I’ve been thinking about Donald Trump and I can’t help feel a bit sorry for him. Is it harder to lose that status if you are always used to winning? He comes from a background where he can’t lose. His wealth and the people around him have always bought him success. I’m sure you are not going to agree with me but I think it is going to be harder for him to have lost the election than it would be for most people and I worry that his sanity might not survive it. If it doesn’t, though, where will our sympathies lie? If he goes doolally (not a technical term) and runs round the White House naked, wearing spotty pants on his head and shouting,”You can’t catch me, I’m Mr Fwibble-elect!”, will we feel more sorry for him than we do someone who has mental health issues that has never had a pot to piss in? I suspect some might but others won’t because Trump’s wealth and power isn’t something we can imagine in the first place.
The reason I’m thinking about all of this is because I’m firmly wedged in 1882. I’ve got that ‘history feeling’ again. I’ve stumbled upon a small case of a child killer. Something about it doesn’t add up for me and I can’t put my finger on it but I think it’s to do with the sympathy we feel for people who have lost everything, especially if we can imagine or empathise with what they’ve lost.
If you saw someone you knew in the street, looking a little confused and you knew that her husband had left her for another woman then you would probably ask her if she was alright. Imagine that she’s a nice girl, with a nice family. She grew up on a farm close by and has lots of friends too. After her husband went off with another woman she took her small child and went to live with a friend. Her friend had her own small business and she worked with her. After a while, for reasons you don’t know, she took herself and her daughter off to live in a homeless hostel, claiming benefits and eating from the food bank. Her grandfather and aunts on the farm had begged her to go and live with them and her mother, who had remarried and had 4 more children, offered her the couch despite not having room. So, there she is outside your house.
She says, “There’s a policeman that lives in your street isn’t there?”
You tell her what number and ask her if she’s alright.
“No, I don’t think I am,” she replies, “I’ve just drowned my little girl.”
What do you say?
Maybe you say, “Oh don’t say that,” and let her go.
After she’s gone you might think about it and worry that she might be telling the truth but will you ever believe that she did it on purpose?
Now imagine the same scenario but the woman is poor. She grew up on a council estate with a single mum, eleven siblings and a succession of drug dealing boyfriends. She’d got pregnant by accident and probably couldn’t even tell you who the father was. She was often seen sitting on a bench by the church swigging from a bottle. She’d been cautioned by the police several times and had ended up being arrested for a fight, where she used language, the like of which shocked the magistrate (who thought he’d heard it all before). On her release she was seen wandering the streets with her child in tow before you met her outside your house where she was alone. When she asks to be directed to the policeman’s house and tells you that she’s drowned her child do you believe her? Do you escort her to the cells yourself?
It is fascinating that we would probably treat these two stories differently. Even as we discuss these historical cases in our zoom meeting there is more sympathy for the nice girls and those who have had things and lost them than those who never had a chance.
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