The Trump Show Continues With Its Merry-Go-Round, Side Shows, And Lion Tamers–But Honestly, Isn’t It Fun?

It has been two years since the Democrats lost the Presidential election, and are still licking their wounds.  They have never understood how such a buffoon, a circus carny, carnival huckster, and moral reprobate could possibly have become president, and have therefore focused more of their energy on removing him from office rather than working with him as members of the loyal opposition.



All this is understandable up to a point.  No one was prepared for the Trump Show, and not even his populist, hungry supporters could have imagined such bombast, peep-show intrigue, and unalloyed entertainment.  They knew he would take no prisoners and run roughshod over those without the gumption to stand up to him; but had no idea of the sheer chutzpah of the man and his super-confidence.  They knew he was a street-fighter, but had no idea of his determination and will.  They knew that he was a man of Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the streets of New York, but never imagined how little patience he had for insult, disrespect, and disloyalty. 

Democrats claim that he is not ‘acting presidential’ – as temperate, conciliatory, well-spoken, and respectful as Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, or Ronald Reagan – and should be taken to task for his braggadocio, media hype, and outrageous disregard for the truth. Only a president who governs reasonably, without arrogance or personal showmanship, and with the country’s interests in mind, can be a good president.  Anyone else simply cannot be considered.

“Who says?”, say his supporters. Trump is what they bargained for and then some.  Not only are they getting a president who is faithful to his promises – rollback of the progressive social agenda and government interventionism, overbearing regulations and taxes, and pusillanimous dealings with mighty adversaries – but they are loving the choler of the progressive Left who are befuddled, frustrated, and disassembled. 

No matter what they do, no matter how many attacks on Trump’s veracity, principles, or interests; no matter how many presidential advisers come and go;  no matter how many Special Prosecutors, investigators are appointed; and no matter how many alleged misdeeds the press can uncover, the juggernaut rolls on.  Everyone but they know that while Trump may be impeached, he will never be convicted.  Trump knows it, would relish a Congressional battle reminiscent of the dirty street fights of his real estate days, and in the end could care less about his legacy.



Trump’s achievements rarely get the press they deserve not only because they are less compelling than the White House soap opera, but because they are considered successes only by his supporters.  Nevertheless an international foreign policy governed by Kissinger-esque realpolitik and uncomplicated by traditional concerns American moral exceptionalism have led to ‘adversarial compromise’ in pursuit of common aims.  The US is less interested in Putin as an autocrat or czar-in-waiting than as a canny Machiavellian leader.  China’s treatment of the Uighurs, Tibet, and other ethnic minorities is of little relevance given its rising geopolitical, economic, and financial influence, and its powerful cultural nationalism.



The insistence on due process at universities and the insistence on adherence to Constitutional principles has been long in coming; and the Administration has not been shy about threatening the withdrawal of funds from those institutions which continue their imbalanced and preferential campus policies.  Its support of religious rights especially in light of the the ‘diversity’ movement which has focused uniquely on secular rights and been prejudicial to religious ones also relate to due process.

Its demands for a border wall, while only symbolic, are correct in focusing the nation’s attention on immigration.  Its refusal to join the climate change bandwagon has less to do with the facts of environmental change than it does with social equilibrium.  Environmentalism comes with a price tag, and investments must be made prudently with due attention paid to economic liability.

This having been said, all but the most offended, hurt, and angered Americans tune into the White House soap opera because it is more entertaining than any reality TV.  How would the family squabbles among the Trump children and in-laws play out?  Would Jared and Ivanka have the inside track to the President as expected, given his fierce family loyalty and suspicion of outsiders? How long would opportunist Washington power players stay alongside the President, take his insulting and defamatory tweets and precipitous changes in course in stride? What new, scurrilous, and damaging revelations will be revealed?  Who will the President fire and disgrace in their wake?



