Dignity Trumps Stupidity

I had high hopes for Donald Trump’s big announcement this week.  I expected that this would provide fodder for another blog, giving me an opportunity to ponder, with a semblance of objectivity, the facets of some well-considered-though-conservatively-tipped plan.  I believed that his legions of advisors and sycophants would have helped him to vet his actions.  I would have thought that he could afford the best public relations professionals in the business.  I braced myself.

What we got, was a warmed over repeat of his tired refrain.  Blah, blah, blah about the president and his impeccable academic credentials.  Why is it so unfathomable to this man that our President could be his intellectual superior in every way?  After all, most Americans are his intellectual superior.   

For anyone who has been living under a rock, The Donald offered to make a $5 million charitable contribution if the President turns over his academic and passport records by Halloween.  I guess he thought that should the President choose to ignore him, he could then argue in the final week before the election that the President does not care about helping people.  He failed to consider that the thing that the President does not care about is Donald Trump.

The most amazing part of this story is that failed to gain traction.  In this world of sound bites and sensationalism, one would expect such a ridiculous story to float around the airwaves and Twitterdom for at least few hours.   But apparently, even our media has standards—and Donald Trump didn’t make the cut.  The reports of Trump’s gesture were perfunctory and remarkably brief, dismissed as nothing more than a sour footnote.  His announcement fell as flat as his comb-over. 

Of course it did not help that Trump released his huntless dog in the wake of Richard Mourdock’s declaration that unwanted pregnancy resulting from rape is “something that G-d intended to happen.”  Even the crazy mind of Donald Trump failed to conjure something heinous enough to steal the headlines from such a freak show. 

Still more curious is that Trump would put a Halloween deadline on his offer.   It gives his proposal a rather odd context—placing it in the company of howling screams, fake blood, and projectile eggs.  It makes it harder than usual to take him seriously, as we anticipate an evening where children disguise their youthful innocence, donning fantasy costumes and being granted the right to eat way too many Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  It is a night to laugh at our fears, allowing gruesome characters to stalk our homes, knowing full well that they are just our closest friends and neighbors.  Behind each mask, we are as we always are.

Stephen Colbert's great visual notwithstanding, my only response to Donald Trump’s offer was to laugh out loud.  Although he thought he could hide behind a human mask of charitable goodness, he nonetheless remains every bit the ass we know him to be.