Trump and Aristophanes

 A rather downbeat New York Times article from earlier this week includes the depressing observation that one of Biden's remaining tasks—in the twilight of his administration—is to try to claim what credit he can for "the healthy economy that he is turning over to his ungrateful successor." And indeed, this describes the situation well. 

Biden successfully oversaw the recovery from the pandemic. During his administration, the U.S. economy returned to a robust pace of growth, and the post-pandemic inflation slowed to a manageable rate. Now that Biden has done the hard work of governing while the Fed performed the unpopular task of taming the labor market just enough to bring prices down—he has to hand the keys over to someone who contributed nothing to this difficult task—but who will almost certainly take home all the credit for it. 

But if it's any consolation, this is apparently not a new tactic among demagogues. So, Biden is at least not the first to fall victim to this ruse. I've been reading Aristophanes this past week, and one of the charges he levels against the populist Athenian politician Cleon, in his satirical play The Knights, is that he was forever showing up at the end of a battle to claim credit for other people's victories. (Aristophanes harps particularly upon an episode involving Spartan prisoners). 

Eventually, the allegorical Cleon stand-in gets a taste of his own medicine in this regard. He protests: "you filched what really belonged to me." His antagonist retorts: "You did the same[.]" And the Cleon stand-in (Paphlagon) replies: "But I ran all the risk and roasted the meat." To which his interlocutor responds: "Away! The thanks are for him who serves the food." (Halliwell trans.)

Indeed. Biden and the Fed did all the work in the kitchen of cooking up this Goldilocks economy—not too hot to cause more inflation, but not too cold to raise unemployment. And now, Trump gets to serve the meal that their sweat and labor crafted. And you can bet anything that he—as any Cleon would—will shamelessly reap the thanks for it (so long as he doesn't destroy it before he can even claim credit for it—as his pre-presidential tariff threats and attempts to kill the government spending deal are already threatening to do). 

This credit-stealing is not the only Cleon-like trait of Trump's meanwhile. As the ancient Athenian comic playwright portrays him, at least, Cleon is also forever threatening bogus lawsuits and groundless criminal investigations against his political foes (sound familiar?). He engages in wild conspiracy theories—claiming to be able to detect a plot behind every adverse political outcome he suffers (again: who does that remind you of?). And, at the most basic level, he is a crass illiterate vulgarian—much like Trump. 

Aristophanes was plainly a man for our time. Admittedly, the surreal episodes from his plays are at times almost infuriatingly inane, random, and nonlinear. But then, so is a great deal of postmodern literature and theater. And indeed, Aristophanes, despite writing at the dawn of Western literature, seems to have anticipated its avant-garde and postmodern developments of the twentieth century. 

Here, already—in the fifth century BCE—is the theater of the absurd. Here is Pirandello-style meta-theater. Aristophanes is forever breaking the fourth wall and directly addressing the audience in postmodern metafictional style. He accuses the audience of failing to sufficiently laud his plays and for not having the sense to recognize a good thing when they see it. He even invites an audience member on stage to participate in the final dance scene, in The Wasps. The Blue Man Group has nothing on the Attic playwright. 

But even more than his stylistic devices—what seems so modern (and indeed, contemporary) about Aristophanes is the world he portrays. His Athens is a democracy marked by wild and raucous liberties of speech—but also by the ever-present threat of frivolous litigation which demagogic politicians can use to try to punish their critics and adversaries. We see the same in our own time: just think of Trump's vicious and meritless lawsuit this week against the Des Moines Register for publishing a poll he didn't like. 

And the way Aristophanes writes about the aggressing parties in these lawsuits also suits Trump and his minions to a "t," as they threaten their own bullying litigation against everyone who speaks out against them. Aristophanes refers to the distinct facial expression of "litigiousness," which he defines as: "the what-exactly-are-you-saying? look,/the seeming to be injured when, in fact,/ you're giving injury and doing wrong" look. (Poochigian trans.) 

That is exactly the look Pete Hegseth wore, while his attorney threatened lawsuits to try to silence allegations of sexual assault against him that could derail his Defense Secretary nomination. 

We have become as much a lawsuit-mad society as Aristophanes's Athens ever was. (Indeed, his play the Clouds centers on another figure who could have walked out of our own age—a character who dreams of learning magic arguments in court that will unlock his capacity for evading personal debt. If he were alive today, we think—he would certainly be a "Sovereign Citizen.")

The sinister reality that Aristiphanes's light-hearted comedy seems to be getting at is the way that people can abuse the court system for purposes of extortion and intimidation. And indeed, this is an ugly and far from comic aspect of our own society today. Would that we had an Aristophanes living among us who could sing out our disgust at this reality and give the Cleons of the world a taste of the tongue-lashings they deserve. 

In one of his fourth-wall–breaking addresses to the audience, through the voice of the Chorus leader, Aristophanes at one point congratulates himself on the fact that he never uses the stage to "attack the common folk," but rather: "With a temper worthy of Herakles, he tackled the greatest targets," including the "jag-toothed monster" Cleon (Halliwell trans.). In other words—as we would say today—Aristophanes made a point of punching up with his satire, rather than punching down. 

O Aristophanes, thou shouldst be living at this hour—America hath need of thee! We are a fen of litigiousness and demagogues, of just the sort you knew how to excoriate with your pen. God grant me the temper of Heracles too—and of Aristophanes—to wield the biting satire of my own pen against that bloated Cleon of the present—that constant threatener of lawsuits and bogus investigations—that "jag-toothed monster," Trump!