The bargain we could see back then

“O my prophetic soul!” Shakespeare’s Hamlet exclaims when his father’s ghost reveals that his brother had murdered him to claim the throne and, along with it, his wife, the queen. Actually, it hadn’t taken too much prophetic insight for Hamlet to realize just what was “rotten in the state of Denmark.” Not that I have much in common with Hamlet, but I didn’t need a “prophetic soul” to foresee that Donald Trump’s presidency would amount to something rotten in the state of America. Here, updated, is some of what I could foresee and shared in my column of November 13, 2016 — five days after Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.

I grounded that column in yet another lesson in the enduring relevance of great literature. I focused on the dramatic irony in Christopher Marlowe’s play “The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Dr. Faustus.” Dramatic irony is something the audience of a play, or the reader of a novel, can see or appreciate that a character can’t. For example, in negotiating the sale of his soul with Mephistopheles, a devil, Faustus says, “I think hell is a fable.”

“Ay, think so,” Mephistopheles replies, “until experience change thy mind.” Standing right in front of Faustus is an emissary from hell offering him 24 years of power and pleasure in exchange for his soul. The audience can see what blind ambition won’t allow Faustus to see. Hence, the dramatic irony.

If you have the time and the inclination, read and consider Marlowe’s Faustus. The premise of the play is that Faustus has mastered every field of knowledge and has become famous. All that is not enough for Faustus’s supersized ego. He chafes at the realization he is still only a man. Faustus aspires to godlike power, and he gets it. If you read the play, however, you’ll find that he merely amuses and gratifies himself with that power.

“All the world’s a stage,” Shakespeare once wrote, and Trump’s election presented an example of dramatic irony right here in real life. It afflicted most of the people who couldn’t see what the rest of us could see in Donald Trump. He had already established a reputation as a vain, amoral narcissist whose craving for attention and adulation knew no bounds. Niece Mary Trump seems to have nailed it with the title of her book about him: “Too Much, and Never Enough” (2020). In a metaphoric sense, Trump had already sold his soul for wealth and power. He is a modern-day Faustus — except that Trump is known for a dubious mastery of various enterprises rather than all knowledge.

Trump, however, is a close second in carnality. Faustus’s fondest wish is to have a fling with the most alluring woman of all time, Helen of Troy. Mephistopheles obliges, but the woman he conjures up is only a spectral facsimile. Consider the 2016 Billy Bush “Access Hollywood” interview in which Trump bragged about his ability to molest women with impunity. The aggrieved women who have since come forward make it hard to believe Trump was merely indulging in “locker-room talk.”

Trump’s more thoughtful supporters, I realize, believed he would surround himself with, and would listen to, the best and brightest advisers. That was a vain hope Trump dashed early on. He proved to be too much of an egotist to listen to anyone. He thinks he always knows best.

Even more troubling, the ghostwriter for Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal” tried to tell us in 2016 that Trump has a short attention span and that his mind wanders. I can believe that. The trouble with Trump is not that he lies. The trouble is he seems to believe his contradictory and hyperbolic statements. To fall back on another trope, Trump is finally the existential hero of the white working class. He spent four years in office wandering around creating his own reality, and what was the upshot of it? January 6, 2021 — a second day that will “live in infamy” in American history. Trump fomented an insurrection, and to my mind that greatly overshadowed any of the supposed economic good he did.

Since then, Trump has racked up four felony indictments and created a cult of true believers who care not for the rule of law or democracy. They’re vowing to vote for him even if convicted.

Back in 2016, I told those who believed Trump would make America great again, “Ay, think so, until experience change thy mind.” Here’s hoping I don’t have to dust that off as a warning to those who think Trump will yet make America great in 2024.

A coda. Don’t get me wrong: This is not a backhanded push for Biden. I hope he doesn’t run. We need a fresh start on both sides. But as it now stands, something is truly rotten in the state of America — the cult of Donald J. Trump.

Contact Ed Palm at majorpalm@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: The bargain we could see back then