More than Donald Trump’s real estate deals, beauty pageants, high-risk, high-roll investments, oratory, arm candy, and his outsized, outlandish personality, he is remembered for ‘You’re fired!’.  Who will be next? No one parses the difference between reality TV and the Presidency.  The man who has acted in both hasn’t changed and never will.  Only the stakes are fired when he gets rid of someone in the White House.  That’s real entertainment.



This is all played out not in the demure, socially conservative Kennedy White House – the White House of Pablo Casals, cuisine, and elegant appointments – but at Trump hotels, resorts, and golf courses.  He hires and fires from Mar el Lago, completes deals before the 9th hole, wines and dines not for political interests but for his own kicks. 

The man is irrepressible, and anyone who grimaces at his antics, chases out to the Mall to protest his treatment of women, watches Fox News to add fuel to the fire, is simply missing the fun.  The Donald Trump Show is the Greatest Show on Earth because it combines a three-ring circus, sideshows, clowns and the best of soap opera.  None of the best Turkish dizi or American daytime television series can match the family intrigues, suspicions, conspiracies, and dirty dealings of the Trump White House. Not only is it entertaining but it is on every day.  We are used to smarmy news about Trump and his coterie from the NY Times , Washington Post, and MSNBC, but what about E! ,People, and Entertainment Today? 

It is surprising that so many people take the  Donald Trump persona so seriously.  Of course he is antic, unpredictable, impossibly arrogant and dismissive, and critical; but afer two years, the country is well-off economically; the threats of ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Shabab, and al-Qaeda, once thought to be globally dangerous and destabilizing, have been largely neutered.  North Korea is more conciliatory than ever before.  Iran is more circumspect in its support of Middle East insurgencies.  A positive nationalism – one that insists on a return to the principles of the Founding Fathers, faith, and individual moral responsibility discredited by sectarian, ‘identity’ interests – is being reinstated.  Trump may act the buffoon; may have played NY-style rough, down-and-dirty politics and not the expected patrician, faded, old boy, Old Blue camaraderie kind; but the country, despite naysayers and Trump-haters, has not fallen apart.

Many Americans have turned off their televisions and stopped reading newspapers.  They have never watched soap operas, are old enough to appreciate how human nature acts itself out again and again, is remarkably consistent, and offers few surprises. Of course politicians will be self-centered and self-interested.  Of course they will do anything to get and retain power.  Of course they will resort to the dirtiest tricks, lies, and chicanery to do so.   Why should today’s news be any different? Why should they watch?

Shakespeare understood human nature and its determinism.  Laid out in chronological order, the Histories would repeat the same, familiar, common tales of greed, ambition, jealousy, and desire again and again.  What interested the playwright was not in providing insights about the nature of power but in providing dramatic, humorous, ironic, and memorable displays of human nature.  The genre and its major themes may not change, but what a delight to see how Tamora, Dionyza, Goneril, Regan, and Volumnia do their dirty business.



For the same reason, Americans should turn the television back on, renew their print subscriptions, and have a good laugh.  The admission is free, and the show will always deliver.

Face-Lifts And The Restoration Of Beauty–Who Says That Inner Qualities Are Worth More?

The old families of the West End of New Brighton were never ones for show.  Their houses were simply decorated, their cars practical, old, and serviceable, and their clothes English, proper, and comfortable.  It wasn’t a matter of money – the West Enders, sons and daughters of the city’s captains of industry, had marshaled their inheritance well, had homes in Nantucket, St. Bart’s and Gstaad, gave generously to the Red Cross, and sent their children to the best schools.  It wasn’t even a matter of parsimony, a sense of the dollar and what it was worth; or worse, the Great Depression.  It was something more fundamental – image.

The slightly worn Persian carpets had been in the Bingham family family for generations, a gift of the Shah for meritorious service of an ancient relative.  The Townsend chests had been purchased directly from the cabinetmaker, shipped from his Newport workshop to their homes on Beacon Hill and Benefit Street before making their way to New Brighton.  Paul Revere pre-Revolutionary silver had been in family hands since 1776, never moved from Boston until just prior to the Civil War when its owner and its well-known industrialist moved to New Brighton to manage the factories that provisioned the Union Army.



