No Telling Tomorrow

What time is it? What day is it? Are we tariffing Canada and Mexico, or not? 

I’m not the only one confused. Think of all those stock market mavens, who don’t know whether to buy or sell. 

Trump, the great yo-yo, imposes tariffs on our neighbors, then delays them, then announces they’re coming, and then puts them off for a month or so. Are cars going to be tariffed, or exempt? What’s today’s date?

All this would be comical except there’s a truly dark side to this yes-maybe-no scenario. One would say that Trump has learned this behavior from a tyrant’s handbook, but we all know that Trump doesn’t read anything (and probably never has).

But somehow he has sussed out one major weapon in a tyrant’s armory. He has learned that tyrants must keep the populace and, more importantly, his courtiers off  balance. Whereas in a non-tyrannical state there are laws, rules, and regulations that guide the actions of the state, in a tyranny only the whim of the tyrant is law. And if the tyrant is canny, he will exercise his whim at random to wrongfoot the general population, but, more importantly, to keep his courtiers (his ass kissers, in other words) from presuming that, being close to power, they might someday take power. The danger for those courtiers is that being on the right side of the tyrant’s whim today, might lead to the gulag (or worse) when the tyrant changes his mind, his whim, his policy tomorrow.

The artful (or lucky) courtiers who bob when the tyrant bobs and weaves when the tyrant weaves can keep it up for only so long. There are no guidelines to follow, no rehearsed dance steps to trace, and no way to predict tomorrow. 

The next time you are summoned to the palace it could be to receive a medal—or a bullet. 

Iced

A man is known by the company he keeps.

Aesop

*

Wayne Gretzky . . .

Wayne Gretzky, the greatest ice hockey player . . . 

Wayne Gretzky, Canadian icon . . .

Wayne Gretzky, a pal of the man who would deprive his country of its freedom . . .

Wayne Gretzky—a man with a broken heart.

                           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0qW9P-uYfM

That’s according to Mrs. Gretzky, who commented after her husband was supported by another hockey hall-of-famer, Bobby Orr, after attacks on Wayne for his friendship with Donald Trump, who invited the hockey legend to the President’s swearing-in ceremony and who had gone a few rounds of golf with him. (1)

Bobby Orr . . .

Bobby Orr, Canadian icon . . .

Bobby Orr, considered by many the greatest defenseman (or in Canadian, “defenceman”) in NHL history . . .

Bobby Orr, who has history of supporting Trump in the past . . .

Bobby Orr, defenseman, who can defend Gretzky, but not defend the independence of his country, a country whose national anthem asserts, 

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

*

Bill Shankly, legendary manager of Liverpool Football Club:

Some people think football [soccer] is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that.

On the other hand, Jesse Marsch, the head coach of the Canadian men’s soccer national team, knows that sport does not outrank life:

Jesse Marsch . . . offered a strong rebuke of President Donald Trump’s quips on the country potentially becoming the 51st state of the United States.

Speaking to reporters at Concacaf Nations League Finals media day in Inglewood, California, Marsch called Trump’s ongoing comments “unsettling and frankly insulting.”

“Canada is a strong, independent nation that is deep-rooted in decency, really, and it’s a place that values high ethics and respect,” Marsch said. (2)

And Marsch is an American!

*

Lesson for Wayne Gretzky:

Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas.

***

  

(1) https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/janet-jones-gretzky-criticism-of-wayne-has-broken-his-heart/

Even when Trump tries to get Gretzky off the hook, his innate nastiness is still there, for he degradingly calls the Prime Minister of Canada “Governor.” "Wayne and Janet, his wonderful wife, love Canada, and they should only support Canada, and whatever else makes the Canadian People, and Governor Justin Trudeau, happy,"

 

 (2) https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/26/sport/canada-jesse-marsch-president-trump-spt/index.html

***

Suggested Reading:

https://thehockeywriters.com/canada-deserves-a-better-hockey-hero-than-wayne-gretzky/

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/trump-masculinity/681828/

 

All in the Mind

No, I do not think that Fintan O’Toole plagiarized from me when he entitled his article about Donald Trump's antics in the March 13, 2025 issue of The New York Review of Books “From Comedy to Brutality.” (1) I had written on this blog—on February 11 (2):

Karl Marx’s observation, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce” is widely quoted. (Indeed, I believe I did so previously in a blog entry.) However, events this week have made me rethink the validity of the statement, and now I believe that it should be read backward: “History appears first as farce, then as tragedy.”

