Opinion | Trump's Charity Toward None - The New York Times
By: Maureen Dowd (nytimes)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Oct. 19, 2024, 7:00 a.m. ETCredit...Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Opinion Columnist, reporting from Washington
The cardinal should go to confession.
Timothy Dolan let a white-tie charity dinner in New York showcase that most uncharitable of men, Donald Trump.
At the annual Al Smith dinner, Dolan suffused the impious Trump in the pious glow of Catholic charities. Dolan looked on with a doting expression as Trump made his usual degrading, scatological comments about his foils, this time cloaked as humor.
"We have someone in the White House who can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have mental faculties of a child," Trump told the New York fat cats. "It's a person who has nothing going, no intelligence whatsoever. But enough about Kamala Harris."
Trump also offered this beauty: "I used to think the Democrats were crazy for saying that men have periods. But then I met Tim Walz." When Trump joked about keeping Doug Emhoff away from nannies, even he admitted it was "too tough."
As he did in 2016 when he crudely attacked Hillary Clinton as she sat on the dais, Trump added a rancid cloud to what used to be a good-tempered bipartisan roast.
Dolan could have stood up and told Trump "Enough!" We have been longing for that voice of authority who could deliver the Joseph Welch line — "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" — to our modern Joe McCarthy. It is the church's job, after all, to teach right from wrong.
Instead of telling Trump he was over the line, Dolan enabled him in his blasphemous effort to cast his campaign as a quasi-religious crusade and himself as a saintly martyr saved by God. The conservative cardinal didn’t care about soiling the legacy of the great Democratic patriot Al Smith.
Like Trump, Smith, the “Happy Warrior,” was a native New Yorker — half Irish and half Italian. His track was the reverse of Trump’s, starting in politics and ending in skyscrapers. Smith was born into an Irish community nestled under the Brooklyn Bridge and left school at 14, after his father died, to help his family by working at the Fulton Fish Market. When his political career ended, he became the president of the corporation that built the Empire State Building. From his office in the sky, he could see the street he grew up on.
The gregarious four-term governor of New York believed deeply in lifting up the less fortunate, and in America’s founding principles. Emotionally devastated after helping investigate the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed scores of women and girls in 1911, he crusaded to create laws for safer working conditions.
Anti-Catholic bigotry destroyed his presidential bid in 1928, and he hated bigotry of all kinds. He early on decried lynching, racial violence, the Ku Klux Klan and Naziism. He would have detested Trump, a bigot cynically stoking racial fears and bloodthirsty impulses to get elected.
Unlike Trump, Smith was a man of faith. He died with a prayer on his lips, next to his parish priest. He had no patience for bickering and was praised in his obits as “warmhearted” and “honest as the noonday sun.”
Despite Trump’s contention this past week that he has a “good heart” and his father had a “big, big heart,” both Trumps’ hearts were cold. Young Donald helped his dad, Fred, refuse Black tenants.
Trump is proudly amoral. He disdains the Christian values I was taught by nuns and priests. His only values are self-interest and self-gratification. He has replaced a code of ethics with the Narcissus pool.
Certainly, Dolan is happy with Trump’s abortion crackdown. But can’t he see that Trump is corroding our country’s moral core? Trying to steal an election violates the Eighth Commandment. And Trump has broken the commandments about cheating and lying and coveting.
As Anne Applebaum points out in The Atlantic, Trump uses the language of Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini to rouse hate and violence. This, while sacrilegiously calling Jan. 6 a “day of love.” He compares the jailed rioting thugs to the Japanese interned in World War II. It’s not a big leap to saying migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and calling his political opponents “vermin,” given his belief — inherited from his father with the “big heart” — in superior genes and blood lines.
This past week, he called Democrats “evil,” “dangerous” and the “enemy from within,” limning them as a bigger threat than Russia and China, a threat that he said might require him to sic the military on his opponents. He denounced the national treasure Nancy Pelosi — who is a devout Catholic — and her husband — who was attacked with a hammer by a far-right conspiracy theorist — as “sick” and “evil.”
The echoes of McCarthyism reverberated when Trump was asked at a town hall whether he really believed the debunked story that Haitian immigrants were eating neighbors’ cats and dogs. “I was just saying what has been reported,” an unrepentant Trump replied. “All I do is report.”
The pols on the dais looked like a Last Supper for this unnerving election. Hopefully, it’s not a Last Supper for the Republic.
