Today, plus the 16th-century on Trump

The White House issued a statement yesterday concerning bipartisan legislation introduced in the Senate by a Democrat and one Republican, with six other Republicans in support, aimed at limiting Trump's unitalteral tariff authority. The press release affirmed that he'd veto any such bill since it "would dangerously hamper ... [his] duty to ... protect our national security."

The ironic and even satirical aspect of the White House statement is that it's nigh impossible to overlook that Trump is already dangerously hampered in doing his duty in any department of executive authority; he scarcely needs the Senate to come along and further hamper his extraordinary ineptitude.

Axios displayed a trifecta of its own satirical writing talent. Its first two entries are mixed with striking understatement, its last is satire bordering on outright burlesque. "In the midst of a 1) potential trade war," writes Axios, "Trump 2) was rankled by the bill's introduction, according to a person familiar with his 3) thinking."

For those who prefer their news straight up, no ice — Rewrite! And here it is, no charge to Axios: "As the guns of August boomed, Trump flung his ketchup-splattered Fred & Wilma dinner plate at the nearest lackey in a rage of Absolute Zero cerebration."

That the authority-limiting Senate bill could "get so many people on board" — and so quickly — said its Democratic sponsor, Maria Cantwell, "I think it shows the anxiety that people have." And not only in the Senate. First, there are the obvious ones, as expressed in this NY Times headline this morning: "Wall Street Bursts With Anger over Tariff 'Stupidity.'"

Then there's Main Street. Pardon the redundancy, but others would have missed seeing Saturday's post which featured a poll about the issues of tariffs and stupidity — now synonyms. Gallup asked Americans if they believe foreign trade is good for the U.S. economy or a "threat" to it. (The White House pushed back on America's weightiest of answers by issuing preposterous statements like this one: "Everyday Americans Support President Trump’s Trade Action.")

And, there's always national polling about the vaunted Big Picture — the country's assessment of how Trump is doing overall. (I've excluded findings from polling operations whose work slips into C grades, including the grade of B/C, in Nate Silver's gradebook, Silver Bulletin.) Although the objective answer to how Trump is doing — hideouly — is screamingly accurate, polling comes down to thousands of often benighted subjectivities. That, of course, is a surveying constant. What's unique about these polling results — those published since the beginning of April —is that for the first time in my perusals, Trump in underwater across the board.

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I cut today's post perhaps a little short because for several days I've wanted to leave you with a book recommendation. It might be the most politically relevant and intellectually enjoyable book you'll read throughout these dictatorial years.

It's titled Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics, written by Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt and stuffed with chapters such as "Fraudulent Populism," "Enablers," "Tyranny Triumphant" and "Resistible Rise." You get the point. Greenblatt wrote this brilliant analysis of the Bard's astute reflections on Trump's aspirational dictatorship in his first term. Here's an excerpt from Chapter One, "Oblique Angles" — Shakespeare's methodology in approaching any given subject.

Under what circumstances, Shakespeare asked himself, do such cherished insititutions, seemingly deep-rooted and impregnable, suddenly prove fragile? Why do large numbers of people knowingly accept being lied to? How does a figure like Richard III or Macbeth ascend to the throne?

Such a disaster, Shakespeare suggested, could not happen without widespread complicity. His plays probe the psychological mechanisms that lead a nation to abandon ideas and even its self-interest. Why would anyone, he asked himself, be drawn to a leader manifestly unsuited to govern, someone dangerously impusive or viciously conniving or indifferent to the truth? Why, in some circumstances, does evidence of mendacity, crudeness, or cruelty serve not as a fatal disadvantage but as an allure, attracting ardent followers? Why do otherwise proud and self-respecting people submit to the sheer effrontery of the tyrrant, his sense that he can get away with saying and doing anything he likes, his spectcular indecency?

Shakespeare repeatedly depricted the tragic cost of this submission — the moral corruption, the massive waste of treasure, the loss of life — and the desperate, painful, heoric measures require to return a damaged nation to some modicum of health. Is there, the plays ask, any way to stop the slide toward lawless and arbitrary rule before it is too late, any effective means to prevent the civil catastrophe that tyranny invariably provokes?

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Shakespeare is — not was — the world's truest, unsurpassed and most accessible intellectual bobby-dazzler; he is humanity's chief sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist, humanist, philosopher, neologist, cultural analyst, religious studies scholar, political scientist, royal watcher — and he's known for some writing ability, too.

One might think that given the totality of Shakespeare's not inconsiderable insights, he'd be widely read until this day. Yet the reason I hear from non-readers is that his writing is "difficult." While it's true that in his masterpieces — that is, every one of his plays — there are archaic words and unfamiliar phrases. So what? I run across unfamiliar words all the time, but I don't stop reading because of them.

Ignore them. Or, if you have OCD about new words (as I do), buy the Folger's paperback editions of his works, which have opposite-page glossaries. But I'd suggest ignoring the unfamiliar for starters; just plow in, keep reading and soon you'll feel the incomparable flow of Shakepeare's magic in print.

I didn't mean to get off on this tangent about accessing Shakespeare directly. For now, just pick up a copy of Greenblatt's Tyrant. There, you can take your Shakespeare in little sips while reading Donald Trump's biography.