After reading that some 53 percent of Utahns still support the president, and being a history person, I offer the following:
In regard to the president’s tendency to place loyalty above competence, I think of Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother. Besides being a minority Catholic in majority Buddhist South Vietnam, they placed personal loyalty way above competence. We know the rest of the story.
The recent comment from Sen. Bob Corker that the White House is an adult day care center seems applicable in regard to Joan of Arc’s almost rescuer, Gilles de Rais.
In his 1965 book, “The Trial of Gilles de Rais,” George Bataille writes, “He has no ability at all to defend himself. He moves around violently from one impulse to another, and this only destroys him. I insist: This is a child. But this is a child with a fortune at his disposal, and nearly absolute power. Childishness, under normal circumstances, has limited possibilities, but by reason of his wealth and power, Gilles de Rais’s childishness caused tragic outcomes.”
Pretty accurate, I’d say, for someone who lived some 587 years ago. Other than the tragic outcomes part (which I hope does not come true), this quote seems pretty prescient of the current occupant of the White House.
As Patrick Henry once said, “I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.”
John H. Thompson, Ogden