“For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings-How some have been deposed, some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed, Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed, all murdered. For within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps Death his court.” – –Shakespeare, Richard III. (Abraham Lincon’s favorite passage.)
Donald Trump’s Saturday phone call to fellow Republican Brad Raffensberger, the Georgia Secretary Of State, recorded on a tape obtained by the Washington Post, was the most extraordinary political dialogue I’ve heard in my life.
And one of the most disturbing. Donald Trump is not well.
It is no longer possible for reasonable people to argue the merits or flaws of Donald Trump. He is falling apart now, and he just has to go away.
In this stunning exchange, a sometimes incoherent Trump asks Raffenberger to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if Raffensbuger doesn’t accept the President’s false and often incoherent claims of fraud.
I’ve never heard anything quite like it, and my wish is that the people reading this get to hear that recording for themselves. It reveals everything we need to know and face in America in January 2021.
If there is any truth, justice, or sanity still functioning in America this year, this tape will be a profound turning point in our struggle to keep our democracy strong.
If not, there is a lot of work to do.
The first thought I had was to laugh. The second was to shake my head in horror and anger and think this:
Perhaps the real question for Americans to ask now is not “when will Trump finally go away,” but “do we deserve anything better than this sick man and his growing list of quislings and what they are doing to our country?
If truth is bleeding, then outrage has been pronounced dead on arrival.
In his book Shakespeare and Trump, Jeffrey Wilson, a Harvard professor in the schools’ writing program, says this of how the evil and tormented Frances Underwood in House of Cards enlists the audience in his cause:
“He turns his disregard for everyday ethics from a liability into an asset by proclaiming it unapologetically, presenting himself as the embodiment of our own unchecked desires. He actually does what we would all do in the name of stony-hearted self-interest were we not held back by our consciences and our concerns about how our actions might harm others. When the con man explains the con outright, it imparts the illusion of value and power to someone who might otherwise be an opponent, but who, brought in on the con, instead becomes an accomplice.”
We all created Trump and Trumpism in our own ways we are all part of the process that brought him down on us like a great plague.
I understand now that Trump is not ignoring the pandemic; he is a pandemic all by himself, viral, contagious, and destructive. Look at how many people have caught the disease that is him.
Shakespeare’s tragedies, write Wilson, “show that when power is centralized at the top, the state hangs on the fragile emotions of privileged men, and bad government amplifies routine individual moral failings – like deceit, revenge, and ambition – into social catastrophe, the suffering of helpless citizens, death and the downfall of dynasties. Every empire falls; America will, too. We might be watching it without knowing.”
Or maybe some of us are watching it and knowing.
This conversation, captured on tape, speaks for itself. As I watch the opportunists and cowards line up to stab Ceasar on Wednesday and join the long line of the treasonous, I have to admit that I am beginning to ask if we are still worth saving.
Look how far we let it go and how close we let it get.
People like me shake their heads every day, wondering how we let this happen. But at some point, the question has to pivot: When will we stop pointing fingers at them and at ourselves and ask how they got to be here and why?
There is really something wrong with civic and moral education in America.
When will we come to terms – we haven’t even started – with the truth about our most celebrated nation, which has such deep roots in the proclaimed morality of the Founding Fathers and the Judeo-Christian religious tradition of love and kindness for the poor and the most vulnerable among us?
What happened to our once-proud tradition of liberal democracy.
How did we come to elect and tolerate a profoundly immoral and corrupt and even criminal man with emerging streaks of blatant racism and fascism?
How do we have a Senate with 12 members who proudly stand up to embrace sedition, dishonesty, and an attack on our system itself, and do what looks more and more like bloodless treason every day?
Shakespeare was obsessed with power and morality, and the tragedy of Mad Kings. Shakespeare was, say scholars like Wilson and David Shapiro (Shakespeare In A Divided America), writing about the Donald Trump’s of the world for much of his career.
How does it end for Mad Kings and tyrants like Trump, asks Wilson?
Shakespeare’s mad kings: He demands that family and servants praise him. He is filled with aggression, hatred, and ruthlessness. He relishes abuses devised for his enemies. His fire blazes but soon begins to burn out. Demanding that family and servants praise him, he rages and seethes when disobeyed. He must eliminate any threat to his authority. Increasingly, he rages and rants alone. His creepy sexuality becomes grotesque. People worry about his mind. He longs for release from the emptiness of governing.
In Winter’s Tale, there is redemption and restoration.
