Trump and the Transition, a Drama Straight from Macbeth

 I think it’s fair to say that most Americans—and, frankly, most citizens of the world with access to some degree of news and information—are glad the 2020 election is, for the most part, all over but for the sore-loser shouting “Stolen election!” 

As I write this, on the Monday after the election was called for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Trump administration (really, mostly Trump himself) is doing its best to throw a wrench in the works and prevent the Biden transition team from getting underway with what has, until now, been a very orderly changing of the guard. I have been a part of transition teams, and I’ve been a part of planning presidential inaugurations, so I know very well what must be done in the two short months between now and Noon, January 20, 2021.

The Trump people know as well that a systematic review and exchange of bureaucratic protocols between now and the inauguration is critical to the incoming president’s administration’s ability to take the reins the moment Joe Biden completes his oath of office. The simple fact of the matter is that Trump just doesn’t want Joe to ride that horse…ever. And he cannot stand knowing that he will, in the end, lose out to the forces of power in Washington that will assure Mr. Biden’s place behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.

I can promise Mr. Trump right now that even his Republican party stalwarts in the Senate will ultimately come down on the side of transition—they have no choice. The Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC), the Military District of Washington (MDW), the Senate and House leadership, and the House and Senate press galleries will press down harder and harder every day in order to get the show on the road, and if Trump stands in the way much longer, he will be trampled by destiny and a lot of pissed off people.

If there is any one in leadership who has the ability to shake Trump free of his hatred for Biden (and, really, let’s be clear, Obama), I commend them to read Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 7, in which Macbeth, contemplating the assassination of Duncan, says,

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We’ld jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison’d chalice
To our own lips.

What Shakespeare is saying here is that the evil you wish on others will become the evil you will one day visit upon yourself. 

As Macbeth continues his inspection of the plot to kill Duncan, he admits that as much as he wants to do the terrible deed and do it quickly, justice will find him out, and his end will come as a result of his own plot to advance his ambition:

Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on the other.

If there is any difference between Trump and Macbeth, it is that Macbeth at least recognized Duncan (Biden) as a good and capable man (which impressed Macbeth as much as Biden’s character galls Trump), and it is Duncan’s goodness of heart which tears at Macbeth in his soliloquy. Ah, but ambition hath its peril, eh, Trump?

Through his intense hatred of all things related to Obama, now transmogrified by election into Biden, Trump is desperate to do the worst he can to Biden—which, while thankfully is not assassination (though other, rougher actors spurred on by Trump, do imagine that device), still consists of a half-baked plan to hinder Biden’s lawful succession by whatever means available to him, including withholding orders (and money) for the transition, and by firing key players in the Trump administration, making the transition even more difficult.

In the end, even if there was someone who could impart the meaning of Macbeth to Trump, there is still Trump…who cares nothing of Shakespeare and would refuse to believe parallels to Trump and his family so often found in the Bard’s works.

Trump will fight the forces arrayed against him for as long as he can (beware Act 5, Scene 8, Don…and be glad there is no Macduff in this fight you are going to lose), and Biden’s folks will eventually get on with the transition and prepare for January 20 with or without the Trump administration’s help.

Exeunt Trump.

We Will Turn You Off on November 3

To the Stage Crew of Trump’s latest performance:

There will be no glory in saying, “I worked in Donald Trump’s administration.” There will be no civic adulation, no honorary degrees awarded, no thanks from a grateful nation, no corner offices earned through the honest labors of one’s work or as a reward for making the world a better place. No. Those gifts of appreciation will not automatically attach to the futures of the majority of men and women who, quite wittingly, continue to enable the 45th president of the United States to flimflam, bamboozle, and hoodwink his way to the top of the greasy pole of his bizarre Faustian ambition. 

To be complicit in Donald Trump’s selfish aims (I am also speaking to you fearful physicians) is to be fully aware that one’s participation in his madness is contributing to the national and global perception that the United States has fallen on exceedingly hard times. Thanks to you who are Trump’s suckups and “yes” bleating sheep, America is the ragged, wine-soaked, stained-pants, misbegotten bum in the gutter of the world.

