Let Them Eat Cake
Musical Suggestion –Wolves at the Door– Aaron Burdett
“It’s not fair to you and we all get that, but this is so much bigger than any one person. It is a little bit of pain, but it’s going to be for the future of our country, and their children and their grandchildren and generations after them will thank them for their sacrifice. Right now, I know it’s hard. I know people have families, they have bills to pay, they have mortgages, they have rents that are due.”– Lara Trump ( wife of Eric, daughter-in-law of the President)
reporter – “There are reports that there are some federal workers who are going to homeless shelters to get food.” “Well, I know they are but I don’t really quite understand why because … the obligations that they would undertake say borrowing from the bank or credit union are in effect federally guaranteed, so the 30 days of pay which some people will be out ―there’s no real reason why they shouldn’t be able to get a loan against it.” – Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross
It’s an apocryphal story (a literature major way of saying it’s probably not true.) Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France and married to Louis XVIII during the French Revolution, was supposed to have said it in response to the French “peasants” rioting because there was no bread. Saying “Let them eat cake” represented a total lack of compassion or understanding; if there wasn’t bread available then there certainly wasn’t cake. The nobility had no sense of what it was like to be a common person, and even though the Queen probably didn’t say the phrase, the attitude it represents certainly came through. It’s no wonder she lost her head, along with her husband’s, to Dr. Guillotine’s new invention.
So it wasn’t too much of a surprise that the “let them eat cake” moniker was plastered on Lara Trump’s statement (see above) about the government shutdown, with more than 800,000 missing more than a month’s pay. “It is a little bit of pain…” denies the reality of folks being evicted from their homes, forced to use food banks, and choosing between rent and medical care. Their “children and grandchildren” may be proud in the future, but right now they need food and shelter, something the shutdown is denying. The statement was made with faux noblesse oblige (how ‘bout that French phrase); praising them for their involuntary service as the sacrificial offering on the alter of the “Wall.”
That same attitude exudes from Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross (see above) who doesn’t understand why the unpaid workers just don’t run down to the bank and “get a loan.” As a former investment banker (Rothschild and Sons) and bank Vice Chairman (Bank of Cyprus) he should be more aware than most that banks only lend money to people that have money. The guaranteed way to not get a loan, at least not a pay-day or loan shark loan, is to not have the money to pay for it. Even with a Federal “guarantee” most banks wouldn’t touch a loan that had no guaranteed collateral, especially with the current crisis that has no clear end.
In his world, banks always loan money. That’s how he met Donald Trump in the first place, as Trump was running out of money for his New Jersey casinos, it was Ross who reorganized the financial backers to keep Trump in business.
Ross also is personally “disappointed” that TSA workers are calling in sick, as many can’t afford to fill their gas tanks for the drive to work, or pay for child care as they work for free. In his world of a $700,000,000 personal valuation, Ross has never faced the “wolves at the door” moment that some of our government workers are facing now.
And of course, there’s the President himself. In order to claim support, he had his “little talk” with “many people.” During the second week of the shutdown, the President said: “And many of those people, maybe even most of those people that really have not been and will not be getting their money in at this moment, those people in many cases are the biggest fans of what we are doing.”
While there are undoubtedly some government workers who support the President’s proposals, it is much more likely that “many of those people” would like the President and Congress to settle the issue without being volunteered as the sacrificial lambs.
The President, his family, his cabinet; they don’t understand. They didn’t understand the moral outrage of separating kids at the border, and they don’t understand the moral outrage of impoverishing the government workers they need to operate our country. It’s not just wealth: Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and both Bushs’ were all raised in wealth. Yet all of those Presidents still had empathy for the vast number of Americans not born with a silver spoon. It is a personal flaw in this President, his family, and many of his appointees.
Soon though, they will have a different kind of “wolves at the door.” Then they can eat their cake, maybe one with a file baked in it.
