speech.

The comedian at that microphone last night who made his little mean-spirited comment about Puerto Rico and Hispanics speaks for Donald Trump, a person who seeks the presidency of the United States, who refused to give up power when beaten in the last election and incited a mob to march to the U.S. Capitol, desecrate it, and attempt to stop his own vice president from lawfully certifying the results. He speaks for Donald Trump, whom John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps General and former Trump chief-of-staff, described as meeting the definition of a fascist. He speaks for Donald Trump, who hints darkly at “the enemy within” and refers to his political opponents as “vermin,” describes African nations as “shithole countries,” and degrades the military service of the late John McCain.

You find it funny?

Laugh at your own peril.

Trump, with his abbreviated understanding of our country, and his self-cocooning from the historical events of our times, the struggles of Civil Rights, Vietnam, the Gulf wars, the military, first responders, and the feeling that any man out in the world has who doesn’t know where he might find his next job, his next meal, his next ride to another town, doesn’t know anything about us. He has no idea.

That’s why he spews whatever hate come into his feeble, victimized mind. What man does that? What man goes and stands at a microphone and wails and cries for an hour and a half and stirs hatred in others? He’s unprepared for this, the public realm of give and take, of fair play, and tough play, and so he retreats to one strand of the population who tell him what he wants to hear, laugh at his hate-filled rants, and march on demand when he winds them up and points them at what offends him. The rest of us don’t have that luxury, nor would we want it, which is why we love America, the toughness of it, and the challenge of it to be more than merely golf courses offset by crowds of fawning, howling sycophants.

We make great efforts in this country to connect with one another, as difficult as it is sometimes, and to have a person like Trump embracing hate and giving his followers the go-ahead to speak as he does, fundamentally drives people apart. It divides people who might have trusted, if not in the love or core goodness of others then at least in the public civility of others, and if not in the decency of people in all our encounters than at least in the rule of law. These evil feelings routinely on display by Trump betray his lack of preparation for the office he seeks, which demands a bigger soul, an American soul, fashioned by more than the stubbed toes, bone spurs, and Nebuchadnezzar-like intellectual and moral slumber of a resort world existence. No vulgar carpets, polished automobiles, or coddling creature comforts can cover the shriveled rags of hatred, which projected at that level of our public life contribute only to extraordinary distrust among us, those of us at the ground level of life here, the street level, and prompt people who might otherwise have reached out for a connection to retreat from contact with the other. Ah, that is what is really on their minds, so why bother? 

Is that the country you want?

Is that our country?

People in retreat?

Trump lives in a monoculture built around himself and the pincushion of his own miniature hurts and grievances, while most of the rest of us live among everyone, in the tough-fibered rumble of America, which isn’t always going to be just like us, which doesn’t give us the insulation of a gated getaway when the press of humanity – in all its complexity – almost suffocates. In precisely those uncomfortable moments we find ourselves again having to interact, together, as difficult as it is, in the best spirit of those men and women before us who bled in the wars and the factories and courtrooms, on the picket lines, in the gyms, on the baseball diamonds and running tracks, on the buses and in the bathrooms, at the drinking fountains, at the much counters, and in the fields, who are out here now, in and among us and with us, many of them going to work every day in fear of a car or a truck pulling up beside them as they trundle to work alone on a bicycle in the dark. Will this be that day someone can’t take me anymore? 

Just think for a moment about the hate pouring on a regular basis out of that man running for president, that human gushing geyser of hate, and the impact on America. I think about it, and I feel a sense of shame that my generation contributed to this. But I look around, too, at the faces, the faces in the crowd, the faces of caring and kindness and goodwill, among them Kamala Harris, candidly, who endures, with the toughness demanded by this country, in the face of her incredible shrinking rival, bile at a microphone, and I think of a young professional Puerto Rican woman I met just last week serving with such grace and dignity and forcefulness of intellect as a volunteer for the Kamala Harris Campaign. I think about the face of America, and I smile.