Giving until it hurts - Not!

          An Op-Ed cartoon in a recent  issue of our daily rag  shows a facsimile of a check for $1 million made out to "Hurricane Harvey relief" signed Donald J. Trump with the title above ballyhooing  "Empathy Illustrated." Several things leap out at the critical observer.

First, the only reason anyone would stress this as a display of empathy would be if the person in question had been questioned or criticized for lack of same.

        Second, only someone of low intelligence (or a political cartoonist pandering to such persons) would confuse the public and publicized giving of money with the human emotion we call empathy. First off, empathy is an emotion whose definition isn't really the right words to describe a charitable donation. The act of giving to aid others is "compassion," which is in truth, another human attribute of which DJT is incapable.

  Empathy: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.

Compassion:  sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it.

If this confuses you, consider the recent edict declaring that DACA would end in six months. Clearly this is not a compassionate action, and equally obvious is that Trump has no ability to consider the plight of (empathize with) the "Dreamers" from their perspective. In fact his sole apparent reason for cancelling the Act is because it was enacted by Barack Obama.

Third, the reason Mr. Trump did what he claims to have done is almost certainly because  someone on his dwindling staff told him he needed to.   

Finally, the sacrifice involved in personal giving, based on perceiving the need of others, regardless the cause, is what demonstrates empathy, and the most personal sacrifices are frequently anonymous. The giving itself demonstrates  compassion.

Many Americans of (all) faiths  regularly give 1/10 of their annual income anonymously in support of  good works and, unfortunately, sometimes to frauds, as well. An average Villages resident giving $100 to Hurricane relief, based on the average Villages family income will have donated about .2% of a year's income to this cause. Oddly enough this represents almost exactly the percentage of a year's income, donated with fanfare and Fox News hurrahs, as Mr. Trump's $1 million. It should be mentioned that Trump gives nothing regularly to any religious organization. Additionally, the $100 represents far more sacrifice to the average donor than the money Mr. Trump claims to have donated represents to him or his lifestyle.  

We never see or hear of Bill and Melinda Gates trumpeting their good works, yet they, through their foundation, every year since its establishment, have donated 4,200 times as much in direct grants to worthy causes as Mr. Trump's one time donation.