All the pieces in the homes along Monroe Street were simple, tasteful, and historically significant.  They were never displayed, but used.  One of the few silver fish knives made by Revere, one with a surprisingly intricate filigree, was always used for the fish course at Sunday dinner.  ‘The Church’ knife it had always been called, recollecting Revere’s famous ride but also ‘The Card Knife’, recalling stories of his mother, a neighbor of the Boston branch of the New Brighton Harts, who in her later years had used it to flip cards for baccarat.

In short, there was nothing more patrician, more English, more quietly tasteful and quiet than the families of Monroe Street.   In an increasingly showy society the Monroe Streeters stood out.  They were museum pieces, at best the last relics of New England colonial history, at worst off, odd, and peculiar. 

Yet this was the whole point.  The West Enders would no sooner buy a new car than throw their Chippendale into the Farmington River.  A Monroe Street matron would rather be cloistered in a nunnery than be seen with anything more than a string of cultured pearls.  Armani, St. Laurent, and Dior were foreign, European, and American arriviste, bought by other people.



The West Enders were a breed apart and wanted to keep it so.  No display of money meant lots of money.  Hospital shoes meant millions in the bank, earning interest.  Colonial silver used for meals meant bullion in the bank vault.  Eschewing display, embracing simple practicality, and old, worn clothes was as much of a statement as the bling of Las Vegas pimps.  It said who they were and distinguished themselves.  Image was a signifier.  One had to look no further to understand what was underneath.

To burnish the image and keep it fully intact, the West Enders went to what seemed illogical extremes.  The Lodges’ classic Ford ‘woody’ wagon was in the shop so often they could have bought two new cars with the money spent on repairs.  There was no sensible reason for the Parsons boys to patch and re-patch their tweeds; nor for the Hillyard men to resole, re-stitch, and cobble old brogans.  Yet these extremes were not illogical at all.  Within the context of image, significance, and standing, they made infinite sense.



Of course the West Enders were at the far edge of the spectrum, claiming a unique, unsought-after, but recognizable niche which set them apart.  The rest of New Brighton wanted all it could get.  Wealth was the obvious way to trump up plainness and simplicity.  What was the purpose of money if not to spend it, and to spend it visibly.  The American middle class however were not examples of Thorstein Veblen’s conspicuous consumption so much as the product of Hollywood.  While purchase can certainly confer status, it can also define identity.  While clothes may make a man and give him social weight and respect; they more importantly make the man, personalized versions of who he would like to be not necessarily who he is.

There are margins of truth beyond which image cannot reach.  A face-lift can enhance the way a woman looks to others.  It is a restoration of the image she has always presented, and one which reflects who she feels she is.  A woman who had always been classically beautiful and whose classic beauty had helped her gain social access into the well-heeled and well-watered society she had always sought, despite her modest upbringing, felt it only right and reasonable to restore that beauty once it began to fade.

There was no point, she felt, in being like the West Enders who were as proud of their sags and lines as they were of their patched tweeds and beat-up old Fords.  She had always thought of herself as a beautiful woman – her most telling and important characteristic – and if that beauty disappeared, so would she.

Facial reconstructive surgery – becoming a woman you never were – was another thing altogether.  Why should a woman, fated with the genes of unattractive parents, suffer that fate if she had the means to neuter them?  There was no pride in being thought of as ‘the smart one’, ‘the talented one’ when her desire was to be ‘the beautiful one’.  Women since Nefertiti have been prized for their beauty, a beauty the standards of which have not changed for 5000 years; so why not choose that universal virtue over others which had more than their share of rough edges. Besides, she wasn’t all that smart.



The West Enders called the beautiful woman vain and impressionable.  How long would her ‘beauty’ last?  Giving in to faltering good looks expressed an existential purity which the vain could never understand. Yet for her there was no vanity involved.  It was only a matter of consistency; and who was to say whether faithfulness to an image, a desire, a creation was any less valid that a spiritless acceptance of the ways the cards are dealt?

