People used to ask me, back when In Dante's Wake, my trilogy of books inspired by Dante, was new, in which circle of hell would Dante have placed Trump? I would answer, "All of them."
I wasn't indulging in hyperbole, although I now think I was guilty of a slight exaggeration. There are nine circles in Dante's hell, with numerous subdivisions. A good case can be made for plopping the man currently squatting in the White House into every circle but one. The first circle, Limbo, contains virtuous non-Christians and unbaptized infants. Not even Evangelicals would describe Trump as "virtuous," and, although his immaturity is every day evident, he has outlived early childhood in all but the emotional and psychological senses. So I was wrong to imagine him in Limbo.
Without quibbling over exactly which of Dante's subdivisions the evil real estate developer might take up residence in, we can see pretty easily how he fits into the remaining eight circles. Circle 2 is Lust. The man who boasted of his relations with women that he likes to "grab them by
the pussy" is an obvious fit here. I'd like to draw your attention to a more recent piece of evidence. You may view it for yourselves here. It is one ofthe photos recently released from Jeffrey Epstein's estate. The media, who can't see a thing even when they're looking right at it, generally described this group of photographs as not including anything incriminating. The one I'm talking about shows a smirking Donald Trump standing among six young females. Their faces are blacked out, so it is difficult to estimate their ages, but their bodies appear trim and youthful. His arm is around one of them, the shortest of the five by far, curling around her back to embrace her bare midriff. The most telling feature of the picture is Trump's fingers, resting just below the bottom of her rib cage, visibly pressing into her flesh. This is not a neutral gesture. It wasn't done just to form a close group for the photographer. He's holding her tightly. He's savoring it. It's a gesture of possession. If I were prosecuting Trump for victimizing one of these young women, particularly the one he's got his hand on, I'd be remiss in not showing this photo to the jury.
Circle 3 is Gluttony. Another slam dunk.
Circle 4 is Avarice and Prodigality. No doubt about this one, either. Bitcoins and ballrooms, among much else.
Circle 5 is Anger and Sullenness. We had a recent, striking example of Trump's fitness for residence here, in connection with the tragic murders of Rob Reiner and his wife, allegedly by their son. Reiner, whose long and illustrious career in the movies included the much-beloved The Princess Bride, was not a fan of Trump, and he was not shy about saying so. The day the murders were discovered, the President of the United States posted a statement on-line attributing them as "reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive,
unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME." The next day, he double down on this and described Rob Reiner as "bad for America."
Circle 6 is Heresy. It may not be obvious to some why Trump belongs here, since he self-identifies as a "nondenominational Christian," that is, beyond the bounds of any dogma. The problem dissolves when one remembers the truism that democracy is the civil religion of the United States; and that a prime tenet of that civil religion is the rule of law. This is not the place for a full discussion of the reasons why Trump is so frequently and justly described as a
fascist. Let's just say it's as obvious as his lustfulness, gluttony, and avarice.
Circle 7 is Violence. Its first subdivision is a river of blood. Although he may never be convicted of murder so long as the Supreme Court's infamous decision stands that places the president
beyond the reach of criminal prosecution, Trump recently has presided over a murder campaign in the Caribbean; his destruction of USAID and its programs will result in hundreds of thousands if not millions of innocent deaths from illness, starvation, and disaster. And more from other of his acts and decisions. But who's counting? Trump's only indisputable claim to greatness is that he is one of the great mass murderers of history, up there with Pol Pot. He showed a taste for homicide in his first term, leading me to speculate at the time that he may be an emerging serial
killer. He has emerged.
Circle 8 is the fraudsters and liars. I'll just say this: 34 counts, and those are only the ones for which he's been convicted. Plus, of course, the Big Lie about the 2020 election. And the pretence that nothing untoward happened on January 6, 2021. Don't get me started.
Circle 9 contains the traitors. Putin's puppet; betrayer of his oath of office; disloyal to his nation's allies and those personal "friends" for whom he has no longer any use or against whom he has conceived a disliking; repeated breaker of the faith his followers repose in him; constantly lying about everything to everyone to whom he owes a duty of truth. And so on.
I'll sum up by reverting back to Circle 5, Anger. It is, sadly, the Circle of hell I am most strongly tempted to visit, thinking of Trump. Although I try not to dwell too much on what he says, since it is all meaningless and nearly all nasty, I find my thoughts returning to his narcissistic rant regarding the Reiners' deaths. Apparently, the current Chief Executive, in stark contrast to Biden, does not see his office as including the role of "Consoler-in-Chief," and has never heard or understood the maxim, "Speak nothing but good of the dead." Or perhaps that idea frightens him. Perhaps he anticipates the silence that someday may shroud his own, forgotten grave, as people find they have nothing to say but "good riddance."
