Letter to the editor: Trump and responsibility of presidency

“I don’t take responsibility at all.”

President Trump, March 13, 2020

These words will go down in history alongside “we have nothing to fear but fear itself,” “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” and “with malice towards none and with charity for all.”

But those words will not go down as words that inspired a country. Those shameful words truly are the defining words of the man who spoke them.

He has spent his entire life evading responsibility. He conceived that he had no responsibility to serve his country in time of war, dodging that with a late-breaking diagnosis of bone spurs. He conceived that he had no responsibility to investors he bilked; contractors and suppliers he stiffed; and others that he conned into buying dubious “goods and services” he purveyed. He seems to believe that his only responsibility is to pocket every dollar that isn’t nailed down.

How could anyone think that the office of the presidency would suddenly imbue him with the sense of awful and awesome responsibility felt by his predecessors? In my opinion, he viewed the presidency as a prize and didn’t understand that the presidency isn’t a prize. The presidency is a responsibility: a solemn and oftentimes heart-rending responsibility.

I believe this country has a president who never will accept the responsibility that is the true essence of the office. That is both sad and tragic. Not for him, but for the country. It is how history will remember him.

Eric Falk

North Huntingdon