你記得9·11恐怖襲擊事件發(fā)生后，喬治·W·布什總統(tǒng)在曼哈頓世貿(mào)中心廢墟發(fā)表的講話嗎？我現(xiàn)在還清楚地記得他提到國家的悲傷和民族自豪時的聲音。這是在后來的所有糟糕判斷和致命錯誤之前，這并不能為那些判斷和錯誤開脫。但這個講話很重要，因為它讓我們確信，我們國家的領導人腦海里翻騰著一些與我們一樣的情感思潮。

你記得奧巴馬總統(tǒng)在康涅狄格州紐敦校園槍擊案發(fā)生后舉行的記者會嗎？那次槍擊案導致了包括20名兒童在內(nèi)的28人死亡。我記得。我記憶中最清晰的是他強忍住眼淚的情景。他傷心。他擔憂。雖然我們不能指望用新法律來阻止下一次大屠殺，但我們至少可以繼續(xù)保持希望。

還有一個問題：你記得有這樣的時刻嗎——特朗普總統(tǒng)的言行表明，他不僅理解這場迅速蔓延的大流行病的規(guī)模，也領會我們在其面前的恐懼？

我沒有見到這個時刻，也許是因為它從未發(fā)生。

在特朗普前任們的身上，盡管他們有各種疵瑕，但我能感覺到一顆跳動的心，看到一個微微閃光的靈魂。在特朗普身上我什么都感覺不到，這讓我充滿悲傷，也充滿了一種坦白講我不知道該怎么處理的暴怒。

成千的美國人正在死去，他卻在洋洋得意地吹噓自己有多么多全神貫注的電視觀眾。美國人面臨著財務崩潰，不知道繼續(xù)買食物、付房租的錢從哪里來，他卻斥責州長們沒有給予他足夠的奉承。

他沒有在挑戰(zhàn)面前挺身而出，絲毫沒有。他正在萎縮成一個不存在的東西。

上周五，在轉達疾病控制和預防中心提出所有美國人在公共場所戴口罩的新建議時，特朗普格外努力地強調(diào)，戴口罩是自愿的，他本人就不會戴、身邊也不會有人戴，這簡直就等于給口罩貼上了“擔驚受拍失敗者才會戴”的標簽。我終于為他想好了一個墓志銘：“唐納德·J·特朗普，病毒面前仍?？帷?。

這不僅僅是同理心的缺失，盡管許多觀察者都用這來描述他的缺點。這更多地是行為準則的缺失，也是我一直以來在悲嘆的。這是基本人性的缺失。

在幾天前的《華盛頓郵報》上，曾在布什政府工作的保守派人士邁克爾·格爾森(Michael Gerson)寫道，特朗普的精神世界是“一個巨大、無跡的荒原”。準確地說不是無跡。那里的地平線上到處都是自負的花哨俗艷。

這場全球健康危機的嚴重性開始顯現(xiàn)出來時，我已經(jīng)準備好面對那些謊言和虛假信息，它們都是特朗普的招牌。我對無能也有所準備，這種無能定義了一個如此蔑視正確做法和真正專業(yè)知識的政府。

但出乎我意料并令我心碎的是特朗普持續(xù)的，甚至是旺盛的冷漠、傲慢、小氣、刻薄、自戀和唯我，即使是在需要有更高尚表現(xiàn)的這種一生可能只有一次的緊急情況下。在正常情況下，這些特點令人惱火。而在眼下，這些特點讓人徹底崩潰。

“我完全不承擔責任。”“你知道我在Facebook上排名第一嗎？”在一個國家因恐慌而顫抖時，有心思說出這兩句話中的一句就夠令人作嘔了。像特朗普這樣說出兩句，是不通人事。

他繼續(xù)抨擊媒體，仿佛新冠病毒是在CNN的內(nèi)部炮制出來的。他繼續(xù)玩推卸責任的游戲，把自己凌駕于那些政治等級低的人之上，他想讓州長們對他卑躬屈膝，并暗示他們是在聯(lián)邦政府飼料槽前嗷嗷爭食的豬仔兒。

