Trump is not nation’s chief consoler
Southeast Texas has been struck by a natural disaster of biblical proportions. It didn’t rain for 40 days and 40 nights, but for the residents of Houston, Beaumont, Port Arthur and other Texas cities, that made little difference. It felt like it. Whoever heard of 50 inches of rain in just a few days? It will take years for this part of Texas, and possibly Louisiana as well, to recover.
President Donald Trump and the first lady flew to Texas earlier this week, landing first in Corpus Christi. They will make a second trip this weekend. Once again, the president got in the way of what should have been his true message — love and compassion for the victims of Hurricane Harvey. Instead, he talked about the huge cost of the giant storm and the big crowd that had come out to meet Melania and him.
Clearly, he is not the nation’s chief consoler, a role President Barack Obama filled so admirably. Trump just hasn’t got it in him. The day after his first speech, Trump tried to show empathy for the victims, but once again, he was a day late and a dollar short.
I will not comment further on the tragedy that has engulfed the southeast coast of Texas, as that event is still unfolding. The television cameras are working 24 hours a day, and the full extent of the storm has yet to be revealed.
Instead, I want to turn to a historical event that took place 20 years ago this week and is being extensively memorialized in London — the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
She was not just a beautiful princess, Diana may have been the most glamorous woman in the world. Certainly she was the best-known. She was the lonely princess in the palace, recently divorced from the Prince of Wales and the mother of two handsome boys, one of whom was, and remains, the future king of England. She may have been a troubled woman, and she was troubled even before she married Prince Charles.
Still, she had enormous charisma, which she used to magical effect. Charles didn’t stand a chance. The man who always stood in the spotlight as the heir to the throne and felt it was his right to do so remained in the shadows after Diana came on the scene. This was not a good sign for their marriage, as events proved.
A number of factors were at work here. Before her marriage, Diana was Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of the Earl Spencer, and an aristocrat to her fingertips. She was brought up at Althorp, one of the grandest of English country houses. But she was not royal, and that makes a difference. She was unaccustomed, indeed unaware, of all the major and minor protocols that control behavior surrounding the queen and her family.
Royals were accustomed to being icons. They remained above the fray, rarely, if ever, giving interviews. Their private lives were off limits to the media and, therefore, the public. Diana was not a part of that world. She was a real person and determined to remain one. This unnerved the royal family, who had expected Diana to take her place quietly and wait until she became queen.
As her marriage deteriorated and she grew into her new royal role, she became an expert in manipulating the media and the paparazzi. Diana knew exactly what she was doing. More importantly, however, her freedom-loving ways let sunshine into the dark and protocol-bound halls of Buckingham Palace. The place would never be the same again.
She hugged people she met (a royal no-no) and looked them directly in the eyes. She chose charities the other royals were leery of, such as HIV and AIDS projects. (“Can’t you choose something nice?” the queen once asked, and Diana replied to the effect that she wanted to do things with meaning and purpose.) Diana’s sitting on the edge of the bed of an AIDS patient and holding his hand changed British attitudes toward AIDS sufferers overnight.
At night, Diana took her sons out to visit the homeless and to see how they lived. They went often to a nearby McDonald’s. Her sons had a much freer and fun-loving childhood than did their father, although it must be noted that Prince Charles, too, liked the new freedom for his children. Twenty years later, Prince William and Prince Harry have grown up to be splendid young men.
They have adopted mental health as a favorite charity, something that years ago was swept under the rug in Britain.
Diana would have approved.
Bill Stewart writes about current events from Santa Fe. He is a former U.S. Foreign Service officer and worked as a correspondent for Time magazine.