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Why they invited that hateful old man is beyond me, the hell with tradition. They laughed at most of the shit he said and the clips I saw of this left out worse stuff like him saying he 'didn't give a shit'.
So the most evil religion ever, supports the most evil politician ever. Go figure.
What metrics are you using for most evil religion?
I wonder if Dolan has any skeletons in his closet?
The inquisition for starters.
Not to mention that whole guilt mongering thingy.
That’s not a metric.
Do you even know what "metric" means?
Yes, a system(s) for measurement.
So why did you use the word "metric" when I was speaking of my opinion of the catholic church throughout time? Develop a vocabulary.
You called it the most evil religion ever. I want to know how you determined that.
Develop coherent, defeasible points.
i was kicked out of an after hours club when i thought defeasible was too much...
now i just go there B 4 hours
Here is Kamala's pre-recorded message to Catholics. Is it a hit, or a miss?
(7) FULL VIDEO: VP Harris Sends Pre-Recorded Video With Molly Shannon SNL Character To Al Smith Dinner - YouTube
trump's only charity is trump
Trump gave as good as he good, Harris was too "busy" to show to this good-tempered bipartisan roast, the first presidential candidate to snub this charity event in 40 years.
Former President Donald Trump Full Remarks at Al Smith Dinner
what was good tempered about Trumps performance?
He crapped all over this NORMALLY good-tempered bipartisan roast, the first former 'president' to do so.
As good as he good? No wonder you support Trump. You both speak the same language.
Maybe Harris should have shown up instead of whining about jokes?
I'm sure being anti-humor scolds and the endless claiming of victimization will win votes for Democrats. "How dare someone mock me!" is a real winner.
Where the fuck does Trump get off mocking anyone?
He'll have anyone who ever mocked him prosecuted if he becomes 'president' again.
Not to mention calling the army out to deal with his critics.
Trump is the new Hitler!
Is that you jd?
Another comment that is a complete fail.
Vance = Hilter? Ridiculous!
What I have noticed over the past few months is that many on the left would compare Hitler/Mao/Marx or whomever to just about any Republican that was nominated for president. It just so happens that Trump is the nominee this time so they make it look like the name calling is unique to him, even though the did the same to him four years ago, and he proved every one of them was wrong.
I also can tell that no matter who was the R nominee, the same cut and paste responses like (fill in the blank) is not fit to be president, he/she is a scoundrel, he/she will destroy democracy, etc.
Like a broken record every four years.
Did you happen to notice that Trump and family are not even allowed to operate their own charity...?
What more would one need to know....
Aaaaaaaand that has to do with what?
Besides raising money to bail out leftist rioters, what charity does Harris have
It's in the title of the fucking article?
“I'm sure being anti-humor scolds and the endless claiming of victimization will win votes for Democrats. "How dare someone mock me!" is a real winner.”
They only have themselves to blame. They shouldn’t have shoe-horned someone so mockable into the position of democrat nominee.
Trump is the most whiny, mockable fool on the planet.
Kamala is a strong intelligent person that makes insecure males feel even more insecure (I.E. Trump). She owned him at the debate.
He's obsessed with other people's genitals - like Arnold Palmer. He spent 12 minutes during one of his demented rants talking about Arnold Palmer's package.
Some say I'm allegedly obsessed with other's genitals.
early on decried lynching, racial violence, the Ku Klux Klan
Probably another reason she didn't show. Progressives, including the KKK, tried to deny Al Smith the Democratic nomination at the '24 convention and Smith opposed progressives and the KKK. .
Only a fool could equate political progressives to the KKK.
There is a huge difference between liberals and fascists.
Sorry the truth hurts. Read up on the Democrat's Klanbake convention and the KKK's support for the progressive candidate William McAdoo against Al Smith.
Not with many of today's modern liberals.,
Comment 5.1.2 is just more trump cult reactionary propaganda.
Maureen Dowd = liberal elitist, garbage journalism
Yawn …..
Identical to a lot of reaction to your comments.
Oh man, you hurt my last feeling ….. nice job!
Opinions vary
lol
Not that I care but using my stuff? Thx for the compliment man. You’re the best.
If you didn't care, why comment bro?
I know I'm the best.
[deleted][✘]
Incel?
Stop projecting
Trump doesn't donate to charity, he steals from them.