Line by line, scene by scene and act by act, Donald Trump has been playing his role to perfection in the tragicomedy of the Great Republican Tail-Chase. At times he's the top fool, the kingly jester among mediocre clowns, bellowing soliloquies of comedic angst and chillingly truthful insights. He brays that he's surrounded by jackasses, stiffs, and weak-minded idiots. He can bray with impunity because he is the jester, the one player who's allowed to speak his mind to the purported boss of all bosses — the people. (Whispered aside: "They aren't; that however is just part of the comedy of misperceived roles.")
Yet, as noted, this is a tragicomedy in which Trump co-stars. His lines are not all jokes. Humor plays to the gallery and thus is more manifest in meaning. It's when the Donald waxes serious that we should listen attentively or give a close reading. And this week the jester morphed into the shiveringly villainous when he declared "I am what I am." Palilaliac that he is, Trump was compelled to repeat it. "I am what I am."
I frame those lines as "shiveringly" villainous, for I'll never forget the deep-freeze shock I experienced upon first reading Iago's announcement to Roderigo and audience: "I am not what I am." (Italics mine). Shakespeare was Hitchcock before Hitchcock was cool. There is no unfolding of Iago's villainy in Shakespeare's telling; the playwright puts it right upfront — he tells us who the villain is, in Act 1, Scene 1, and he lets us in, in the villain's own words, on how the villain intends to proceed. To others Iago will seem what he is, but he is not what he is. From there on he weaves his web of deceit, slaughter ensues, and in the end, Iago seals his own doom.
Funny, huh? Ah but it is, in Trump's case, as he assures us far less ironically that he is what he is. But is he? Is he the jester, or is he a villainous player of intricate deceit? That Trump is both comedically and wickedly clever is without question. Who else has commanded the headlines for weeks on end? Who else will have all eyes on him next week? And who else has magnificently exposed the raw hatreds and superficialities of the base audience?
Who cheers for him? The rabble, for the rabble believes Donald Trump is what he is — a reflection of their complex hatreds and easy fixes.
All of which leads me to think that Trump is playing them for The Fool — a fool, in their case, without wits. His Iagoesque deceit is what it is, which is to say, it is not what it is. It is subterranean, not superficial; it's an entertaining, audience-pleasing mix of easy hatreds and no fixes whatsoever; it is a stellar performance of deceit-as-self-doom — a doom in which the self is numerous, and those selves are spread wide.
And there I read Trump as the villain-as-hero. Just as Othello is Iago's play, the Great Republican Tail-Chase is a Trumpian triumph of singular note. It is what it is, and what it is is not what it seems. It is not the audience's bellringing celebration of one man's fearless honesty against the staid, ghastly establishment; it is, rather, the audience's unmasking as a blockheaded fool. And our hero is the one ripping off the mask. In a lovely twist, he himself may not even know that he's more hero than villain in this Shakespearean tragicomedy.
In an even lovelier twist, Trump may be be more applauded than doomed by history. Somebody had to expose the audience, and only Nixon could go to China.