Back to Black Joanne Black
Impetuous leaders – and vast lottery jackpots – can take people to the brink and beyond.
Among many of those who dislike US President Donald Trump, there’s a belief that he is at least partly responsible for every bad thing that happens.
The sending of pipe bombs to highprofile Trump critics was obviously his fault, his critics argue, because the alleged culprit, Cesar Sayoc, was a Trump backer and wore a Make America Great Again cap.
The killing of 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue, it is being argued, is also at least partially Trump’s fault. “Whatever one believes about Trump’s position on Jewish people, one can’t deny that he has been content to indulge anti-Semitic views,” Michael Segalov wrote in the Guardian. “The president has regularly courted the support of far-right groups including neo-Nazis …”
The gruesome murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul is also partially being blamed by some on Trump. He has emboldened Middle East autocrats, wrote Mohamad Bazzi, also in the Guardian. Since taking office, Trump had signalled to Saudi Arabia’s leaders, especially King Salman and his son, Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that they could get away with anything as long as they helped keep oil prices stable and continued buying US weapons, Bazzi wrote. “With Trump’s green light, the young prince and his advisers intensified a series of destructive policies … Without any consequences for these actions, is it any surprise that Saudi Arabia expected to get away with the alleged abduction and murder of Khashoggi …”?
The idea that all the bad stuff is directly Trump’s fault, or can be traced to his door, is simplistic. For a start, it overlooks personal responsibility among those who commit crimes. Trump did not shoot anyone in a synagogue, or order them chopped up in a consulate, and nor did he suggest those things should happen. He did not invent anti-Semitism or other forms of extremism.
However, his impetuosity, his rhetoric, his tendency to sneer at moderation and his insistence that there are simple answers to complex problems have set a tone that it is not unreasonable to think may have encouraged fanatics.
Although many of his supporters find Trump’s direct style a welcome antidote to political correctness, there are more people living on the edge than even Twitter reveals.
To be human is to be capable of monstrosities. Knowing that, it behoves leaders to encourage those near the edge to step back from it. Trump, it seems, incites some of them to step over it.
Not having taken a ticket, obviously I was not the winner of last month’s Mega Millions US$1.54 billion jackpot, which was, by a narrow margin, the second-biggest lottery win in US history.
On first hearing that the prize had gone to one ticket-holder, rather than been shared among two or more, I had the strangest instinct – I felt sorry for the winner. It seemed to me, but perhaps not to the winner, too much money. It has the potential not to make someone’s dreams come true, but to incinerate them.
A few years ago, changes were made to some US lotteries. These changes worsened the odds for ticket holders in the Mega Millions lottery from 1 in 259 million to 1 in
302 million and doubled the price of the cheapest ticket from $1 to $2. Those changes have increased the size of the jackpots, and increased the amount being spent on tickets. What has not changed is that it remains the lowest-income people who buy the most tickets.
That is what I most dislike about lotteries. They sell infinitesimally unlikely fantasies, while contributing to real financial misery in the households that can least afford it.
I felt sorry for the winner. It seemed to me too much money.