The Simple Son
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It's Passover, I'm in St.
Barths. Yes, we have a newly installed Chabad here, but the London family spent
the first night of Passover at Le Repaire, eating dorade, not gefilte fish, and
drinking Minuty, not Manischevitz. No chicken soup on the menu.
Nevertheless, I think back to
the service set out in the Haggadah, I think about the four questions, and the
part about the four sons, the wise son, the evil son, the simple son, and the
one who doesn't know how to ask questions.
For some reason, the simple son
intrigued me, and I found this discussion of him on the web:
The simple one knows how to ask. However,
because of his great simplicity, he is ready to accept simple answers. These
simple answers are at times caused by [his] limited knowledge... . The answers
that the simple son gets are all banal, and don’t deal with the depth and
complexity of the questions. Nonetheless, this is why he lives in a harmonious
world where everything is orderly and understood. At first glance, there is
charm and grace in this naïve life, but it is only an illusion. The world and
the reality are complex, and one day the child will grow up and realize that
not everything is so simple.
Or will he just grow up to be
President?
Why does the simple son
remind me of Donald Trump? Because he
too lives in a simple world. The center of that world is Donald Trump, his
business, and his family. If he wants the answer to any question, it is readily
available without resort to intelligence summaries, legal or ethical advice, or
even the Constitution.
This simple son applies a
simple test: what's best for me, my business, my family?
Should I go into the army
when my country calls? Ahh, no, I'll get the family doc to write me a letter
about heel bone spurs. Which foot? Don't remember that, they're gone now,
anyway and do not interfere with my golf game.
Do I want to increase my
political power? Yes, so let's appeal to that element of society that dislikes
immigration and dislikes racial integration. Then we simply make up facts that
support our position. We'll just tell
lies about Mexican rapists, and we'll promise to make Mexico build a wall we
like. So what if we know it will never happen, my people like the idea, I like
the "Build the Wall" chant, and we can simply lie about the details.
Do I want to make more money?
If yes, then let us abandon all prior precedent, keep our businesses, and use
our political clout to get people to give banquets in our hotels, etc. We can
have the son-in-law visit countries as this country's representative and try to
get financing for his real estate projects. Good for my grandchildren. My
daughter and her in-laws can go overseas and sell dresses and condos. Good for the
family bottom line.
What do I do if someone
thinks I have acted illegally before the election? That's pretty simple: fire
them, and then say I did it because I interviewed them for another job, or they
had an argument over fees at my golf club. Are those lies? Sure, but are they
good lies, i.e., good for me? Yes, I think so, so let's do it.
Wait a minute. There is a
prominent newspaper right here in the nation's capitol, publishing stories
hurtful to me. Simple solution. I will punish them by using my Presidential
pulpit to tell lies about the owner of the paper. I will say his other company
doesn't pay taxes, when in fact it does pay taxes, and has published those
numbers. (I lie all the time about my personal taxes and won't tell anything to
the public about that, but in my simple straight-ahead way, that does not
matter.) I will say they are costing the Post Office millions of dollars, when
in fact the opposite is true, the USPS makes a lot of money from them and would
be much worse off if they went elsewhere.
Is it wrong for me to use the power of my office to pressure the United
States Post Office to raise their rates in order to injure my political
opponent? Does a bear poop in a tree?
There are women who say I am unfaithful
to my wife. What should I do about those claims? What is the simplest thing to
do? Answer: try to buy off the women who say that, and if that fails, just deny
everything. Is that wrong?
Will those claims hurt my
popularity? Well, even before the election, everybody knew I was a philanderer
and I won by three million votes anyway. And besides, even the Evangelicals say
I should get a Mulligan for screwing around.
Ahh, you say, this time it's
different? You say I won by only 77,000 votes, and won 56% of the women's vote,
and I cannot afford to lose even a small fraction of that if I want to be
reelected? And, what's that, you say
it's one thing for a voter who otherwise liked me to forgive my sexual
molestation and stuff, but when she learns my wife was home trying to lose the
30-40 pounds she gained carrying my child delivered
the previous month while I was
tomcatting around in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and this voter thinks that if her husband did that she would brain him
with a cast iron frying pan, and so she may not vote for me again?
And you ask what
does the simple son say to that?
Hire John Bolton and declare
war on Iran?