Several millennia ago, when the ancient Greeks still worshipped their gods — Zeus, Apollo, Athene and the other Olympians — the mortals were warned not to defy the gods, or demonstrate inflated pride against them. This was called hubris, and several mortals did, in fact, defy the gods and they suffered from their bloated pride. Oedipus was one of them.
For months, last year, we heard Donald Trump and Paul Ryan boast that the first thing they would do, when Trump took office, would be to eliminate Obamacare. Their prideful boasts, their unmitigated hubris, echoed throughout the airwaves, almost daily.
We witnessed what happened to Trump and Ryan last month. Their hubris brought them down. They have been embarrassed by their own party; they are the laughing stock of the country. Ryan will suffer further when he faces his constituents. Trump will suffer daily from the glares of the American electorate, and his continued push for further legislation will be harder to enact.
Pride — hubris — goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall, as the Book of Proverbs tells us. These two have demonstrated their inflated pride, their hubris. They have, and will continue, to fall. The deities have spoken.
Larry Booker
Pittsford