Sunday Pages: "The Shepherd's Boy"
A fable by Æsop
Dear Reader,
In Milwaukee on Thursday night, Donald Trump was introduced as the GOP’s nominee for president at the Republican National Convention by a once-beloved but long irrelevant professional wrestler who retired in 1993; who was kicked out of his sport’s Hall of Fame for his employment of racial slurs; who was alleged by his ex-wife to have abused her; and whose lone claim to fame for the last thirty years was to use New Right weirdo Peter Thiel’s millions to successfully sue Gawker for publishing clips of a sex tape that showed him and his friend’s wife in flagrante delicto. Presumably, Donald could have found someone more serious to task with this important and highly visible assignment, but no. Trump chose Hulk Hogan.
Hulk Hogan!
This was not Terry Bollea, the actual real human behind the stage persona, coming on stage in suit and tie to speak with the seriousness of purpose the occasion deserved. No. This was a reprise of the “Hulkster” character. He tore away his outer layer, in the manner of pro wrestling, to reveal a TRUMP/VANCE shirt beneath.
I can’t quite wrap my brain around this. I get that Trump’s base probably has fond memories of Wrestlemania. I get that the convention, and politics in general, has become a spectacle, not unlike pro wrestling, so why not tap someone accustomed to riling up large, bloodthirsty crowds. But there are only two viable candidates for president, and one of them was introduced as the nominee at the GOP’s live coronation ceremony by a has-been who became famous by defeating the Iron Sheik at Madison Square Garden in 1983 to win the WWF title. “Whatcha gonna do when Hulkamania runs wild on you!” Hogan would often ask, in his promos. What indeed?
As my friend LB says, Trump shits on what’s holy. The RNC is one more in a long list of people and things that FPOTUS has disrespected, degraded, and defecated upon these last eight years. Once again, Donald has burst like the Kool-Aid pitcher into the Holy of Holies and used it as a latrine. Having that awful ex-pro wrestler reprise his Idiocracy-esque act on that stage was an insult to all Americans. All: MAGA included. We should, all of us, take umbrage. That this grotesque spectacle took place a few days after one of Donald’s ardent supporters was gunned down at a Trump rally makes it that much worse. The tastelessness of it all. The insensitivity. The selfishness.
But then, who better to turn the mic over to Trump than the most recognizable figure in the annals of a fake sport, imbued with fake patriotism, meticulously crafting fake narratives to delight children and gullible grown-ups and separate them from their money? Trump has been involved peripherally with pro wrestling for years, and counts as his supporters Vince and Linda McMahon, who turned the fake sport into a real cash cow. Perhaps there is no more appropriate Donald avatar than Hulk Hogan, who is, in many ways, the former’s doppelgänger. Both peaked in the 80s, were involved with Wrestlemania, work with the McMahons, have a catchphrase, cultivated a fake persona, were caught on tape doing shady things, are litigious, and enjoy Peter Thiel’s munificent funding.
The difference is that Hulk Hogan is a winner. He won all those wrestling matches, and he won millions in his Gawker lawsuit. Trump never came close to winning the popular vote, the candidates he endorses all lose, and he owes the State of New York $400 million. (Whatcha gonna do when Tish James runs wild on you? Open your checkbook, is what.) The Hulkster is a winner, the Fraudster is a loser; why not steal Hogan’s fake valor?
Over the last few weeks, I have referenced the fable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf many times in reference to Donald, so I thought it would be instructive, for “Sunday Pages,” to go back and read the original version—or as close to the original as I could find: Fables of Æsop and Others: Translated into English. With Instructive Applications; And a Print Before Each Fable, by Samuel Croxall, D.D., Late Archdeacon of Hereford,1805.
This is an old story, one of the oldest we have. Æsop, if he existed, was born around 620 BCE, probably in Lydia; he was a slave, possibly African, who won his freedom and became an advisor to King Croesus. (Lydia, incidentally, is where the earliest attributable Greek coins were struck—the first in the Western world—during the reign of that same King Croesus.) He died in Delphi after allegedly insulting the Delphians, being falsely accused of temple theft, and thrown off the side of a cliff.