The tyrant, forced to reckon with the truth he has denied, has a moment of clarity, and guilt-stricken and grief-ridden, accepts responsibility for his sins and villainy. The people around him and elsewhere in his kingdom leave intrigue behind and find joy in the simple things of life – family, feasting, singing, dancing, joking, storytelling, holidays, art, nature, romance, and love.
All that was lost is magically restored; order returns.
That’s the world as we wish it might be, but not always as it actually is.
In The Tempest, the deposed tyrant comes back into power, promising to change his ways. But he doesn’t. The Old Order of government returns.
“It is hard to shake the feeling,” writes Wilson, “that it is going to happen again. That is what we may be left with: political elites who remain in power, despite unmistakeable failures.”
Or could it possibly end differently, like it does in Richard III, with the dawning of a new day, a new kind of politics. The tyrant fights until the bitter end, but the tide turns in the face of a moral and aroused resistance.
The leader of the resistance is not especially charismatic or inspiring, he is, in fact, pious and boring, but he represents a return to decency and morality, even progress.
We will enter an age of peace, prosperity, and enlightenment.
We can all begin to return to our lives, or work, vacations, back yards, children’s lessons, book clubs, barbecues – Shakespeare In The Park – without our eternal fretting and the never-ending discussions about the evil plaguing our national government and our politics.
This is an amazing time, with so much to think about and try to sort out. An important time to be alive.
As to our Mad King, he has been revealed and exposed in yet another way, thanks to this tape recording.
I should repeat my very firm and unwavering belief. On January 18, Joe Biden will be our next President, and Kamala Harris, our Vice President.
I’m not afraid of the truth, I’m more afraid of running away from the truth.
Our own Richard the III will be setting fire to himself in yet other and unimagined ways, as he always does. He is simply not whole enough and gifted enough to win his rebellion. He is never coming back, and instead, we will be challenged to look deeply into our inner selves.
This week and the 2016 election laid bare the relentless waning, in mainstream America, of the culture of spirituality, humanity, and exposed an economic, work, and educational system that has devalued truth, honor, compassion, and humanity.
Our citizens appear to be losing the ability, to interpret and evaluate information amid all of the overwhelming data and communications overload of the digital age.
Trump is the Frankenstein Monster of a system that no longer teaches what it means to be a free human being and an ethical and responsible member of the community of free human beings.
Even our senators don’t know how to do that anymore.
Words of truth and reflection. I can’t wait for the end if trump, but i fear we may not learn the lessons. And i love that you said quislings.
Every damn day Trump is in power is another blow to democracy. Yes, he needs to go, and so do his enablers. His actions are seditious and reek of treason. He looks fatter, more deranged and more dangerous every day. Barr most have reached a line he couldn’t even cross. I fear Wednesday. I fear for Biden’s safety, and I fear for our democracy. Mary Trump is right – Trump is nothing but a danger to our country. Doesn’t over 350,000 Americans losing their lives because of his inaction, incompetence and disregard for anyone but himself prove that he is the worst president in our history.
I heard passages of that call. So disturbing but totally not surprising. Trump has lied, cheated, and bullied his way throughout his entire life in order to get what he wants. I would hope the new justice department would investigate Trump and all those who would destroy our democracy. There needs to be some consequences for attempting sedition and treason. Right now interference by Russia seems tame. The real danger to our democracy resides in the White House and in the halls of our own congress.
My hope is in the young people that are tired of the old ways and no longer willing to stay silent. No longer willing to sit back and let thing just happen. I have been working for the democrats in the senate run offs. It’s absolutely amazing and inspiring to see the young people that are out daily knocking on doors . Talking with passion about their hopes for their world. I hope they make the change they want. I hope they stop these people from lifetime roles as politicians. It has been hard to have hope for me this last year. I have watched things being done I never dreamed would be done in our country. I had almost given up. But these young people have me that spark of hope again. Your writings give me that spark of sanity again. Thank you
We need to do a better and more comprehensive job, of teaching American History, in school. Kids can tell you who some of our forefathers were, few can tell you what they did or said or why.
We also should announce, in the morning announcements, when President Biden officially takes office that HE IS OUR NEWLY ELECTRD PRESIDENT, Ditto VP Harris. Let’s start there in public school. Our school left it at “ Trump is the winner in our student ejection”. No moments of silence on 9/11… no pledge if the administrators aren’t there. Let’s start with school.
It’s for the best when the rabid animal is shot. Can’t spread its disease to any other living thing. It’s the only solution when dealing with rabies… such things are taken so serious, one rapid animal. Yet one rabid two legged is allowed to spread his disease. I don’t get it. I too have had increasing concerns that Biden is protected more than usual to take his just and right position. Look who were dealing with. I dreamt shooters were on a flat truck dressed up like a duck blind. I hope to hell I’m wrong on that dream.
