Thursday
The Faustus story has been invoked so often in politics as to lose some of its force. Since Trump has now spurned some of those who sold their souls to serve him, however, it’s worth returning to Christopher Marlowe’s 1594 play to see what we can expect of them going forth. I have in mind Kentucky representative Tom Massie and Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy, who lost to Trump-endorsed challengers, and Texas senator John Cornyn, who looks as though he will lose to Texas’s corrupt attorney general Ken Paxton, also endorsed by Trump. These men are learning what Faustus learns: not only is it bad to sell out your principles and your integrity but you get very little in return.
Of course, how little you get shouldn’t matter compared to what you have given up. “For what shall it profit a man,” Jesus asks in Mark, “if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (8:36). These Congressmen, however, didn’t get the whole world. After a brief thrill-ride of power, they will now be held in contempt by practically everyone.
The good news, according to the play, is that soul selling doesn’t have to be forever. Even though Faustus signs his contract in blood and the devil informs him that the deed is forever, he is then given multiple opportunities to repent. At one point late in the play, an old man informs the despairing doctor what he must do:
I see an angel hovers o’er thy head,
And, with a vial full of precious grace,
Offers to pour the same into thy soul:
Then call for mercy, and avoid despair.
The question now is whether our three GOP pols can find their way back to salvation—which is to say, will they call out Trump’s corruption and stand up for the rule of law and the Constitution. Although they will have little to lose going forward, however, Marlowe shows us why they may not.
A brief review of the play is useful. As the leading physician/theologian/scientist of his age, Faustus is a man of immense potential. Rather than being content with having saved entire cities from the plague, however, he dreams of exerting total power over the world:
All things that move between the quiet poles
Shall be at my command: emperors and kings
Are but obeyed in their several provinces,
Nor can they raise the wind, or rend the clouds;
But his dominion that exceeds in this,
Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man;
A sound magician is a mighty god:
Here, Faustus, tire thy brains to gain a deity.
The evil angel sitting on his shoulder, meanwhile, instructs him,
Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky,
Lord and commander of these elements.
Now think of what Massie, Cassidy, and Cornyn might have done with their power. Recognizing Trump for what he is—and all three do—Massie and Cornyn might have voted for his impeachment. While Cassidy, to his credit, did so (which is how he earned Trump’s enmity), he did not have the courage to prevent Robert F. Kennedy from becoming Health and Human Services secretary, even though he himself is a doctor and understands the necessity of vaccines. Instead, to retain the perks of power, they twisted themselves into pretzels to prove their loyalty to Trump. Now they are just pathetic losers.
As is Faustus after signing his deal with Satan. Rather than following through on any of his ambitions (for instance, “I’ll have [my spirits] wall all Germany with brass,/ And make swift Rhine circle fair Wertenberg”), he travels to Rome to play pranks on the pope and then serves out the rest of his life as a court magician doing tricks in return for applause. Although he has second thoughts at the end of his life, he finds he cannot repent.
The reason: his pride gets in his way. Better eternal damnation than admitting to having been a patsy and a fool. Think of the devil’s threat in the following passage as Faustus’s own sense of shame:
Oft have I thought to have [repented]; but the devil threatened to tear me in pieces, if I named God, to fetch both body and soul, if I once gave ear to divinity: and now ’tis too late.
Instead of repenting, in a classic Trumpian move Faustian blames the messenger, who tells him that it is not too late. The old man, who cares for Faustus’s soul, must be delivering fake news and should be punished for having done so. Faustus instructs his devil assistants to “torment that base and crooked age,/ That durst dissuade me from thy Lucifer,/ With greatest torments that our hell affords.” When caught up in a prideful stance, we hate no one so much as those who tell us what, in our heart of hearts, we know to be true.
I’ve lumped Massie in with Cassidy and Cornyn but, as I noted yesterday, he actually lost the election because he fought a good fight: appalled at how Trump’s justice department has been covering for Jeffrey Epstein’s collaborators, he has relentlessly held people accountable. It appears that he will become an even more vocal critic in the months to come.
Now that he’s lost his election, Cassidy too has started pushing back, albeit modestly. If these legislators can join with Democrats to keep Trump from hijacking the 2026 elections, which increasingly appears to be his plan, then they will have accomplished more than Faustus, who never repents and goes screaming off to hell as devils tear him apart.
Do these men really want to be accessories in the death of the republic? Do they want to end their days torn apart by regret over what they could have done?
