Our Political Banana Peel
Back in college, one of my buddies loved the comedian Don Rickles. For those of you who remember him, his schtick was focused on denigrating people of all ethnicities and creeds. Everyone was a hockey puck to him (I never realized a hockey puck was such a lowly item). He had a comment that has always made me laugh. He would find somebody in the audience that he found funny-looking and he would say, “Let me make you feel at home…” and then he would hum the kaleidoscopic circus music we all recognize as Entry of the Gladiators. There is nothing funnier and more evocative than circus music.
I have a suggestion. We need to switch out Hail to the Chief as the introductory music for President Trump for Entry of the Gladiators. The name alone should make him like the idea, especially given his tendency towards researching things skin-deep. It will sound tougher to him, so I’m betting he will like the sound of it. And here’s the thing, the man has earned the accolade. He is both a gladiator and a circus clown all at once. Tough as nails with a paper-thin skin when it comes to being criticized.
It is now official, President Trump is now a laughing stock to the entire world. It started at last year’s UN General Assembly when Trump got laughter at his comments that he had done great things for the world. Now the NATO meetings in London confirm that what has been a view by the “liberal elite” for some time, is now the general perception across the range of world leaders. Having Justin Trudeau or Emmanuel Macron laugh at Trump is not all that astonishing as most of us have assumed that was happening in private anyway. But now it is out in the open and having someone as ridiculous as Boris Johnson mocking the leader of the United States is beyond the pale.
When things get this bad, there is only one thing to do. Like a first lieutenant in Vietnam when his position gets overrun by the enemy, the only thing left to do is to call the artillery in on your own position in hopes that the potentially destructive burst will change the state of play. That is my way of saying that switching the Presidential music to Entry of the Gladiators may allow the entire world to laugh at our own self-deprecating posture in a way that gets it out of their system and somehow allows us to emerge in a more humble but stronger place. I’m being serious now. We have no choice but to own our massive national mistake in giving this clown-man the mantle of authority. I believe both Republicans and Democrats (the base and the liberal elite) both own this mistake. Republicans may have created it and propelled it, but Democrats and liberals ignored the views of the base enough so that they missed the signs that needed to be taken more seriously. We must all hang our heads in shame, take our beating in the court of world opinion, and then move on to a better place. All great nations sooner or later step on a banana peel. Trump is our national banana peel and now it remains to be seen how we will lift ourselves up from this gaffe and move forward.
In the impeachment hearing yesterday, three noteworthy constitutional law scholars opined very clearly that the current facts say quite starkly that Trump has committed impeachable acts, or, as the constitution likes to call them, high crimes and misdemeanors. The fourth constitutional law scholar, chosen by the Republicans took a slightly different tack. To begin with, this is a man who testified in favor of impeachment in the Clinton hearings in 1998. He is also the man who tried and failed to defend a Federal judge from impeachment in 2012, suggesting that the graft and corruption he flaunted was mere “mooching”. His comments yesterday focused on the notion that there was not yet sufficient evidence to impeach and that the Democrats should take the time to work through the judicial process to override the President’s blocking of the Congressional subpoenas so that testimony could be had from the likes of Pompeo, Bolton and Mulvaney. Much to the chagrin of most Republicans, he went on to say that if those direct witnesses corroborated what has been said by other administration staffers who have testified to date, then it would, indeed, be an impeachable set of facts. Boom!
That body of testimony should be enough to empty the Republican clown car for sure. Add that to the fact that Trump farted in the back seat while he was in London, running for Air Force One rather than conducting his normal and planned exit press gathering after the NATO heads of state, led by Justin Trudeau, mocked his manner and conduct at the meeting. He was unable to face the crowds under that degree of humiliation so he left the elevator with its lingering smell and ran for the hills.
This morning, Nancy Pelosi has announced publicly that the Judiciary Committee is to move immediately to draft the articles of impeachment because the nation is at great risk under the leadership of the man with the Bozo mask on his head and the banana peel stuck permanently to his shoe. I imagine there will be a political cartoon soon of Trump mounting the steps of Air Force One with a banana peel stuck where the toilet paper was stuck. It is still not clear that the Republican caucus can stomach the risk of their base of under-educated and MAGA hat-wearing constituents and bring themselves to gather up with a solution to toss the bum out. In fact, the response so far is general silence. They must, in their quiet reflective moments, wonder how they came to this awful place. They never liked or respected the guy. They hoped and prayed that he would not get the nomination. Some of them campaigned quite openly and bitingly against his ascension. And now here they are.
Do you know that feeling when you slip on something and you just know you are going down and that you’re going hit the ground very hard? Do you remember the feeling of having Lucy pull the football away just as you were in the middle of your next great placekick? There is that moment when you are able to realize your predicament but you are past being in a position to do anything about it. It is a horrible helpless feeling when you know things are about to get worse and you aren’t even sure how bad they will get. That is a moment of complete loss of control. You now have two choices, you can brace yourself for the fall and tighten-up in hopes of being able to jump back to your feet and say you meant for that to happen. One must be very nimble to pull that off. It usually results in you limping away with a smile on your face pretending to be brave. The other choice is to go limp and do your best to tuck and roll as you hit the ground. This makes you look like you are adept at recovering from mistakes and also makes you look like you knew it was a mistake all along. Either way, how you get up from a slip on a banana peel has a lot to do with your presence of mind going in. I predict that if the Republicans don’t start their tuck and roll now, they will be limping badly for a long time to come.
