Living and learning: Donald Trump has never met a mistake he didn’t repeat
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At his Thursday night town hall, Joe Biden admitted that some of the 1994 crime bill he coauthored was a mistake, reminding us of our own mea culpa on stop-and-frisk four years ago. Admitting error, in light of newly acquired evidence or insight, is human and healthy, especially for people who’ve been around the block more than a few times.
Donald Trump never got the memo, or if he got it, he summarily set it aside because it risked contradicting something he already believed.
A man who dismissed U.S. intelligence agencies and reflexively believed Vladimir Putin before taking office still does so, despite seeing (if not reading) reams of classified information up close. A man who set out to deep-six the Affordable Care Act continues to treat it as a plague, despite it being the only health safety net for millions in a pandemic. And so on.
Actually, to admit some error in our own thesis, there are a handful of times when Trump has copped to a misstep. Trouble is, it’s never been the result of genuine reflection, but rather the type of sulking and perfunctory admission one makes when one wants to change the subject.
Under a cascade of criticism, he said he should never have bragged that he could do “anything” he wanted to women, including “grab them by the pussy,” and pledged to be a “better man tomorrow.” (Don’t laugh.)
He admitted he regretted writing some tweets, before quickly resuming his juvenile behavior.
He even admitted he done some things wrong in his COVID-19 response, though with the stubborn caveat that he would “be right eventually.”
True leaders take hard looks in the mirror. There’s one reason Trump takes his time in the looking glass, and that’s most certainly not it.
This is the Daily News Editorial Board’s reminder of 99 reasons Donald Trump ought to be disqualified from serving a second term as president. To read more, go here.
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