Joseph Conrad understood this well.  Lord Jim had an image of himself which did not correspond to who he was; and yet he pursued this image – that of a man of courage, principle, and honor – throughout his life.  He could no sooner accept that his failure as an officer aboard a sinking ship, his dereliction of duty, and abandonment of ship, was him than to accept that he was evil.  His life, his search for atonement and redemption was because of the conflict between who he was and who he thought he was. Stein, a character in the book, appreciates Jim for his idealism, albeit based on false premises.  His final courage was defending the image of himself, not who he really was.  It was Jim’s theatricality which defined him, not his courage.



Vanity is considered a sin not because of its meaninglessness, but because of its exaggeration.  A woman who has a face lift to restore what was legitimately a classic beauty and the defining feature of her life should never be considered vain.  A woman who was never attractive but who has repeated face lifts, make-overs, and style upgrades to try to approximate a false, artificially-determined beauty is most certainly vain.

We are all vain in that none of us like the stacked deck in front of us.  We will all enhance the qualities we have, gloss over the ones we would like to forget, and do our best to create ones we never had. 

There is nothing shameful about image, fantasy, and fanciful ideas.  Reality for most of us is not all that it is cracked up to be.

Life As A Cliché–Sorry, Unavoidable, Predictable, And Without Recourse

It isn’t so much that there is nothing new under the sun – after all, there are only so many original ideas  to go around– not even the obviousness of it all, nor even the bargain basement predictability  of everything; but the old-chestnut, clichéd quality of our daily rounds. 

There is no way that the Saltenstalls – lawyers, two children, Anglo-Saxon, patrician ancestry, Boston heritage -  would ever have an inflatable Santa on the lawn; but across the river it would be hard to find a home without Santa, his elves, and a thousand lights on eaves, chimneys, porticos, and lawns.  

The Petruccis, Rozickis, Gonzalezes, and O’Reillys  are supposed to leave no space un-decorated for Christmas; to spend thousands on presents, holly wreaths, shrubbery lights, recorded carols, and fruit cakes; while the Cabots, Lodges, Merriwethers, and Logans are equally supposed to have one lighted candle in the living room window,and a tree with old gingerbread ornaments, calico dolls, and one solitary string of red and green lights. 

The Cabots and the Lodges must go out in tweeds, eat hunted goose and quince jelly, drink whisky and gin, and  retreat before the fireplace.  The Petruccis are expected to overeat lasagne,  ham pies, sausage stuffing, and root beer.  The O’Connells cannot leave a drop and must drink to the dregs, and the Dominicans must dance until dawn.



There is much said about identity these days.  One’s race, gender, and national origin are the signifiers of who one is, the only valid stamps on one’s existential passport.  Yet such identity politics only exaggerate the clichéd.  Why should black people continue to name their children LaShonda or Ta-Marquand and wear bling?  Why can’t Latino men lose the boots,  sombreros, baseball caps, and jeans?  Why can’t Turks, Armenians, Azeris, and Kuwaitis forget their exaggerated sense of ‘family’ and devalue older brothers, fathers, and uncles?  Why can’t WASPs lose their parsimony, practicality, and simplicity?  And why can’t the rest of us forget our Volvos, Priuses, Volts, gentrification,  trips to Miami Beach and Oahu?

Because we can’t help ourselves; and by following the automatic, hardwired, inescapable desire to be like others, we become clichés, cartoon figures in badly-written soap operas.  We are not only like everyone else, stereotypically perfect, and spot-on clones of everyone in our social milieu, we are caricatures of them.

