I have no interest in joining the angry brawl that our politics have become.

I’m not looking to debate Donald Trump’s and his movement’s values. I’ve chosen to stay out of that fray. But I’m not eager to stick my head in the sand and hide from the world around me.

Like so many others, I am eager to understand why Donald Trump and his politics of cruelty and grievance are still so popular when it is crystal clear what he is really like and the awful and divisive struggles raging inside and around him. In many ways, Trump is the most significant thing to happen to American politics in generations.

He is a genius at staying alive and in the news but a dismal failure at winning. His big problem and fatal flaw: a joyless life of disappointment and a passion for bumbling.

But Joy is what this is ultimately about, not power.

What does a joyless movement do for people? Why would anyone new come to it? What does it offer the young?

How long can joyless people live joyless lives? History suggests that these movements can’t last long; they are not what people really want. Trumpism is the most joyless mass movement in America. The little Trumps seeking to overturn him are as weak as he is. They could have been a satisfying movement offering joy.

Instead, they simply offer more misery and anger and pretend to be different. Why would people flock to that?

Reading some of my spiritual and inspirational books, I came across what seems to me to be a possible explanation for Trumpism and why it hangs on beyond reason. He is in love with his flaws.

He sees them in everyone he knows and everyone he hates; they are in his mirrors.

Even his most faithful followers seem to know and accept Trump’s love of himself.

To me, narcissism, perpetual grievance, and victimization are the dark sides of a human personality.

“My life is about me alone” is the battle cry of Trumpism. Everyone there is wallowing in complaint, paranoid, and selfish.

The true narcissist waits for everyone else to come and fill their needs and blames almost everyone else for their troubles and failures. Trump’s primary desire is adoration, neglect, and inability to accept loss or defeat.

There are many disappointed people in America, but there are just not enough for them to prevail. Politics aside, most people don’t want anything to do with them.

For all his success and popularity, Donald Trump seems angry and miserable, stuck between outrage and complaint.

Everyone who disagrees with or challenges him is demented, is a loser, a liar,  or is corrupt. He sees a reflection of himself in the backwash of public life and ambition. He doesn’t seem happy even on the golf course, his sole remaining safe place, even when he cheats to win.

His wife no longer wants to live or be seen with him. His youngest son is said to be a stranger. The joylessness of his life keeps coming back to me. I can’t help but feel sorry for him and for the people worshipping him; he will betray them again and again.

They’ve been banged around enough.

His followers, devoted as ever, seem to me to tend towards a fatal flaw in the movement: they are always disappointed. No outcome short of submission and victory is acceptable. No win or success is enough. All the world is their enemy. All of the “woke” are targets.

No lie is too big, no cruelty too small.

We are all human, red or blue; when we forget that, the joy in life drains right out of us, and there is little left but disappointment and resentment.

The Little Trump wannabe DeSantis shows us that Trumpism without charisma is a blank check, a hole in the ground, an empty vessel. Too deep to die, too shallow and empty to win.

DeSantis will never get a TV show that millions will want to watch.  Trump was always a better showman than a politician. His heart isn’t in governing. His promises to drive “woke people”  “woke” people off the earth don’t matter. There is no joy in him or the people who give him all that money.

I have seen things differently in my life than the Trumpists, who hate democracy and its traditions and conventions.

Nor can they accept defeat or criticism as the linchpin of a Democratic culture. Perhaps democracy is wrong for America now; I can’t get there personally. I know what it has done for me and my family and countless millions of others.

But that’s for the people to decide, not me.

I believe that the people or politicians who seek to ease the discomfort of the needy and give gifts to others as they go through life are rewarded by the joy of doing something that makes someone else’s life brighter, more loving, safer, or more comfortable. The Catholic activist Dorothy Day once wrote, “You will know your vocation by the joy it brings you.”

I have found my vocation, and it brings me joy.

I take pictures of flowers to brighten the day for others and myself. It gives me joy.

I help refugee children eat well, have the tools they need in school, and get to go to college because it brings me joy. I teach meditation and buy clothes, dolls, and shampoo because it eases their lives and brings me joy.

People who seek this joy find me, and I find them. We have much pleasure together.

The path I love best is the one I was meant to build and cultivate for the sake of the rest of my world.

I have followed the life of Donald  Trump and Trumpism along with most Americans, and I can’t find joy anywhere. When I think about it, I realize how big a deal that is. Sooner or later, it takes down one dictator after another. People want joy in their lives. They need it.

There is always anger, complaining, suspicion, and grievance in Donald Trump’s world. There is always disappointment.

Trump may be a better president than I thought, but he seems unable to be happy unless someone else is being hurt or treated with cruelty and insult. He does not seem to find joy in the crowds of people who flock to see and praise him. I can’t see happiness in the angry faces that call his name.

To find my vocation in life, I had to understand what I most enjoy doing – working alone or working with others to make the world gentler and more loving. The clue for me when it came to choosing my path to my vocation is to recognize what I do best – writing, empathizing, and drawing the attention of good people who share my ambitions and values. I found them, and they found me; that’s how I know I am doing the right thing.

Spiritual writer Parker Palmer wrote this about the things that can help us navigate our lives for the good of others. Isn’t this what Jesus Christ taught?

“Our deepest calling,” Palmer wrote, “is to grow into our authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be.”

That’s where I’m heading; that’s where I’m landing. There is no place on my path or vocation for disappointment, anger, grievance, or cruelty. I cannot find joy in the wounds and suffering of other people, no matter what I think they have done to me.

People ask me why I am confident that Donald Trump and Trumpism will not prevail in our country. It’s simple for me. Trumpism is like an old abandoned beach pier with a rotting foundation. It has to fall because nothing of value, meaning, or goodness is left to keep it standing. There is no joy.

Disappointment is not a vocation; it’s a weak and foundering illness that cannot stand.