It could have been any day on the internet: A critical comment, not naming President Trump or his Republican allies but clearly aimed at them, circulated on social media. But the passage shared over the past few days by educators, writers and veterans of past presidential administrations came from an unlikely source: “The Great Gatsby,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel about greed and aspiration published nearly a century ago. “They were careless people,” Nick Carraway, the narrator, concludes about Tom and Daisy Buchanan, characters whose excesses ultimately destroy the lives of those around them. “They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”For those who shared the passage online, Fitzgerald’s indictment of the rich, blasé Buchanans in the novel’s final pages seemed to fit an administration that has attempted to downplay the pandemic, even after Trump and other top Republicans tested positive for Covid-19.

Source: International New York Times October 07, 2020 19:04 UTC