Donald TrumpRally in New York on Sunday Madison Square Garden It was only the latest in many hatefests that have marked not only this year’s campaign but arguably his entire history as an American political figure. As I was reading Bulwark’s report, I stopped when I came across these words:tucker carlson.” That was enough.

But I went back and read the mainstream news for any mention of any emotion that wasn’t somehow linked to hate, fear, or prejudice. I couldn’t find it. Of course, I didn’t expect to find any of the normal things like empathy, humility, and kindness that are often missing from discussions about Trump and his minions. I knew a Trump rally would be a wasteland when the subject matter resembled what MAGA and its Beloved Leader viewed as weakness.

Yet I was searching for even a hint of the strength it takes to feel sadness. I saw a story on Popular Mechanics about 17,000 year old skeletal remains in many places. A juvenile discovered in southern Italy in 1998 He was buried in a cave in the town of Monopoli on the Adriatic Sea coast. Recent DNA analysis of the remains revealed that the child died at about one year and four months old, possibly from a congenital defect called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which causes the walls of one of the ventricles in the heart to thicken until they become thick. It takes longer to pump enough blood to keep a body alive. So, 15,000 years before the date that marks the beginning of our calendar, a really ancient man and woman had a baby that died, presumably before it could walk or talk.

In France, there are cave paintings depicting bison, other animals and humans from this period, called the Upper Paleolithic Age. In a cave in the foothills of the Pyrenees there is a mural dating back several thousand years that depicts a battle between humans using a bow and arrow. So we know that there were people in Southern Europe who were smart enough to record parts of their lives, including the animals they hunted for food and at least one war between rival tribes. We now know something about the depth of their sorrow. They were so pained by the death of their child that they arranged for him to be buried under two stone slabs in a cave; here the depth and method of burial preserved his remains sufficiently to enable his teeth to be recovered along with a sufficient number of skeletons. Material that will enable DNA analysis.

We can now say that, in our approximately 17,000-year history as humanity, we have a history in which this ancient grieving couple felt the sadness. Someone, perhaps the father and mother themselves, the father and another man, or the mother and another woman from the Adriatic settlements, carried the child’s body deep into a cave and lifted two heavy stone slabs and placed them over the corpse. to mark the place of burial. These early humans took time out of their days, which they probably devoted mostly to hunting and fishing to survive, to do this work to record the existence of their sons. The work they do is evidence of their despair.

The ability to feel sadness is perhaps our most important emotion as humans. The death of a loved one, especially the death of a child, is so painful that people are motivated to do almost anything to prevent or stop it. It can be said that medicine originates from sadness; religions record pain by marking the deaths of sacred figures; ceremonies and graves are the result of sorrow. Being sad and upset is the essence of being human.

We have seen the sadness recorded and shared by Democrats at rallies. During her debate with Trump, Kamala Harris highlighted the stories of women suffering and dying because of extreme anti-abortion laws that hinder emergency care when pregnancies fail or go awry. Saddening the despair of the men and women affected by these tragedies, the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Roe v. Since deciding the Wade case, it has become a part of our politics as Democrats.

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Jeffrey Goldberg reported in The Atlantic that Trump reneged on his promise to help pay for the funeral expenses of a Spanish soldier killed at Fort Sill. “It doesn’t cost $60,000 to bury a fucking Mexican!” Trump reportedly told his chief of staff during a White House meeting. He then ordered that the funeral fee not be paid. Trump denigrated dead soldiers at Arlington Cemetery. He refused to attend a memorial service commemorating soldiers killed in the First World War, calling them “losers”.

This isn’t about his lack of empathy or disrespect for the military and the soldiers killed in war. The question is: Where is his sadness?

The answer is obvious. Donald Trump has no regrets.

The former president does not have the ability to feel human sadness, an emotion we know is at least 17,000 years old. The proof is in his words. This is in their actions. According to this evidence, the look on his face as he spews hatred on the campaign trail is inhumane.