He’s not falling apart. He’s doing what he has always done— being a bully.
I listened to the tape..he is falling apart..
Living in Georgia, I cannot begin to describe the daily bombardment of trash mail, door bell ringers, and broadcast trash we are suffering in this run-off senate election. The continued harassment of our Secretary of State and Governor by the so-called president is beyond the comprehension of any sane person. And the devil comes back to Georgia tomorrow! There is now simply no place to hide.
Neeny Tyo, above, is correct in my opinion, about the lack of civics education in schools today. All one has to do today is listen to almost any interview of “ordinary” citizens to see the abysmal lack of knowledge about how the country works or where our freedoms are derived. I hope, desperately, that it does not take some type of additional national disaster to wake people to why our country is a special place in the world.
Biden and Harris cannot do the enormous job ahead of our country unless they have help. Are there no statesmen left in our government?
Good luck, Barbara…stay peaceful..
Trump has no respect for the truth. The truth doesn’t matter to him unless he can somehow benefit from it. If it doesn’t suit him, he creates his own version of the truth. I suppose you could say he has an excuse – He is a disturbed man with a profound personality disorder. Some would call him a sociopath or worse. That tape sounds as if he took a deep dive inside his delusion. But what excuse do those 12 senators have for willingly participating in this delusional nonsense? I’m embarrassed that one of those senators is from my state. And I thought 2020 was a strange year … the political craziness continues.
Very well written as many of your pieces are. One factual note of correction: Joe Biden will not take the oath of office until noon on January 20th. Not the 18th. It might only be a typo but having the “Mad King” in office for 2 more whole days is not something to gloss over. [” I should repeat my very firm and unwavering belief. On January 18, Joe Biden will be our next President, and Kamala Harris, our Vice President.”]
Ironic that following the news tonight of the GA tapes on CNN was a documentary on Jimmy Carter—the president with the most integrity we ever had. What a contrast! How far we have fallen. Can we ever get that level of honesty and integrity back? I think Biden is a wonderful start to our country’s journey to right itself.
Just another one of Trump’s unhinged exploits that everyone will be wagging their tongues about for days to come and not anything will be done about it. I believe we are all beyond tired of this and yet it goes on and on and on.
I listened to the tape open-mouthed and if what is happening is not treasonous, I fail to see and understand what is going on in the USA.
Your quote “If there is any truth, justice, or sanity still functioning in America this year, this tape will be a profound turning point in our struggle to keep our democracy strong. If not, there is a lot of work to do.”
Obviously, there is a lot of work to do and to start with… there should be legal consequences for this deranged charade. I have been scratching my head over the last few months how Trump and his enablers have taken the country down this undemocratic, scary ‘totalitarian’ road. Yet, nobody can touch them, they move on abusing power and this will be the case for every day until 20 January and beyond. It is clear that their primary goal is total disruption. Why and how do they feel so empowered? What is their end game? Allegations of raking in funds to sustain their political future is open fraud. The 140 Members of the House and the 12 Senators need to be held accountable and face justice for not abiding by the Constitution they pledged to defend.
Georgian Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger is a true hero and this is what is missing with these boot-licking enablers. God bless his courage and truthful soul for standing up to crazy Trump.
Trump and his accomplices need to be held accountable for their brazen attempt to overturn the will of the voters.
I think it’s about time somebody in authority states that what Trump and the renegade senators are doing is a Coup D’etat pure and simple. Such actions would suggest that the senators and Trump should be charged with sedition and intent to usurp the legitimate power bestowed on Biden by our election. They should be judged and punished.
We are acting like an ostrich and are hiding our heads in the sand while our country and our democracy are assassinated by elected officials who swore to defend the country and our democratic principles. Enough is enough.
I’ve e-mailed my Republican Senator at least four times and my congressman. May I suggest the sane people of American jam the phone lines and their elected Washington officials e-mail accounts with messages demanding justice. Trump and his enablers are trying to overturn our Democracy. Trump must be held accountable. Attempts at voter suppression before the election by budget cuts to our postal system when people had to use mail in voting or risk dying of Covid. Now Trump’s attempt to strong arm Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to steal votes. Thank God he had the smarts to tape that conversation. But how many other phone calls did Trump make in his attempts at destroying our election process? I agree with Mad Monica that we are acting like ostriches. And I thank Mr. Raffensberger for being a man of principle and integrity. Impeach King Trump today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!