Tuesday
While the House committee investigating Donald Trump’s January 6 coup attempt has focused its sights on the ex-president, its report has also looked at minor actors, both those who stuck with the president and those who have peeled off. One of my favorite posts over the past two years has been one applying A.E. Housman’s “Epitaph to an Army of Mercenaries” to Mike Pence’s decision to break with the insurrection. I’m thinking now that Lewis Carroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter” helps size up those who didn’t.
Thanks to the committee’s report, we now see more clearly the pressure on Pence. After all, many others were prepared to go along with the coup, including those members of Congress who voted against accepting the election results. Fortunately, Pence, who until that point had been Trump’s sycophant-in-chief, saw refusing to certify the election as a bridge too far. Maybe he balked at the action out of principle or maybe he lost his nerve but the important thing was that he did what was right and declared Joe Biden the election winner. The surprise—that he carried out his Constitutionally mandated duties—is what make Housman’s poem so perfect.
After all, the mercenaries in the lyric are doing what they are contracted to do. It’s just a surprise that they do so:
Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries
These, in the days when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth’s foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and the earth’s foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.
As I noted in my past post, the heavens of American democracy would indeed have fallen if Pence had refused to certify Biden’s victory. With Trump still in command of the military and with popular unrest uncertain if the will of the people had been overturned, anything could have happened. Instead, Pence’s shoulders held the sky suspended; he stood, and the earth’s foundations stay.
And what about all those others who stuck with Trump? Carroll’s poem about betrayal helps us break them down into three categories: those who were conned, in some case to such an extent that they participated in the actual attack on the Capitol; those con artists who held their noses as they played the true believers for suckers; and those who grifted without compunction.
To refresh your memory, here’s the poem, beginning with the Walrus’s invitation.
‘O Oysters, come and walk with us!’
The Walrus did beseech.
‘A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.’
The eldest Oyster looked at him.
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head—
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.
But four young oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat—
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn’t any feet.
Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more—
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.
‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.’
‘But wait a bit,’ the Oysters cried,
‘Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!’
‘No hurry!’ said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.
‘A loaf of bread,’ the Walrus said,
‘Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed—
Now if you’re ready Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.’
‘But not on us!’ the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue,
‘After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!’
‘The night is fine,’ the Walrus said
‘Do you admire the view?
‘It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!’
The Carpenter said nothing but
‘Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf—
I’ve had to ask you twice!’
‘It seems a shame,’ the Walrus said,
‘To play them such a trick,
After we’ve brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!’
The Carpenter said nothing but
‘The butter’s spread too thick!’
‘I weep for you,’ the Walrus said.
‘I deeply sympathize.’
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size.
Holding his pocket handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.
‘O Oysters,’ said the Carpenter.
‘You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
But answer came there none—
And that was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.”
Former Republican consultant Rick Wilson, now a NeverTrumper and founder of the Lincoln Project, has famously noted that “everything Trump touches dies” (ETTD for short), and I think of the young oysters as those who got caught up in Trumpian excitement—which is to say, the ones who are now suffering various penalties for attacking the Capitol on his behalf. (“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, along the briny beach,” as Carroll puts it.) By contrast, Wilson himself would be the elder oyster.
Finer distinctions must be drawn between the different kinds of grifters. Here’s Alice trying to sort it out:
“I like the Walrus best,” said Alice: “because you see he was a little sorry for the poor oysters.”
“He ate more than the Carpenter, though,” said Tweedledee. “You see he held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn’t count how many he took: contrariwise.”
“That was mean!” Alice said indignantly. “Then I like the Carpenter best—if he didn’t eat so many as the Walrus.”
“But he ate as many as he could get,” said Tweedledum.
This was a puzzler.
Does the Walrus get credit for at least having qualms or does that make him even more culpable? Are only one’s actions important, not one’s inner hesitations? As Martin Gardner puts it in The Annotated Alice,
Alice is puzzled because she faces here the traditional ethical dilemma of having to choose between judging a person in terms of acts or in terms of intentions.
Following her confusion, Alice may arrive at the correct assessment of all such grifters when she concludes, “Well! They were both very unpleasant characters—”
Yep.