他繼續(xù)著他沾沾自喜的一人狂歡，所以會在最近一邊推測美國將有10萬人死于新冠病毒肺炎，一邊揚揚自得地夸口自己正在做一份多么偉大的工作。

他繼續(xù)奚落和誹謗他眼中的政治對手。上周，在福克斯新聞(Fox News)的節(jié)目上，他稱南希·佩洛西(Nancy Pelosi)是“一只有病的小狗”。這就是他選擇消磨時間和精力的方式嗎？

他在深受其青睞的每日簡報會上說起話來沒完沒了，有時，他似乎并不把正在發(fā)生的事情當作一場毀滅性的災難，而是一場明星薈萃的活動?？纯春唸髸o每個參加者和所涉及的事情帶來了多么精彩的出頭露面機會吧！他曾大聲的自言自語，感慨安東尼·福奇(Anthony Fauci)出了多大的名。他贊嘆新冠病毒肺炎享有的名人形象。

“成了一個非常有名的詞兒——新-冠-病-毒-肺-炎，”他周四說道。從他語音里聽出了嫉妒嗎？

他從無視現(xiàn)實轉入一個感官和道德完全喪失的境地。

“我想要比模型低很多的數(shù)字，”他周五說，指的是病例和死亡人數(shù)的預測?！澳Ｐ褪菍I(yè)人士做的。我從來沒干過任何模型?！?/p>

“至少沒干過這種，”他補充道。沒有比大流行病更好的黃色幽默背景了。

做到這點真不容易：把這么多的厥詞釋放到空氣中，卻沒有一個詞承載任何真正的悲傷或打動人心的信念。

我可以聽到他的崇拜者們發(fā)牢騷說，特朗普不會在相機前做完美的情感表演，奧巴馬只不過是一個更好的演員而已，特朗普則是一個更真實的人。

我對此的回答是：如果讓一個喜歡表演的人當總統(tǒng)，但他卻演不出好戲的話，那還有什么意義呢？表演很重要，即使只是表演。特朗普顯然不反對道具?？纯此念^發(fā)就知道了。

這種攻擊低劣嗎？我正在感到低劣。這么大規(guī)模地失去生命和生計將讓你產(chǎn)生這種感覺。

我寫這篇文章時，美國已至少有9600人死于新冠病毒。這是9·11恐怖襲擊事件死亡人數(shù)的三倍多。僅紐約州在周六一天就通報了630例死亡。沒有一起校園槍擊案奪走的生命可以遠遠企及這個數(shù)字。

雖然我不指望特朗普能提供什么靈丹妙藥，但是，想看到有點跡象表明，這么多將死的人觸動了他，哭聲已經(jīng)穿透了他的外殼，他在想除了自己的收視率以外的事情，不算太過分吧？我觀察。我等待。我覺得我會永遠這樣做下去。

Do you remember President George W. Bush’s remarks at Ground Zero in Manhattan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks? I can still hear him speaking of national grief and national pride. This was before all the awful judgment calls and fatal mistakes, and it doesn’t excuse them. But it mattered, because it reassured us that our country’s leader was navigating some of the same emotional currents that we were.

Do you remember President Barack Obama’s news conference after the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., that left 28 people, including 20 children, dead? I do. Freshest in my memory is how he fought back tears. He was hurting. He cared. And while we couldn’t bank on new laws to prevent the next massacre, we could at least hold on to that.

One more question: Do you remember the moment when President Trump’s bearing and words made clear that he grasped not only the magnitude of this rapidly metastasizing pandemic but also our terror in the face of it?

It passed me by, maybe because it never happened.

In Trump’s predecessors, for all their imperfections, I could sense the beat of a heart and see the glimmer of a soul. In him I can’t, and that fills me with a sorrow and a rage that I quite frankly don’t know what to do with.

Americans are dying by the thousands, and he gloats about what a huge, rapt television audience he has. They’re confronting financial ruin and not sure how they’ll continue to pay for food and shelter, and he reprimands governors for not treating him with adequate adulation.