Comedy/Farce; Brutality/Tragedy. 

Not plagiarism, but maybe great minds thinking alike. 

*

The Economist is a fine periodical, with a fault: it has too much information per issue; one can’t finish the issue one is reading before the next plops into one’s mailbox. But it has an even greater fault—which it shares with those who claim the term “economist” as their profession: both see the world through the mist of money. 

An article dated Nov. 18th 2024, but recently linked to in an Economist newsletter, asks,

Is your master’s degree useless?

New data show a shockingly high proportion of courses are a  waste of money

The newsletter goes on to say,

In America, about 40% of graduates hold a second degree of some sort. Britain’s universities hand out four advanced degrees for every five undergraduate ones. Yet there are growing reasons to question whether this educational “arms race” is very bright. Data suggest that a staggering number of master’s courses offer students no financial return at all.

(Italics mine.)

Why do we go to school? And why do we go on to higher education after high school? And, most especially, why do we go on to graduate school after college? Certainly not for money in the future if you’re studying Renaissance iconography or Elizabethan diplomatic history. We go TO LEARN! We want to know more than we know today. It’s that wonderful quirk of the human race: curiosity. 

In another earlier post from 2013 (3), I wrote about the drive to impose a “token” tuition upon the students of the City University of New York: 

Money morality may or may not be in itself evil, but the belief that everything good, true, or beautiful must first pass commercial muster is.

Maybe those deluded seekers of MBAs who believe that paying for that degree now will jackpot them into financial Valhalla later will be chastened by reading The Economist’s dire assessment of their losing bet. But I wouldn’t count on it. They have no soul.

***

(1) https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/03/13/from-comedy-to-brutality-fintan-otoole/ (O’Toole actually wrote his piece on February 13, 2025, still after me.)

(2) https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2025/02/my-farce-their-tragedy.html

(3) https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2013/04/counting-spoons.html 

My Farce, Their Tragedy

Karl Marx’s observation, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce” is widely quoted. (Indeed, I believe I did so previously in a blog entry.) However, events this week have made me rethink the validity of the statement, and now I believe that it should be read backward: “History appears first as farce, then as tragedy.” Let me explain.

After Donald Trump mused about emptying Gaza and turning it into the Riviera, ideas began to seep into my little brain. (The unofficial motto of this blog is, after all, Alexander Pope’s statement, “Fools rush into my head, and so I write.”) My first intention was to write another faux news article like the last post, announcing that Trump was offering Mar-a-Lago as a home for some displaced Gazans and his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey as a tent city for many others. These refugees would be the leftovers from those not forced by Trump upon Egypt and Jordan. Trump would attempt to maneuver those countries into compliance with his wishes by imposing 60% tariffs on specific commodities like figs, dates, and camels.

I also intended to illustrate how the Trumpian San Tropez would look:

*

Yesterday, the New York Times printed an article whose headline read:

Trump Says He May Cut Aid to Jordan and Egypt if They Don’t Take Gazans

The president turned up the pressure on the two nations to agree to his proposal for them to house the Palestinian population of Gaza and said the Palestinians would not have the right to return to the territory.

So there it was in print—my farce threatening to morph into tragedy.

*

Oh, to clear up one thing: why did I intend to have transactional Trump offer to house some Gazans at his golf course? My faux news article would have quoted him as follows:

“There’s always a shortage of caddies.” 

