“Power is dangerous unless you have humility”
– Richard J. Daley, the mayor of Chicago
from 1955-76.
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| Would Mayor Daley have understood Trump perfectly? |
A
quotation I stumbled across Thursday while trying to find something else, and
one that I thought particularly noteworthy these days in light of the fact that
the one word that no one would ever associate with Republican presidential
hopeful Donald J. Trump is humility.
As
the New York-based real estate developer (when he’s not spending time at his
gaudy Mar A Lago mansion in Florida) shows us as he repeatedly persists with
his desires to do things his own way, no matter how offensive and tacky they
show him to be.
IT
IS A thought that perhaps we should all keep in mind as we approach Election
Day and are called upon to make a decision.
We
are going to have to decide the direction of our society that we allow our
government to take it. Should we allow the Trump ego, which already has put its
brand on a tacky-looking tower along the Chicago River, to be able to spread
elsewhere?
I
write this knowing there are some people who are opposed to the candidacy of
Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and keep telling themselves
that the natural checks and balances of government would keep Trump from
actually carrying out most of the absurd rhetoric he has made during his
campaign.
But
when you have a candidate who rejects the very notion of government as having a
role in our society as Trump does, you wonder how much he envisions he can
stretch things out.
BECAUSE
HE COMES across as the ultimate example of a business executive fed up with
what he thinks of as government interference with his corporate desires. So he
envisions winning office so as to eliminate the middle-man of the government
officials he has been forced to deal with all these years.
He
can rubber-stamp his own business interests. Or at least he fantasizes he can
do so.
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| Was Trump as equally incoherent as Mayor Daley? |
We
in Illinois have seen how the venture capitalist, Bruce Rauner, has managed to
use his election as governor to try to implement his own agenda – only to have
the General Assembly thwart his desires.
Unlike
the Illinois Legislature, our Congress doesn’t have a veto-proof majority that
would oppose itself to a “President Trump.” We do have a serious choice to make
come the Nov. 8 Election Day.
DO
WE REALLY vote for the guy whose vision of our society comes across as so
over-the-top to satisfy his bloated ego, all because we don’t want to elect the
wife of the man whose own presidency was bogged down in so much partisan
political tripe?
Do
we really give in to those people who have been waiting for years to vote “no”
to Hillary Clinton just to appease their own politically partisan grudges?
It
will be interesting to see which choice our electorate makes on the second
Tuesday of November, and which person winds up freezing their keister off come
January on Inauguration Day!
For
those who feel tortured by reading this particular commentary, perhaps you’d
feel better reading the Borowitz Report published at NewYorker.com, where author
Andy Borowitz ponders a Trump who thinks it’s unethical and extremely unfair
for television types to be recording his every word, just so they could air it
publicly for the future.
HOW
ELSE IS Trump supposed to be able to change his thoughts at a moment’s notice,
depending on the crowd he happens to be facing in any given situation?
And
for those who think this thought too ridiculous to be real, keep in mind that
Mayor Daley had his long-time press secretary, Earl Bush, who told
reporter-type people with a completely straight face that when it came to the
inarticulate Richard J. they should, “don’t write what he says, write what he
means.”
Only
in the case of Trump, there are times when we question if even “the Donald”
fully comprehends what he is articulating!
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