The Democratic Response to Trump, Compromise, and It’s a Wonderful Life
The antagonist of It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) says, “I want you to manage my affairs, run my properties. George, I’ll start you out at twenty thousand dollars a year…You wouldn’t mind living in the nicest house in town, buying your wife a lot of fine clothes, a couple of business trips to New York a year, maybe once in a while Europe. You wouldn’t mind that, would you, George?” George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) responds, “Well, what about the Building and Loan?”
The reply from Potter? “Oh, confound it, man, are you afraid of success?” George says, “I know I ought to jump at the chance, but…I wonder if it would be possible for you to give me twenty-four hours to think it over?”
“Sure, sure, sure. You go on home and talk about it to your wife…In the meantime, I’ll draw up the papers. Okay, George?” comes the answer. The two shake hands until George stares down at what he’s doing with Mr. Potter. “No, now wait a minute, here!” he says. “I don’t have to talk to anybody! I know right now, and the answer is no! No! Doggone it! You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn’t, Mr. Potter! In the whole vast configuration of things, I’d say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider.”
Tired of the Bailey Building and Loan being the one thing stopping him from boundless success and power (but not wealth), Mr. Potter offers a compromise to George Bailey, but he does not count upon the will of the latter, who is entirely uninterested in compromising his own integrity. To work for Potter is akin to selling one’s soul to the devil. The devil of Bedford Falls, mind you.
Such an act as this is what makes me so concerned about the way democratic lawmakers are reacting to President Trump. So many are eager for a return to the status quo that at the moment of slightest coherence, they declare that the commander in chief is fit for his office. And clearly, he is not. Someone more concerned with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Snoop Dogg than the wellbeing of his own constituents is hardly a well-to-do elected leader. And you get people who talked a lot of talk (like, oh, maybe Tim Kaine for example) and then capitulate almost entirely to Trump and his cabinet nominees. What the Democratic establishment fails to realize is that their base is attracted to spines. So please, stand up to the ones offering you a bargain. Because they wouldn’t be offering a deal with you if it wasn’t expressly beneficial for their own desires.
It’s a Wonderful Life gives us another lesson about compromise in such a way that it can relate to our current political climate, as well. Mr. Potter is a truly despicable man; there is no denying this fact. But at the end of the movie, when George is surrounded by love from the people whose lives he has touched, Mr. Potter is not punished for what he did. He does not go to prison for taking the Baileys’ money and he still remains the most powerful man in Bedford Falls. From Potter’s point of view, he won. Even though we all know that George Bailey is the one who genuinely wins in the movie.
The same logic has to be applied to the current administration. For good to prevail once again, it cannot and should not be wholly dependent on the failure of Donald Trump. It is incredibly likely that he is going to vacate the presidency with more money than he came in with and more fame than any American in history and more power than a businessman could ever think possible. From his perspective, he is going to win, if he hasn’t won already. We have to be okay with achieving our own success even if President Trump does not suffer for what he’s done.
His own suffering has no bearing on the future of the democratic party. As good as it would feel anyway. Take solace in the idea that, in the grand scheme of things, Trump is nothing but a spider. And I hate spiders.
Next week: Neo-Nazis, justice, and the characters of Captain America and Indiana Jones.
