Summer of Rage and Races
Somebody stop him.
You know who. The conqueror whose voice, face and deeds are inescapable.
Donald Trump had never heard of William the Conqueror when he visited England, but he loved the word and the idea for his presidency. He also has Napoleon Bonaparte and Julius Caesar “great man” delusions.
These three had tremendous mettle and bravery in battle. Trump let a presidential decoy plane fly into danger while he flew like a chicken over Turkey.
And here we are, the people in late summer, enjoying the song of cicadas in August, or so we thought. Now comes a “media advisory” of the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington, this weekend, on Aug. 22-23. More on that coming up.
Events are racing ahead of us. The Supreme Court will soon rule on Trump’s demolished East Wing ballroom project; the gorgeous John F. Kennedy Center is shuttered; and his war on Iran knocks on our doors and wallets, costing American households a pretty Lincoln penny.
Oh, he got rid of that too.
Trump ruled that Lincoln is no longer the coin of the realm. It’s a small thing, compared to everything else. The proposed “Arc de Trump” hulk would overpower all the marble memorials around this carefully designed capital, most of all the gleaming Lincoln Memorial gem.
The Lincoln shrine honors freedom. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached in front of 250,000 at the March on Washington many Augusts ago — in 1963. The Reflecting Pool shone in the sun that day, when Kennedy was president.
We’ve suffered since the day JFK died, but the 1990s were, in retrospect, the times of our lives. Bill Clinton sowed peace and prosperity, and made friends and allies all over the world. Those who tried to destroy him over a slight affair were just jealous of his talents for governing and reaching out to all kinds of Americans, with a big heart.
(Someone said it the other day: The fizz is gone, it’s not fun anymore. Leaders set the tone for a country.)
Given everything, wouldn’t it be nice to have that trivial Monica Lewinsky problem now? With Trump, everything is magnified — sex, race, power and the money he’s making in the Oval Office, brazenly in the billions. And fear. And revenge.
Boiled down, Trump practices the politics of raw rage every day and night. He has not forgotten his enemies, and he won’t let them forget him. He also rewards his violent friends — he set free the Jan. 6 rioters on his first day in office. More than 1,500 were behind bars for trying to swing the 2020 election to him.
If you thought that an IndyCar race around the National Mall could never happen, well, here we are. Drivers of racecars will speed around the Smithsonian buildings. No pedestrians are allowed to wander these grand places of history, culture and art that belong to the American people for free. Tickets went on sale.
Will children be able to ride on the merry-go-round by the original red castle again?
The media advisory doesn’t speak to that. But the president of Shell USA will attend the four-day event. Good to know.
What if there’s a crash? The very vibrations of high-speed racecars put these buildings at risk, museum experts say.
I’ll be across town at the National Book Festival, a perfect counterpoint, dreading the news every hour. Some kind of calamity will occur, I’m sure. Women’s intuition.
This weekend, take me back to mighty Caesar’s time in Rome. He actually tried to do well by the people: “When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept,” the play says.
Let me forget what’s happening here and what’s still to come.
By that, I mean the knell of November. I know how the armed Jan. 6 mob stormed the Capitol, because I was there. This midterm election is likely to turn into a similar tug-of-war — the president’s war on democracy.
We should take nothing for granted; Trump always exceeds expectations. A president attacking a captive Congress in session was unimaginable, until it happened that winter Wednesday.
Watch this space for the races — and the rage.
The author may be reached at JamieStiehm.com.