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Trump and The Rise of Irresponsibility [1]

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Date: 2025-03-26

There are many factors, as well as actors, responsible for generating the current wave of attacks on western civilization. (Not to put too fine a point on it, that’s what we’re facing.) One that has got me thinking lately is the rise of irresponsibility.

As a species, we have long been careless with our tools and our habits. To take just one example, think of the horrendous number of deaths and injuries in the early days of automobiles, and the resistance by manufacturers to safety features such as seat belts. Then add those who drive drunk, or who take their eyes off the road to adjust the radio or to yell at the kids in the back seat.

An example of a bad habit is the refusal to get vaccinated, to get one’s kids vaccinated, to ignore quarantine rules while infected with a virulent disease. Another is the refusal to admit to the reality of climate change because it might inconvenience us or cut into someone’s profits.

There was a period in recent memory when we seemed to be getting better. Possibly World War II and both the horror it unleashed and the civilized world’s response to it stimulated a recognition that we need to be more careful with ourselves, our tools, our lives. Modern cars, modern computers, modern means of communication and travel all create new and more potentially catastrophic dangers as well as opportunities. For a little while we seemed to recognize that we have to be more careful, more responsible, than in the past because the potential of carelessness to do harm has grown so much more than we ever dealt with before.

But taking on that responsibility is work, hard work, demanding near-constant attention. Each added complexity adds to that burden. The exponential growth of world population — itself an example of carelessness and irresponsibility — also means that there are more people on the planet (our only planet) than ever who need to be responsible, whom the world has to count on to be responsible. Particularly in the absence of programs and exhortations and education to teach people to be more responsible, the pressure of these responsibilities would inevitably be too much for the world to handle.

Enter Trump.

Most people who act irresponsibly do so not by intention but by carelessness. And either they own up to their carelessness or the social structure makes them do so, by ostracism, by the political or legal process. Trump is different. He is not careless by design; he is irresponsible by design. His carelessness is a consequence of his determination to be irresponsible. It is part of his sociopathic pathology. (NB: I am not a psychologist, so this is not a professional judgment. But I don’t think a lesser description does him justice.)

This led Trump to choose people like Hegseth and Waltz, lately of Signalgate infamy, and Kennedy, he of the “cod liver oil cure” for measles which has led to children’s liver failure. He chose them for their carelessness, not in spite of it. It’s part of his irresponsibility.

This further leads Trump to dismantle the mechanisms we have developed over centuries to hold people responsible for their carelessness. (I originally said “people like him” but I’m starting to think he is unique and represents a unique threat.)

Trump was elected by people who were tired of being told they had to be responsible, who were weary of having to be careful, who were afraid of our complicated modern world and wished for a return to what they see as a “simpler” time, whether it’s one where women stayed at home, or gays in the closet, or Blacks in their place, or when they didn’t have to worry about their computers or their phones being hacked or their kids growing up in some way they didn’t understand. Trump’s ability to avoid responsibility for his actions was and remains a large part of his appeal.

Trump’s irresponsibility also gives license to Hegseth, and Waltz, and Kennedy, and the Republicans in Congress and the courts, first to be careless themselves, and then to deny all responsibility when caught. He set the example. (And he comes down hard on them when they don’t play along.)

(As for Musk, he is certainly careless and irresponsible about it, even more obnoxiously than Trump. Whether he, like Trump, started out irresponsibly and is careless as a result is something I’m going to have to leave for another thought.)

Trump, like all successful politicians (and like it or not, he is that now), caught the zeitgeist of the time and ran with it. Now he is multiplying it, and giving license to those around him, to those who support him, to be irresponsible — as long as they remember to be loyal to him, of course. Other people’s irresponsibility can only be allowed to go so far. (Vance, take note.)

(Oh, yes — why I thought of this while on vacation in Italy. Half of our group, including me, have just recovered from a stomach virus possibly spread by someone being careless. <Sigh>)

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