Defenestration

As I read about the court-ordered removal of the Donald J.Trump name from the Kennedy Center in Washington, the word defenestration naturally comes to mind. The word means throwing someone or something out of a window. It comes, as so many great words do, from the Latin fenestra (window). Historically and politically, the word is most famously associated with the Defenestrations of Prague, two historic incidents in Bohemia (1419 and 1618) where officials were thrown from windows, the second of which helped spark the Thirty Years’ War. The Prague parallel is instructive because the 1618 defenestration was carried out by people who had nominally been working within the same system, it was an act of revolt by insiders, not outsiders. That wasn’t the case at the Kennedy Center, so perhaps it’s a precursor for John Cornyn’s steaming state about Trump’s recent betrayal of him in the Texas primary. Most political defenestrations follow this pattern… the knife comes from people who have access, not from the street. Shakespeare showed us that happened to Julius Caesar when his power got rampant and out of control. Brutus was the ultimate insider betrayer, Caesar’s close friend and protégé, someone with full access to the building. “Et tu, Bruté?” appears in Julius Caesar and is theatrical perfection…three words that convey betrayal, resignation, and the moment a man stops fighting and accepts his fate. The question mark implicit in it is devastating. It’s not an accusation so much as a recognition. The act was sudden, public, and irreversible. It was carried out by a coalition of people who had been operating within the system. Caesar had no warning from outside; the threat came from those closest to him. But Caesar wasn’t removed from power, he was killed. Defenestration as political analogy assumes survival, or at least the possibility of it. The Ides of March was an assassination, not a political exile. As all good MAGA Republicans will soon, Brutus and Cassius ended up fleeing Rome. There was no “window” moment of public humiliation or exposure, Caesar walked into a ambush believing he was among colleagues. The Kennedy Center name removal was certainly a public humiliation and rebuke, but knowing Trump, he will still not be likely to fade away just yet. The more precise defenestration analogy in Roman history might be the removal of Cicero, who was exiled, stripped of power, ultimately executed, by people who had once been his peers.

Beyond Prague and Rome, a few other notable defenestrations included Jezebel (c. 840 BC), the Biblical queen thrown from a window by her own servants at Jehu’s command. In the case of Edward II of England, some accounts suggest he may have met a violent end, though defenestration isn’t the consensus. And on a more modern note, Russian oligarchs in recent years have died falling from windows or balconies following the Ukraine invasion, prompting widespread dark humor about the phenomenon. Unlike being “pushed out” or “forced to resign,” defenestration implies violence and speed and not a graceful exit, no face-saving transition. The survivability question becomes central to the issue. That ambiguity is politically useful and always worth pondering. Some defenestrated figures do bounce back. Nixon went away into not so quiet seclusion, but failed to return. Meanwhile, Berlusconi kept returning. What these metaphors lack in the case of Trump is agency for the victim. Real political falls often involve some self-destruction, the defenestration framing lets the fallen pretend they were purely acted upon, which is usually only half true, but in Trump’s case is entirely untrue. Trump wanted his name on the Kennedy Center. He replaced the board with loyalists. They acted, like the capos of a mafia mob, without a direct order from Trump, but with full knowledge of what was expected of them. I found it interesting that in the rushed last minute attempts to appeal the court’s removal command and obtain an injunction, a rather “crazy/stupid” filing was made to the court with what legal analysts suspect is verbiage contributed directly by Trump in a rant about why the court should stop the removal of his name from the building. If that doesn’t fit the patten of a Greek or Roman tragedy, I don’t know what does.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there are other issues like that of the $1.8B restitution or reparations fund that Trump has proposed and championed. Todd Blanche’s narrative to Congress that it was emphatically abandoned and off the table for consideration by the Justice Department was clearly another snarky misdirection intended to soften up Congress and give it some cover when his confirmation hearings begin. The fact that Trump has already suggested otherwise is the typical pattern of Caesar doing what Caesar wants while he induces Brutus to a.) get it done, and b.) don’t screw up your confirmation hearings. What’s that called? A Gordian Knot or a Catch-22 or perhaps a Hobson’s Choice? Whatever is appropriate, Blanche seems to be where all Trump acolytes end up…damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. But wait…there’s the Trump Triumphal Arch. Trump has proposed building a 250-foot triumphal arch in Washington, modeled after the 164-foot Arc de Triomphe in Paris, to honor the country’s semiquincentennial (let’s just call that Bullshit right up front). It would be the tallest triumphal arch in the world, twice as tall as the Lincoln Memorial and nearly as tall as the Capitol. The proposed location is just across the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial, in front of Arlington National Cemetery, where it will block the line of sight from Arlington to the Lincoln Memorial, a very intentional visual. To complete the arch before Trump leaves office, the National Park Service plans construction running 20 hours per day over two to three years, according to planning documents released by the Department of the Interior. The National Capital Planning Commission, led by Trump’s hand-picked appointees, voted to approve a list of concerns raised by staff and asked the administration to address them before final approval. Trump fired the previous members of the Commission of Fine Arts last year and replaced them with his own picks, who approved the early designs. The project is reportedly to be funded privately (where have we heard that Bullshit before?), using leftover donations from the White House ballroom project. Critics note it would visually dominate nearby memorials. Trump’s response to complaints it was too big: “I’d like it to be the biggest one of all. We’re the biggest, most powerful nation.” The historical irony writes itself… triumphal arches were built by Roman emperors to celebrate military conquests. The Arc de Triomphe was Napoleon’s. It’s an unusual choice of monument for a democracy celebrating its 250th birthday. Could it possibly be another ego play by Trump? Hmmmm?

What still amazed me is that with all this history of defenestration and all the background on Trump’s ego plays over his entire lifetime…and all the history of people doing his bidding who get tossed under the bus and promised compensation for their loyalty which may or may not ever happen…that there remain people who willingly try to curry favor by doing his bidding. Do they not realize that they become the man holding Mussolini’s hat? Do they not see that taking Trump’s name off the Kennedy Center is about a thousand times more embarrassing than any glory achieved in putting it on? Amazing……