‘Fools and Failures’

The hot air has blown with a foetid note these past few days. The midterms’ results and the subsequent outbursts by some on the Right are best summarized by G. K. Chesterton, writing in the Scandal of Father Brown:

“Yes,” said Father Brown. “I’m rather fond of people who are fools and failures on their own confession.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” snapped the other.

“Perhaps,” said Father Brown wistfully, “it’s because so many people are fools and failures without any confession.”

Fallible creatures all, we each take a turn playing the fool and the loser. It’s what one decides upon in the discovery of that fact which is so consequential. 

As a kid, I was hopelessly competitive — still am, but I arrest the impulse through frequent self-deprecation — and that competitiveness is an asset in the struggle. But once a game was decided, I could not accept the loss and often made an ass of myself in the closing moments of a match, or in line for shaking hands. 

This prolongment of asininity is too frequent a reaction from defeated candidates and their benefactors. It’s embarrassing to watch grown men and women approximate a middle-school shooting guard’s tantrum in the aftermath of his team losing to the local Catholic institution 57–19. 

Trump and his cohort have lost what could have been won, repeatedly. By rejecting the reality and root of their failure, they continue as a fool and his court of lickspittle facsimiles — angry at all the wrong things. 

A self-appointed Purgatory of pride and delusion. Sad.