Croxall has an odd habit, perhaps because his source material was in German, of swapping out the letter “s” for the letter “f.” I have taken the liberty of using the correct letter. I have retained his Germanic-style noun capitalizations:
FAB. CLV
A Certain Shepherd’s Boy kept his Sheep upon a Common, and in Sport and Wantonness would often cry out, The Wolf! The Wolf! By this Means he several Times drew the Husbandman in an adjoining Field from their Work; who, finding themselves deluded, resolved for the Future to take no notice of his Alarm. Soon after, the Wolf came indeed. The Boy cried out in Earnest. But no Heed being given to his Cries, the Sheep are devoured by the Wolf.
Five sentences. Not much to it. What does it mean? Croxall writes:
He that is detached for being a notorious Liar besides the Ignominy and Reproach of the Thing, incurs this Mischief that he will scarce be able to get anyone to believe him again, as long as he lives. However true our Complaint may be, or how much forever it may be to our Interest to have it believed, yet if we have been frequently caught tripping before, we should hardly be able to gain Credit to what we relate afterwards. Though Mankind are generally stupid enough to be often imposed upon yet few are so senseless as to believe a notorious Liar, or to trust a Cheat upon Record. These little Shams, when found out, are sufficiently prejudicial to the Interest of every Person who practices them but when we are alarmed with imaginary Dangers and Respect of the Public, till the Cry goes quite stale and threadbare, how can it be expected we should know when to guard ourselves against real ones?
Things have changed, it appears, since 1804. Mankind are generally stupid enough, as Croxall suggests, but many believe a notorious Liar, enough to trust the Cheat upon Record with the Republican nomination. Fie!
Recent editions offer a more succinct moral: “Liars are not believed even when they speak the truth.”
Here’s the heartbreaking part: When we apply this fable to Trump and his wounded ear, we cast him as the Shepherd Boy, and us as the Husbandmen who, having been fooled too many times before, refuse to believe a word he says, even if what he says winds up being true.
But after the incident described in the fable, what becomes of the Boy and the Husbandmen? Nothing of consequence. The Husbandmen suffer a financial loss. The Shepherd’s Boy, the proto-troll from Ancient Greece, is still young, and so presumably learns his lesson—although this is an assumption; we don’t know for sure. He was likely shunned socially. Certainly he was never again trusted to protect a flock, let alone nominated to be the President of All the Sheep!
But it’s the sheep who pay the ultimate price for the Boy’s lies. That’s who the real victims are. In our Trump analogy, the sheep are the rallygoers last weekend in Butler, PA, and the dutiful MAGA who showed up at the RNC with maxi pads scotch-taped to their ears, to show solidarity with their Good Shepherd. (Maybe Trump’s bizarre infatuation with Hannibal Lecter derives from the serial killer’s famous line: “Have the lambs stopped screaming, Clarice?”)
The real moral of the Æsop fable, as applied to the current day, is this: when Trump tells a lie, Americans die. That’s what happened during the pandemic, when his mendacity cost the lives of some 300,000 of us. And that, tragically, is what came to pass last Saturday in Pennsylvania.
Whether his ear was grazed by a bullet or cut by shattered glass, Donald is fine. He played 18 holes the next day. The sheep who flocked to see him at the rally were not so lucky. For three of them especially, the Wolf was all too real.
ICYMI
Great discussion on The Five 8 with Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.Us, on the dangers of Project 2025:
NOTES
Friend of the show Sharon Dymond, a graphic artist, has some new coffee designs up on her Fabled Labels store.
Nina Burleigh’s excellent debut novel, Zero Visibility Possible, is now available in paperback and e-book formats.
Rough Beast is now available in audiobook format.
Photo credit: Evelyn Saenz via Flickr. Cards for playing the wolf and sheep game, part of the Big Bad Wolf Unit Study.
“The real moral of the Æsop fable, as applied to the current day, is this: when Trump tells a lie, Americans die. That’s what happened during the pandemic, when his mendacity cost the lives of some 300,000 of us. And that, tragically, is what came to pass last Saturday in Pennsylvania.”
We cannot let anyone forget this.
We sheep ought to remember what the good shepherds have for dinner. Lamb chops. Ain't no picnic for us. Billserle.com