Schadenfreude

 schadenfreude /shäd′n-froi″də

Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others

I have never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.

--Commonly misattributed to Mark Twain. (Clarence Darrow once said something similar, but his was more refined. I’m sticking with Twain.)

While schadenfreude is not the loftiest form of human emotion, it has its place. The world is full of people who deserve some form of retribution that is beyond man’s ability to deliver. We have to settle for fate to handle it for us, if it cares to.

While I am genuinely disturbed at the prospect of many good people suffering under much of what The Orange Menace proposes to do – woman’s health restrictions, economy-damaging tariffs, citizens swept up in deportation raids, whatever else he comes up with – I take the edge off these concerns by anticipating how MAGA voters will react when some of this hits home and

·       Grocery prices – especially produce – skyrocket because there’s no one left to work the fields;

·       Other prices go up dramatically because companies aren’t going to eat those tariffs all by themselves;

·       They or a loved one is swept up in a broadly-based deportation raid. (Remember, significant numbers of Hispanics voted for him);

·       The veterans’ benefits they depended on are cut;

·       Things I haven’t thought of yet.

I’ll do what someone in my position can to help, but my “official” policy will be to ask anyone who complains about such things who they voted for.

If they say anything other than “Harris,” my only response will be to say, “Suffer.”

But I’ll be smiling when I say it.