Cricket

Friends, I won't lie to you—this week's news has been sickening. Over the last eight years, we've watched as Donald Trump steadily purged the Republican Party of anyone who had an ounce of integrity. And now that he is poised to seize power again, the only people left are the ones who have passed through that strainer. As a result, Trump's cabinet picks this week have been a kind of sycophant olympics. The people who were willing to divest themselves of every lingering shred of self-respect are now, perversely, the only ones in a position to reap the rewards. 

There are Trump's downright incendiary picks: like his proposal to install Tulsi Gabbard at the head of the nation's intelligence community—despite (or because of) the fact that she is mostly known for her eerie sympathy with America's adversaries and for being Russian state media's favorite American politician (after, perhaps, Donald Trump himself). There are the picks that smack of sheer MAGA trollery—such as proposing Matt Gaetz as the next Attorney General, or installing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the head of the nation's public health agencies. 

But even Trump's relatively "normal" choices show his obvious preference for lickspittles. Marco Rubio may once have been a credible person, to be sure—but he has completely mortgaged that in recent years by going to bat for Trump in the most brazenly boot-kissing sort of way. Then there was Trump's decision to name Kristi Noem to head the Department of Homeland Security—a red-state governor who has mostly been known over the last year, not only for being a craven Trump loyalist and MAGA acolyte—but for proudly trumpeting the fact that she killed a family dog. 

As I discussed in a previous post, the most jaw-dropping thing about the Noem story is not the mere fact that she shot a dog. Many people euthanize pets for a variety of reasons, and I had assumed at first that she had a good one. The really disturbing thing was the gleeful and sadistic way Noem described the killing. "I hated that dog," she reportedly said. 

And all I can think of, in watching the spectacle of lickspittles like Noem and Rubio lining up to kiss Trump's ass this week, in the hope of some paltry reward and ephemeral power, is what a contrast they make to the genuine loyalty of dogs. Cricket—the animal Noem killed in a gravel pit—was a nobler creature than these base pretenders can ever be. 

This was the point Byron made in his "Epitaph to a Dog." While the arrogance of human theology would claim for humankind a "sole, exclusive heaven," the fact of the matter is that dogs have virtues that human beings could not hope to possess. Who is "foremost to defend"? The dog. Meanwhile, what do we see when we look into the heart of men? "Hypocrisy," writes Byron—and "deceit." Man, the poets writes, is a "feeble tenant of an hour," who is "debas'd by slavery" (yep, that describes all the Trump lickspittles) or else "corrupt by power" (yep, that covers Trump himself, and the rest of them too). 

"Who knows" humankind would "quit thee with disgust," Byron concludes. And such too is my inclination this week, in watching the parade of Trump's craven apologists reap their dearly-bought rewards (a cabinet post for a soul; a government job for the ability to look oneself in the mirror). Seeing all this, I say with John Clare: "I long for scenes where man hath never trod." I long, with Whitman, to turn and live with the animals. I would, with Byron, take the company of Boatswain over the humans who falsely imagine themselves to be his betters. 

I would take the company of Cricket, these days, over the presence of Trump's brown-nosers and all the rest of those "vain insects," as Byron called them—all, that is to say, of debased, power-hungry humanity. Cricket, come home. Cricket, you would be turning in your grave. Cricket—thou shouldst be living at this hour—America hath need of thee!