The Magician

Like a lot of people, I have been going through many stages of grief because of Donald Trump. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Fear and finally Acceptance, He is the President.

But, having taken that emotional roller-coaster ride, I realize the one thing I failed to do is really look at who he is. Or, perhaps, what he is and what made him that way.

No cheap shots, please. Trump supporters haven’t yet gotten over the “we’re number one” joy that comes with your team winning the Big Game,  and their feelings should be respected. But sooner or later, i think,  they, too will have a moment when they look around and ask “how the heck did this happen to me?”

Well, here are some thoughts. Actually, just three. Everyone loves a good show. Everyone applauds a wonderful magician, and at the end of the act, they may actually  believe - at least a tiny, childish part of their mind will believe - that he really sawed the beautiful girl in half.

But, no matter how loud the applause, the audience won’t go home and expect some magician to wave a wand and put dinner on the table. Reality checks come well-grounded in experience.

No question about it, Donald Trump is a wonderful magician. He waves a mean wand, and he puts on a great show. (please don’t tell me his show wasn’t really number one. I know, I know.)

All his life, at least the part I know about, he has made big things happen with the wave of one of his wands. Nothing like a lot of money, a lot of clout and a lot of bullying to make clouds of smoke, flashes of light and real results.

Don’t want to pay a contractor? Wave a wand and sue them. Presto. You can keep a case in court so long the contractor will give up.

Don’t want to pay a debt? Just go to the bank and threaten that if they sue you, it will be worse for their bottom line and it will shake the faith of stockholders to learn they allowed such bad loans to be made in the first place. Presto. You don’t have to pay what you owe.

Don’t want to make a deal and actually have to give up anything? Just promise someone that you will do something later and then don’t do it. You were dumb enough to believe me? Well, what are you going to do about it?

Right now - and this is time-sensitive, so things may change - there are senior advisors in the Trump cabinet who were lured there by the promise of being big players in the biggest game on earth, only to find that the President’s staffers cut them out of the act.  Fool  me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

For a lot of voters, who know they can get whatever “news” they want just by by finding a favorite web site or cable show that will faithfully edit out all the disturbing facts that they disagree with, much of the current chaos in Washington is just political noise - sound and fury signifying nothing much. Besides, there are real problems facing our nation, and all the protesters are yelling about are immigrants and foreigners, for goodness sake.

Lets save our energy, they feel, to fight for rebuilding the economy, rebuilding our roads and bridges, protecting our health insurance and lowering the premiums, and maybe doing something about our schools so they work better and cheaper and somehow change the behavior of their unruly students.

Well, sometimes that works. Wave the wand. Make lightning flashes and crashing booms. Create a monster out of thin air, then vanquish it with your wonderful wand. The crowd will applaud every time.

Until they don’t.

Here’s why. Call it Mitch’s first law of politic if you like. I won’t be embarrassed.

Whenever anyone gets elected to anything - town council, volunteer fire department commission, library board, state legislature, flower club vice president - they get a bag of gold coins. Not real coins, of course, just markers of good will. The voters picked me. They want me do new stuff for them, and to keep the things they already have,

Sadly, you can’t always keep things the same and change them at the same time. Put up a bigger building, you may lose some parking. Want more open hours, you will get more noise to bother the neighbors. Need more services to keep up with a growing population, you need to raise taxes.

Every politician learns quickly that when you start spending those gold coins of good will, the bag starts emptying out. You might not notice the first few that you take out, but sooner or later they seem to vanish pretty fast.

Then you see that you also have another bag. An ugly vomit green one, filled by people who feel that you have wronged them. Remember that zoning change you approved to let someone build a new gas station? Most people won’t give you credit for doing it, but the neighbors who hate the noise and traffic will never forgive you. A stone or two goes into the bag. Remember when you pushed really hard to expand the fire house? Anyone who has a house fire will thank you. A lot of people who only see their taxes going up won’t. Some more stones in the bag.

When the gold bag gets lighter than the vile green one, you lose the next election. Unless you do something wonderful. Or dangerous. Even that doesn’t always help. 

WInston Churchill stood up to Hitler, kept up the morale of the entire free world and saw the Nazi menace defeated. And, as a reward, voters in Great Britain kicked him out of office because someone else promised to lower taxes. (I know. Metaphysically).

So, the new Trump Magic Show will go on for a while. Right up to the point when people stop looking at the distractions and see that prices have gone up in their local stores, that food is getting more expensive and that all those new good paying jobs aren’t for them.

Then, there will be no more coins in the bag, no more rabbits in the hat, and no more poof left in the wand. That’s when we will see which other politicians are left holding the empty bag.