The wages of anger

ATLANTA -- Donald Trump is an anger monster. He inspires anger, he broadcasts anger, he justifies and magnifies anger and then he sits back and basks in it, like a lizard warming itself in the bright rays of the sun.

That anger is also why many people love him. The people who attend Trump's rallies don't adore him for his carefully considered policies or for his sterling, principle-driven character. He has no such principles, and if his policies changed 180 degrees on a whim -- they often do -- his supporters would love him just the same.

No, they love Trump because he says mean and vicious things about people whom they've been taught to hate. They love that he stirs a cleansing, righteous rage in their souls; they applaud wildly when he endorses body-slamming a reporter or punching out a protester; they revel in his accusations that "the Democrat party has become an angry, ruthless, unhinged mob determined to get power by any means necessary," as he told a rally the other night. They love even more the anger that such talk stirs in liberals.

Trump insults and calls people names, belittling them, and his base hoots and cheers. He bullies opponents to the point that once-proud figures such as Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham are reduced to whimpering sycophants, and to his supporters that proves his strength. He shows no respect -- not for opponents, not for norms of civil behavior, not for truth or decency. None. And they love him for that too.

This is not some secret. To the contrary, those who glory in it do so because it is all so spectacularly public, done without shame or apology. Always always always, no matter what, without apology.

And then, when the anger begins to get out of control, as it always does, we get treated to the whole "who, me?" act, in which Trump feigns innocence about the anger and rage that he loves to stir up, and the same crowd that revels in that anger and rage pretends to believe him and rushes to his defense.

At a rally Wednesday night, after news broke of a series of pipe bombs mailed to prominent Trump critics, including two former U.S. presidents, Trump read dutifully from the teleprompter, like a bad actor from a worse script, stressing national unity and lecturing the country that "those engaged in the political arena must stop treating political opponents as being morally defective."

He didn't even try to sound sincere, and in fact made clear that to him, all this unity schtick was just that, a schtick.

"And by the way, do you see how nice I'm behaving tonight?" he told the crowd later, grinning to let them in on the joke. "Have you ever seen this? We're all behaving very well."

It was Trump's way of telling the crowd not to worry, that being nice was just a temporary act imposed on him by others, that the meanness and venom that they love about him was still there, barely restrained, and would soon return.

It didn't take long.

Taking none of the blame himself, Trump quickly resumed his attack on those he calls "the enemy of the people," warning that the media is the cause of all this anger and demanding that it "stop the endless hostility and constant negative and oftentimes false attacks and stories."

Saying such things even as bombs are being mailed to Trump critics is another way of saying that the critics have only themselves to blame, that they have brought this upon themselves by daring to say bad things about him. It is yet another despicable act by a despicable man.

Story Filed By Cox Newspapers

For Use By Clients of the New York Times News Service