Friday
Washington Post conservative columnist Michael Gerson has me thinking of a line from John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera following his piece on Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan and senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller. Describing Jordan as “the tireless, tendentious, often bellowing chief defender of Trump during the impeachment hearings,” Gerson first draws on Alexander Pope: Jordan and fellow sycophants Devin Nunes (Calif.) and Mark Meadows (N.C.) are fools rushing in where “Mick Mulvaney and Rudy Giuliani fear to tread.”
Of course, neither Mulvaney nor Giuliani are angels. And they’ve done their own rushing in.
The following passage from Gerson’s column, however, is what got me thinking of Gay’s Mac the Knife:
Jordan has mastered the art of talking utter rubbish in tones of utter conviction. His version of the events at the heart of the impeachment inquiry? Rather than committing corruption, Trump was fighting corruption. Military assistance was suspended, in Jordan’s telling, while the president was deciding whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “legit” in his determination to oppose corruption. When Trump found that Zelensky was the “real deal,” the aid was released.
Will such effrontery charm Trump’s base the way that Mac charms Mrs. Peachum. When her husband asks about banknotes the highwayman left with her the previous week, she replies,
Yes, my Dear; and though the Bank hath stopt Payment, he was so cheerful and so agreeable! Sure there is not a finer Gentleman upon the Road than the Captain!
In other words, one must lie with style, and Mac’s supreme confidence gets him labeled a “Gentleman upon the road” rather than a common thief. It’s like Mae West’s self-description following a compliment she receives in She Done Him Wrong (1933):
Bypasser: Hello Miss Lou, my but you’re a fine looking woman.”
Lou: “One of the finest women ever walked the streets!
Jordan is one of the finest Congressman who ever defended Trump. Lumping him together with Miller, the white supremacist who has been steering Trump’s immigration policies, Gerson says they
are giving us a taste of the Truly Trumpian Man — guided by bigotry, seized by conspiracy theories, dismissive of facts and truth, indifferent to ethics, contemptuous of institutional norms and ruthlessly dedicated to the success of a demagogue.
Having made the comparison, however, let me now back off and draw a contrast. While these two men may have Mac’s effrontery, they lack his charisma and his charm. For that, we must look to the man they’re defending.
Twice I’ve compared Trump to Mac the Knife, both times to capture his remarkable ability to wriggle out of tough situations. The first post marveled at his ability to escape unscathed from the Access Hollywood tape while the second observed that Trump has access to a stratagem that Mac could only have dreamed of: the pardon power.
At the end of Beggar’s Opera, Mac is about to be hanged when one of the actors objects:
Player. But, honest Friend, I hope you don’t intend that Macheath shall be really executed.
Beggar Playwright. Most certainly, Sir.—To make the Piece perfect, I was for doing strict poetical Justice.—Macheath is to be hang’d; and for the other Personages of the Drama, the Audience must have suppos’d they were all either hang’d or transported.
Player. Why then, Friend, this is a downright deep Tragedy. The Catastrophe is manifestly wrong, for an Opera must end happily.
Beggar. Your Objection, Sir, is very just, and is easily remov’d. For you must allow, that in this kind of Drama, ’tis no matter how absurdly things are brought about—So—you Rabble there—run and cry, A Reprieve!—let the Prisoner be brought back to his Wives in Triumph.
With his ability to pardon people who might testify against him, and perhaps even to pardon himself, Trump could change his potential tragedy into a comedy. One can imagine his supporters cheering were he to pull of such a maneuver, just as 18th century audiences cheered when Mac is set free. Many of Trump’s supporters love how he plays by his own rules, such as informing us that a transcript doesn’t say what it in fact says. After all, he does it with such flair!
But now for the contrast. Trump can pull off Mac the Knife’s effrontery–that’s his genius–but I don’t think wannabe Trumps like Jordan and Miller can. They just come across as thuggish bullies and chilling ideologues, not as lovable rogues. What Trump and Mac do is not easily replicable.
And for that we should be grateful.