Barring the Door

Trump Stops Visa Program For Women

Administration Will Bar Entrance By Foreign Women

Washington, Feb. 2

President Donald J. Trump went on national television tonight to announce a new restriction on foreign travelers that he claimed “will end the terrible flood of women who take advantage of American birthright policy. . . . Women come to our beautiful country--in planeloads--to drop their babies so they can become so-called American citizens.” 

The President ordered the Secretary of State to halt issuance of visas to women who are foreign nationals as of 6 AM (ET) tomorrow. In addition, he has called upon the Secretary of Home Security to mobilize personnel and deploy them to all airports which service international flights to turn back any women attempting to enter the country after 5 PM (ET) on Monday. 

Mr. Trump explained his action stating, “All births in the United States should be by beautiful American women, not by foreign vermin. American taxpayers should not have the burden of paying for the schooling and health care of children who are not real Americans.”

The President agreed to carve out three exceptions to the new order: Despite much opposition from right-wing Evangelicals, in deference to the Vatican, he has exempted nuns, who take a vow of chastity; women over the age of seventy will also be exempt, being beyond any reasonable expectation of motherhood; and women who can document having had a hysterectomy will be allowed to apply for a visa.

   

Heart of a Stranger vs. Heart of Stone

In May, 2018 I wrote the following in my blog:

Trump’s Washington is a political black hole whose denseness does not allow light to escape—or compassion to be released. (1)

*

This past Tuesday, at the post-Inauguration Day interfaith ceremony at Washington National Cathedral, the Right Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, gave a sermon directed at newly-sworn-in President Trump asking him,

“In the name of our God, . . . to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”

Budde's plea mentioned “gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families,” across the country “who fear for their lives.” 

The bishop also spoke up for immigrant workers, including those who may not “have the proper documentation,” saying the vast majority of them are “not criminals” but rather “good neighbors.” (2)

She added:

“And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.”

The plea for compassion, “for we were all once strangers in this land,” should be particularly meaningful to Jews, who, Rabbi David Russo explains, 

 

are consistently reminded of our obligation to take care of those around us, to raise our voices in the face of oppression and to treat everyone as we would want to be treated ourselves. Far from exempting us from this special responsibility, the Jewish people’s history of hardship is exactly the reason why we are called upon to show chesed, lovingkindness, to immigrants in our midst. As the Torah says, we know the heart of the stranger, because we were once strangers in the land of Egypt. (3)

And what was Trump’s trenchant response to the sermon? As expected, he reached into his fifth-grade lexicon and came up with “nasty.”

Trump was supported by his MAGidiots, chief among whom was Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.): “The person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.” (4) (Where do you deport someone who was born in New Jersey?)

The statement by Collins falls in line with the lack of Constitutional awareness that afflicts TrumpWorld. In the past, Trump himself spouted such anti-Constitutional craziness as wishing to see Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley executed. Trump wrote that

Mark Milley’s phone call to reassure China in the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.” (5)

As of 2019, according to Axios, Trump had accused 24 persons of “treason.” (6)

And he continued after that, the following year tweeting that

a statement by a Black Lives Matter chapter leader made during an interview with Fox News was “Treason, Sedition, Insurrection!”

That was just days after Trump became the first president in modern U.S. history to accuse his predecessor of treason.

“It’s treason,” Trump said during a Monday interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network. “They were spying on my campaign, I told you that a long time ago. It turns out I was right.” (7)

One would think that the person serving as President of the United States would know the Constitution of this land: 

Article III, Section 3, Clause 1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

Trump, of course, would eliminate the word “only” and add “or offending the amour-propre of the President.”

***

(1) https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2018/05/black-holes.html

(2) https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/01/22/what-did-the-bishop-say-to-trump-during-prayer-service-heres-the-full-transcript/

(3) https://journeys.uscj.org/strangers-in-land-of-egypt/

(4) https://www.yahoo.com/news/gop-member-wants-bishop-added-224103604.html

(5) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/trump-milley-execution-incitement-violence/675435/

(6) https://www.axios.com/2019/06/16/trump-treason-russia-investigation-new-york-times

(7) https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/27/president-who-cries-treason/