He’s not rising to the challenge before him, not even a millimeter. He’s shriveling into nothingness.

On Friday, when Trump relayed a new recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that all Americans wear face masks in public places, he went so far out of his way to stress that the coverings were voluntary and that he himself wouldn’t be going anywhere near one that he might as well have branded them Apparel for Skittish Losers. I’ve finally settled on his epitaph: “Donald J. Trump, too cool for the coronavirus.”

This is more than a failure of empathy, which is how many observers have described his deficiency. It’s more than a failure of decency, which has been my go-to lament. It’s a failure of basic humanity.

In The Washington Post a few days ago, Michael Gerson, a conservative who worked in Bush’s White House, wrote that Trump’s spirit is “a vast, trackless wasteland.” Not exactly trackless. There are gaudy outposts of ego all along the horizon.

When the direness of this global health crisis began to be apparent, I was braced for the falsehoods and misinformation that are Trump’s trademarks. I was girded for the incompetence that defines an administration with such contempt for proper procedure and for true expertise.

But what has taken me by surprise and torn me up inside are the aloofness, arrogance, pettiness, meanness, narcissism and solipsism that persist in Trump — that flourish in him — even during a once-in-a-lifetime emergency that demands something nobler. Under normal circumstances, these traits are galling. Under the current ones, they’re gutting.

“I don’t take responsibility at all.” “Did you know I was number one on Facebook?” To bother with just one of those sentences while a nation trembles is disgusting. To bother with both, as Trump did, is perverse.

Frank Bruni’s Newsletter: Get a more personal take on politics, newsmakers and more with Frank’s exclusive commentary every week.

He continues to bash the media, as if the virus were cooked up in the bowels of CNN. He continues to play blame games and to lord his station over those of a lesser political caste, turning governors into grovelers and suggesting that they’re whiny piggies at the federal trough.

He continues his one-man orgy of self-congratulation, so that in the same breath recently he speculated about a toll of 100,000 deaths in America from Covid-19 and crowed about what a great job he’s doing.

And he continues to taunt and smear his perceived political adversaries. Last week, on Fox News, he called Nancy Pelosi “a sick puppy.” This is how he chooses to spend his time and energy?

At those beloved daily briefings of his, where he talks and talks and talks, he sometimes seems to regard what’s happening less as a devastating scourge than as a star-studded event. Just look at the nifty degree of prominence it’s conferring on everyone and everything involved! He has mused aloud about how well known Anthony Fauci has become. He has marveled at the disease’s celebrity profile.

“Become a very famous term — C-O-V-I-D,” he said on Thursday. Was that envy in his voice?

He leaps from tone deafness to some realm of complete sensory and moral deprivation.

“I want to come way under the models,” he said on Friday, referring to casualty projections. “The professionals did the models. I was never involved in a model.”

“At least this kind of model,” he added. No context like a pandemic for X-rated humor.

It’s an extraordinary thing: to fill the air with so many words and have none of them carry any genuine sadness or stirring resolve.

I can hear his admirers grumble that he doesn’t do camera-perfect emotions, that Obama was just a better actor, that Trump is the more authentic man.

To which I answer: What’s the point of having a showman for a president if he can’t put on the right kind of show? Performances count, even if they’re just performances. And Trump clearly isn’t averse to artifice. Just look at his hair.

A cheap shot? I’m feeling cheap. A loss of life and livelihoods on this scale will do that to you.

As of this writing, at least 9,600 people with the coronavirus have died in the United States. That’s more than three times the number killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. New York State alone reported 630 new deaths on Saturday.? No school shooting has taken even a small fraction of as many lives.

And while I’m not looking to Trump for any panacea, is it too much to ask for some sign that the dying has made an impression on him, that the crying has penetrated his carapace and that he’s thinking about something other than his ratings? I watch. I wait. I suspect I’ll be doing that forever.

弗蘭克.布魯尼

2020.4.6