A young up-and-coming thirty-something Washingtonian was pleased that he had found an out-of-the-way, undiscovered, and quite unique Basque fusion restaurant in Bloomingdale, one of the rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods of the city.  The restaurant, an emergent foodie-cum-Old World-cuisine, boutique restaurant must still be struggling, he thought, still on the culinary-cultural periphery. When he arrived, he was surprised the place bustling, but found it so traveled that it had become commonplace. It had not only been discovered, it had become de rigeur; and within a few short months had moved from a scratchy start up with mom-and-pop help in the kitchen to the place to be and to be seen.

His search for the unique, his assumption that there was any such thing, and his utter surprise and disappointment that not only did every patron look like him but that some were even his colleagues and neighbors, were deflating and depressing.

“Keep it to yourself….Keep it to yourself”, yells the movie exec in Robert Altman’s The Player as he strangles a writer he thinks will spill his secrets; but there is no way for the awful mundane truths of these restaurant patrons to be tamped and secreted. There are no such thing as ‘finds’.  Everything not only has been found, found out, and played out; but has been done so according to plan.  It was written that a new, yuppie, hip and with-it restaurant would be opened in Bloomingdale; that young Washington metrosexual pioneers would ‘discover’ it, and that it would prosper and decline in due time.

The same Washington newcomer was not the first but one among many to sweet-talk and seduce his young K Street colleagues at the Mayflower.  The bartender, Robert, he of the magic tricks and ineffable welcome and courtesy, witnessed thousands of assignations under his watch lubricated by his Pisco Sours.  “They are all wonderful”, he said generously; all  with the same Friday-night after hours predictability.  What he did not say was how similar the assignations were, expressly K Street, not what young people did in his Gaithersburg neighborhood or Southeast where money, influence, and pares inter paribus love partners were unknown bedfellows.  Getting real meant forgetting a workweek of files, emails, spreadsheets, and meetings, consequences and going where who’s buying ruled.



It takes no revelation or epiphany to realize one’s mediocrity nor any time past the morning after or at the latest after brunch; but it takes some insight to accept one’s cliché, the inevitable, socially-mediated and –determined behavior that signifies, puts one into expected categories, snickered at by others; and a bit of resolve to  dismiss it.  To do so is to accept sameness and mediocrity as the social norm, but more importantly to accept the clichéd reality of an inevitably unique-less pedestrian life.

A friend was especially proud of his linguistic insight, his unusual perception of linguistic nuances – the differences and similarities between English and Turkish, for example, or the similarities between Persian- and Romance-based language groups.  Yet while his appreciation of linguistic subtleties was indeed noteworthy for an amateur, his accomplishment was no different from those of his colleagues, amateur experts in music, Asian history, and religion.  His pride was not the issue, nor his particular undue pride, but the cliché – he was acting like ten thousand of his Upper Northwest, highly educated, colleagues.  His sense of superior accomplishment was itself a cliché.

We all consider ourselves more relevant than we really are.  Presentation, identity, personal validation and integrity are in the end fictions, and caricatures.   We are born, educated, and socialized for, but remarkably unprepared to bear up.

The boredom – the unremitting sameness, the inescapable trajectory to the end – would be tolerable it if weren’t for getting caught in the untenable posture of thinking more of life and ourselves than they are worth.  Any existential fate would be better than a laughable one in a vaudevillian farce?

It is one thing to dress the part of a comedian, wig, mustaches, false nose, and arched eyebrows; another to realize that such lowbrow theatrics are part of life; but to ignore God’s ironic creation of a procreative, instinctively obedient race without the intelligence to realize the joke?



Existential fitness is either a matter of realizing the joke and going with it; or accepting the depressing irony and humbly hoping for some eventual, eternal rewards.  Donald Trump and Madonna know they are caricatures, the best and brightest of a world without substantive values, clichés of glitz, glamour, and image.  The rest of us feel guilty about our presumptuousness, or feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem.   Oh, how we would love to be a cliché.

Alas, the world’s religions have taught us to be humble, self-effacing, and modest.  Be true to oneself, honest before one’s Maker while the world goes on happily ignorant of such fundamentals.  Better to be a cliché than un-elected.