The Men We Admire

August 24, 2025 Michael Olesker

Paul Newman (left) and Melvyn Douglas starred in the 1963 classic film "Hud," which was based on Larry McMurtry's Western novel "Horseman, Pass By."

The great 1963 film “Hud” was on Turner Classic Movies the other night, and I watched just to see Paul Newman play a real good SOB. He’s unscrupulous and unrepentant, but it’s tough not to like the guy. In spite of himself, he’s got charisma.

There’s a scene near the end of the movie where Newman’s dad, played by Melvyn Douglas, tells his grandson Lon (Brandon deWilde) a lesson for our own time, or any time.

The boy knows Newman’s no good, but he looks up to him anyway. And Douglas, a broken man nearing the end of his life, tells him, “Little by little, the look of the country changes, Lon, because of the men we admire.”

Naturally, I allude to Donald Trump, who gets more spiteful, irrational and antagonistic by the day. Never mind his political positions (whatever they are). In the midst of his current retribution tour, he strips away the fundamentals of democracy and human decency day by day.

And yet the most depressing thing about Trump is not his outrageous behavior. It’s the arithmetic that tells us that roughly half the country likes him and might vote for him in yet another presidential run, which he threatens to undertake no matter what the U.S. Constitution says.

“The look of the country changes, Lon, because of the men we admire.”

We used to be the country that held up a light for the tired and poor to find their way to our shores. Now, we separate such people from their sobbing children.

We used to be the country that won a war and kept our battered foes from starving when it was over. Now, Trump sends U.S. troops into the streets of the nation’s capital and threatens to send them into Baltimore and other cities whose Democratic leaders dare to criticize this bitter, unbalanced man.

Years ago, the great newspaper columnist Pete Hamill, having watched Trump over the course of years, described him this way:

“Snarling and heartless and fraudulently tough, insisting on the virtues of stupidity … (For Trump), hate was just another luxury.”

He’s got plenty of it to spread around, and he’s so deeply into it now that it’s out there for everyone to see. Who you gonna call for help? A cop? The cops are busy being pushed aside by U.S. troops. A judge? The courts are capitulating as fast as they can, while the judges are dodging anonymous death threats.

In Sunday’s New York Times, we learn the latest outrage. Having issued presidential pardons to the criminals who savaged the U.S. Capitol on that nightmarish Jan. 6 afternoon, Trump now attacks the prosecutors who dared bring the traitors to justice.

More than two dozen of these prosecutors, the Times reports, have been fired from their Department of Justice jobs.

For trying to protect America from Donald Trump’s mob.

Justice has been turned on its head — and yet in the face of it, a sense of paralysis grips the country. What can be done to stop this insanity?

And half the country answers, “What insanity? We like the guy.”

“The look of the country changes, Lon, because of the men we admire.”

And now, responding to the latest round of Trumpian trash-talk about Baltimore, Gov. Wes Moore last week declared, “Donald Trump, if you are not willing to walk our communities, keep our name out of your mouth. If you are not willing to stand with our people, keep our name out of your mouth.”

What’s more likely? That Trump will keep Baltimore’s name out of his mouth?

Or that he’ll send American troops into our streets?

A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books, including “Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore” (Johns Hopkins University Press) and “Michael Olesker’s Baltimore: If You Live Here, You’re Home” (Johns Hopkins University).