The odd man out is no shocker
By:
LeRoy Goldman
Columnist
TimesNewsOnline
December 17, 2017
Scrooge, the Grinch or Donald Trump. If determining which of the three is the odd man on his way out were a multiple choice test, I suspect most of you would correctly guess what’s coming.
You’re right, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
In addition to the Gospel of Matthew, my Christmas favorites are “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” by Dr. Seuss and “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. In their very different ways, they enable us to know the true meaning of Christmas.
The child in me still treasures the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Other than its unconscionable and repetitive self-promotion of NBC television programming, it remains a heartwarming tradition.
And this year it had something new, and for me, something special. Not only was there a new helium balloon, it was the one that I’ve been waiting for ever since I first read Dr. Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” to our sons back in the ’70s.
As the Grinch came into view on 34th Street on Thanksgiving morning, the key thing for me was the Grinch’s grin. Would it be a faithful rendering of Dr. Seuss’ illustrations in the original?
It was, and that meant that the Grinch’s expression conveyed two mutually opposing thoughts. That signature grin tells us that he’s up to no good, but that he’s not evil.
And, while the Grinch successfully steals what he wrongly believes is Whoville’s entire Christmas, Christmas survives, and the Grinch is profoundly transformed when he hears Cindy Lou and Whos down in Whoville singing on Christmas morning. That’s when he realizes that the “stuff” he grabbed is only meaningless “stuff.” That’s when his heart grows three sizes.
In Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” Ebenezer Scrooge’s countenance is nothing but foreboding. For him, Christmas is humbug. For him, life is only about the acquisition of wealth — his own. Unless we look very carefully, there is no evidence that Scrooge is redeemable.
But there is one sliver of hope. However grudgingly, Scrooge is willing to grant his beleaguered employee, Bob Cratchit, a paid day off work on Christmas Day so that he can spend it with his family and his dying son, Tiny Tim.
Transforming Scrooge is going to take much more than the joyous singing in Whoville that the Grinch heard on Christmas morning. It’s going to require confronting Scrooge with the fear of God.
As Scrooge sleeps on Christmas Eve, that fear arrives in the form of spirits who take Scrooge back to his desolate and lonely childhood, then to Bob Cratchit’s family and two emaciated children named Ignorance and Want, and finally to an unattended grave, Scrooge’s grave.
Shock and terror produce Scrooge’s epiphany. He awakens on Christmas morning a changed man, a man who becomes Tiny Tim’s second father.
No, the Grinch and Scrooge and are not the odd men out, but President Trump is. Perhaps he believes he’s America’s savior. His campaign slogan, Make America Great Again, suggests such a glorious role for his presidency.
But his campaign and his first year in office are in fact the mirror opposite of his promises. They foretell his doom.
The truth is that President Trump is unfit to serve. He is incapable of fulfilling the oath of office he took last January that requires him to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.
Trump’s behavior is an ongoing assault on the pillars of our Constitution. He has attacked free speech, a free press and freedom of religion. He has attacked the independence of the federal judiciary. He has demonstrated ignorance of the Constitution’s doctrine of separation of powers.
He has surrounded himself with sycophants. He has undercut the nation’s intelligence and national security apparatus. He has insulted and disparaged America’s allies while giving a pass to undemocratic oligarchs like Vladimir Putin.
He has soiled his unique bully pulpit by disparaging women, African-Americans and Hispanics.
And worse, he can’t help it. Late last month, the New York Daily News editorialized, “The president of the United States is profoundly unstable. He is mad. He is, by any honest layman’s definition, mentally unwell and viciously lashing out.”
It’s simply a matter of time before Robert Mueller presents a compelling case of obstruction of justice and/or abuse of power against the president. At its heart will be the spoken words, tweets and actions of Trump himself.
All of this reminds me of President Richard Nixon’s prophetic words the night before he resigned: “Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”
In 2016, the American people were forced to choose between two thoroughly corrupt and despicable candidates. Unbelievably and thankfully, Donald Trump’s legacy will be that he successfully destroyed both of them.
Merry Christmas.
Times-News columnist LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident. Reach him at tks12no12@gmail.com.
