This mess just got even uglier
I am weary of news about the plane. It seems a minor folly compared to a government kidnapping and deporting legal residents and kids with cancer, the former into brutal foreign prisons and the latter without medical support. Resources are being ravaged, the economy is being deliberately tanked, habeas corpus is being suspended and a dictator is sinking his putrid, orange talons into the Constitution and ripping out whole sections and amendments.
So yeah, I’m a little sick of the topic. But I don’t understand why journalists and politicians keep missing the mark on the plane. For those of you who stopped reading the news, or just awoke from a coma, Trump accepted a gift of a $400 million luxury 747-8 jet plane, a “flying palace,” from the royal family of Qatar. The idea that Trump and his pirate ship of goons and thugs are corrupt isn’t exactly a news flash.
But the idiotic MAGA excuse that, because America accepted the Statue of Liberty from the French people, the plane is okay, doesn’t fly (if you’ll pardon the expression) for reasons much different from those often being stated. Yes, Congress approved the statue. Yes, the gift was accepted by Ulysses S Grant on his last day in office, but it wasn’t built and dedicated until Grover Cleveland was in office, some nine years later.
The reason the Statue of Liberty was okay and the plane is not is because France was an ally and Qatar is a terrorist state. France gave the statue to the American people, not to a corrupt asshole. The statue was meant to inspire us, to thank us for our perseverance as a free democracy, to remind us that the idea of freedom is so vital and enduring to the human spirit as to merit a monument. Grover Cleveland didn’t get to keep it and convert it into a condo.
The plane is a personal gift to Trump, a bribe, cynically wrapped in legalese. Yes, it belongs to the Air Force for now. But Trump gets to keep it after he (thank Christ) finally leaves office, because ownership passes to the most absurd triple oxymoron in the history of the English language: The Donald J Trump “presidential” “library.”
Trump will get personal use of the plane for the rest of his life. That could be a while. His mother lived to 88, his father to 93, he does, despite his appalling diet, have long life genes. He could even sell the damn thing if he wants. He may have to. Trump is so bad with money he could easily squander the billions he’s corruptly stealing by exploiting the presidency. He’s done that kind of thing before.
So let’s be clear. While the technical reasons why the Statue was okay and the plane is not are all true, they are long and complicated and don’t resonate with the most vital reason. The plane is a luxury item for a pig, no offense to pigs. The Statue, on the other hand, enshrines everything that’s good about America, its liberty and generosity. Above all — and most ironically — it symbolises a nation that welcomes and encourages immigration. It understands what it’s like to be tired, to be poor, to be huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.