We would be the laughingstock of our allies if we weren’t so pathetically compliant in being led toward moral oblivion by a reckless, inhumane bully and crook, a ruthless villain for whom the deaths of 210,000 Americans means absolutely nothing. We are beyond the comedy club stage. To the rest of the world, we are approaching the doors of the asylum reserved the certifiably insane for whom there is no redemptive treatment. 

Last week, when Marine One touched down on the South Lawn in response to the alleged Covid-inspired cri de coeur from Mr. Trump’s staff to the physicians at Walter Reed Medical Center, American’s paused to watch for the rush of personnel hustling the president on board in order that he be whisked away with all possible dispatch.

I didn’t. I took a look at the time, which was approaching the prime news cycle; I noticed that the helicopter’s rotors had slowed to a halt and Marine One simply became an idling set-piece against a Potemkin White House; I noticed that there were no signs of urgency attending the moment. And I turned to my wife and said, “This is a setup.”

Sure enough, as the minutes ticked by, we were eventually rewarded with a video message from the allegedly sick president, assuring us all that he was on his way to Walter Reed out of an abundance of caution.

Then, and only then, did Marine One’s rotors begin churning and we were granted a glimpse of the scoundrel in chief trudging toward the awaiting helicopter, our brave obese hero, saluting the Marine guard, bravely entering the cabin while the evening’s optics proved nearly perfect for a shot of the helicopter lifting off and winging our suffering leader toward Bethesda. Give. Me. A. Break.

In only got worse from there. One of the greatest examples of medical malpractice I have ever witnessed—and was so angered to watch—were the “briefings” by the phalanx of doctors who were trotted out on the Medical Center’s plaza to attest to Trump’s wonderful health, his upbeat attitude, his desire to keep on working, his treatment of a triple round of medicines so unavailable to the average Covid patient as to be statistical decimal dust when compared to the normal regimen of care for anyone else…anywhere! If “liar, liar pants on fire” were ever to come true, Walter Reed’s presidential suite would be ashes by now. 

How dare they? How dare any physician worthy of his or her Hippocratic oath stand in front of the world press and vomit the bile of mistruths and misdirections when they knew all along they were being played right from the start by an insane president? How can any one doctor—much less a team of doctors—be corralled into cowering compliance with the perverted wishes of a man who cares nothing—zero, zip, zed, nada—about anyone else?

Did not even one of those physicians think for a moment about all the victims of the coronavirus who have no comparable access to the kind of “care” the president was insisting on? Did not one of the physicians consider the immorality, the lack of ethics, the deficit of humanity that Trump was displaying during his “drive by” for his adoring fans arrayed along Rockville Pike with their bullhorns and flags? Did anyone say “No, Mr. President?” Of. Course. Not. Nobody ever says no to Donald Trump.

So it was no surprise to this writer that Monday’s top-of-the-news-cycle homecoming flight and walk up the steps and the flag-flanked waving from the White House balcony (sans mask) signaled the renewed onslaught of Trump as savior of his flock and enemy of the State. 

And therein lies one of the greatest mysteries in American politics. How so many people who work in the White House and its many agencies and who sit in the Congress have had their personal morality dials tuned to the cowardice setting.

Do they really think there is a reward so great awaiting them in the post-Trump years of their lives that they willingly sell their souls for this charlatan? Do they honestly believe that all the damage they are doing domestically and internationally at Trump’s irrational behest, has long-term value to the good of the world? Do they have no sense of decency? 

There is no glory in working to tear down the pillars of humanity; there is no reward offered to those who follow tyrants into the abyss; there is no redemption for those who give up whatever virtue they might have had in order to advance the madness of a strutting 21st Century Il Duce. 

On November 3 those of us who believe in rescuing an idea that is greater than our own ambitions will choose to turn away from the madness and those who fuel it. We will turn you out. We will turn you off.