Despite everything that Trump has painted in gold, instructs vendors to create with gold-plate, even directing them that objects be made with gold itself with which to surround him, they are what he is worth as a human being—nothing— totally lacking in praise, esteem, or emulation.
The latest example of this metaphor for Trump’s value is his having been gifted, but more incredulously, then accepting, the Nobel Peace Prize awarded by the Nobel Committee to Venezuela’s opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, who met at the White House with Trump quite recently. This woman opposes Nicolas Maduro’s second-in-command, Delce Rodriguez, (the latter) having taken over once Trump had Maduro as the country’s head detained and arrested in the middle of the night in Caracas, and then transported to the U.S. for an upcoming criminal prosecution and trial.
Me thinks Mchado came to Trump on bended knee to offer him consideration as would any servant to a dictator in order to have him back her to lead Venezuela instead of Rodriguez. For the present, not going to happen.
The problem with Trump accepting this peace prize is that he was NOT awarded it; in fact, the Nobel Committee rejected him when it awarded it to Machado. Second, the prize is non-transferable; it belongs, and always will remain, the possession of the honoree. And, third, rather than refusing the prize even if offered it by the honoree as any self-respecting, esteemed individual with any dignity and morality would do, Trump taking it is illegal, and just shows how low he is willing to stoop to satisfy his insecurities and ego. He is, additionally, too much of a narcissist to realize the error of his way here.
And if, by way of an analogy, Trump accepting his name on, and above, JFK’s on the marquee of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts—which is also illegal since only Congress has the authority to name that structure which it did to honor JFK in 1964 and has never wavered from that decision—he has tarnished the worth of the Nobel Peace Prize by accepting it without the necessary merit to have been awarded it in the first instance, just as he has tarnished the reputation of the Kennedy Center as the nation’s premier performing arts center with his name affixed to it.
So, indeed, with Trump, all that “glitters” [is not] gold”, but, rather, perhaps the more apt phrase should be, “all that glitters is illegal, or fraudulently possessed”. When he leaves office come January 21, 2029 or maybe before as a result of decisions made by lawfully appointed decision-makers in Congress, just as his name must be removed from the moniker of the Kennedy Center, so must the Nobel Committee instruct Trump that Machado’s honor and recognition does not lie with him, never did, and never will.
Miles Zaremski is a resident of the Village of Dunedin.