The Khan Effect

You may have heard the words that shook the world — or at least awakened the American pundits’ dormant consciences and opened a few eyes:

Donald Trump, you are asking Americans to trust you with our future. Let me ask you: Have you even read the U.S. Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words “liberty” and “equal protection of law.”

Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go look at the graves of the brave patriots who died defending America — you will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities.

You have sacrificed nothing and no one.

The words were spoken by Khizr Khan at the DNC, where he, accompanied by his aggrieved wife, Ghazala, talked about his late son, Capt. Humayun Khan, and what his ultimate sacrifice meant for the Khan family and what it should mean for others, including Donald Trump, if he had a conscience.

However, bereft of conscience as Trump is, he responded, predictably, with a slew of insults, seeing himself as the aggrieved and injured one (the Perpetual Victim Complex is strong in all narcissists). This has led to an ongoing media storm of unusual, so far in this campaign, proportions, complete with (wait for it) long overdue questions about the candidate’s mental health and suitability for office.

It is remarkable to watch the punditry opening their sleepy eyes to the stark raving reality of the presidential candidate’s character defect — a defect that has been on display all along and as long as Trump has been in the public eye, so at least several decades; a defect that they, American journalists, helped deepen through their adulation for, or even participation in, the narcissistic psychopath’s narcissistically psychopathic ways; a defect that has led him to this moment in history, where he is able to hijack the nation and bring it to the brink of the abyss — and he’s not even elected to office yet.

Better late than never, one consoles oneself.

The poignant irony of this moment cannot be overstated. It has taken two unknown grieving parents, Muslim immigrants (Muslim. immigrants.), to present America with the undeniable contrast between human and democratic values and their utter lack embodied in Trump. Good versus evil, not to put too fine a point on it.

You must watch the humble and courageous Khans to fully appreciate how different they are from the bloviating, power-hungry ignoramus whose nemesis they have become. On PBS, Mr. Khan confesses, with a mixture of pride and embarrassment, that at home they keep a supply of pocket-size copies of the American Constitution, which they give out to their guests. You can’t make this up. Just as you can’t make up the fact that the only book apparently ever read by Trump, or at least kept on his nightstand, was a collection of Hitler’s speeches.

This irrefutable contrast between good and evil has caused the opinion-makers take note and wonder, finally, just what kind of pathology may be involved in such an utter lack of human values, including empathy and plain decency, as displayed by Trump. Only now they are beginning to notice what was glaringly obvious all along: that their presumptive emperor has no conscience and that this peculiar defect may carry some predictable consequences.

Apparently it ain’t over — or real, or true — until a fat pundit sings.