In Elizabethan England, masques were a common form of entertainment.
They usually involved costumed, dancing courtiers, even the kings and queens themselves, masked around elaborate sets, with professional actors performing the singing and spoken parts. They usually (but not always) flattered the court itself and sometimes took the form of interludes in larger productions. Elizabeth I expected them on her travels through her kingdom and was generally presented with a fawning version of the former. Shakespeare's masque in The Tempest, however, is a good example of the latter. That masque, a play within the play, celebrates authority while the play itself highlights the vulnerability of those who exercise it. His masque is thus metaphorically unmasked by the play itself.
And makes it more honest.
Something typical of the bard.
By the mid-17th century, however, masques were on the wane, most likely a victim of the English Civil War in which Puritans closed the theatres, one of their (and Cromwell's) many sins. Though performed in eras thereafter, they were not as popular, and as theatre moved beyond the 19th and into the 20th century, their greatly reduced numbers became vehicles mostly to create change in the performing arts themselves. In the 19th century, masques resurrected English musical composition; in the 20th, one tried to revolutionize dance.
The old masque, the lavish performance of disguised praise or of Shakespeare's not so disguised interlude of unmasking, had died . . .
And then came Covid.
For the past two weeks. America has lived on a psychological knife edge, poised between the ennui of social distance and stay at home quarantines on the one hand and the hoped for return to some form of normal -- a job, a restaurant, a meeting other than on Zoom -- on the other. Unfortunately for us, though he can monopolize the airwaves and social media, our Commander-in-Chief is no therapist in chief.
Past presidents knew how to share our feelings, to empathize, to console. Reagan would not let us forget "the crew of the space shuttle Challenger . . . as they waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God'". Clinton felt our pain, most acutely in the wake of the Oklahoma bombing. W stood atop a pile of rubble and "heard" all of us as we sat stunned, almost emotionless, days after 9/11. And Obama cried after Sandy Hook and sang "Amazing Grace" in Charleston.
Trump is . . .
Different.
And weirdly so.
He seems to have never met an anxiety in others he was not willing to exploit . . .
Or one in himself he was not willing to hide.
Early on, before the death toll approached 100,000, coronavirus was mocked. It was a "hoax" that would magically evaporate as the mercury rose. When magic failed, it became the fault of a mute WHO unwilling to sound the alarm . . . or of Obama, who supposedly left the cupboard bare of needed PPE and ventilators . . . or of "fake news", who never gave him credit but would gleefully hoist him on various petards -- hydroxychloroquine, ingested disinfectant, more lies about testing than it was possible to count. He sought to artificially depress the numbers by leaving sick people at sea. His CDC drafted a plan with metrics to govern re-opening, but he deep-sixed the plan (apparently) because it was too austere. The one he published in April set out phased re-opening periods linked to continuing two week declines in cases.
But it was promptly ignored by the states that wanted to re-open . . .
And then by Trump himself.
The doctors -- Fauci and Birx and Bright -- have either been demoted (Bright) or sidelined (Fauci) or ignored (Birx). Dr. Bright, formerly the head of the federal government's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), identified the equipment and shortage problems last year and long before the outbreak could have had the administration up to speed had it listened. It didn't; so after he filed a 300-page whistle-blower complaint, it demoted him. Dr. Fauci went into self-quarantine after being exposed and has otherwise been scarce over much of the past three weeks; nevertheless, his virtual testimony at a mid-May Senate hearing warned that premature re-openings risked an enormous second wave. For her part, Dr. Birx keeps touting the need to take precautions, practice social distancing and wear a mask in public. But this is advice . . .
Her boss and his more ardent fans ignore.
Maskless, Trump visited a Ford factory in Michigan last week. Again maskless, he laid a Memorial Day wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington yesterday. He travels hither and yon quite conspicuously unmasked, in part (he says) because he does not want to give the press "the pleasure of seeing it." His supporters are even more obdurate. Lake of the Ozarks, a Missouri vacation spot, was a maskless, sardine like crowd of bathers literally breathing on each other over the Memorial Day holiday. The week before, protesters in Suffolk County on New York's eastern Long Island were lined up holding Trump 2020 signs and cursing out "fake news" as one accosted a reporter within inches of his face even after being asked to step away.
All this is Trump's play within the play.
The main event is a heart wrenchingly slow wrestle with an often lethal virus that spreads quickly and against which there is no known cure. While researchers the world over work overtime to come up with a vaccine, dilution and seclusion are the only available antidotes. That means staying apart (social distancing), keeping our germs to ourselves (wearing a mask in public), and avoiding large crowds (some form of quarantine or stay at home). If those practices are consistent with re-opening, and sooner or later they will have to be lest we all go broke, the new normal will be nothing like the old.
Trump's performance, however, is an elaborately staged counterpoint, a steady stew of self-congratulation, denial and deceit.
He praises himself and condemns his predecessor even as he creates an unmatched record of incompetence. Intelligence back in December warned of the pandemic but was ignored. BARDA knew of the equipment shortages at the same time but was sidelined. China was at best negligent and at worst complicit in the spread of the virus early on but had to first be praised because our own Wizard of Oz thought that was the string that then needed to be pulled. Thereafter, he closed the border but was too late . . .
And in any case closed the wrong one.
New York City had already become a host city thanks to some Italian tourists.
He flouts the mask, even re-tweeting a Fox news bit yesterday that mocked Joe Biden for having worn one in his own holiday visit to a war memorial. The Ford plant he visited last week requires masks but he gave those workers the proverbial middle finger . . .
Just to get even with the press.
He turbo-charges the non-compliant, either with false futures (his much ballyhooed Easter re-opening) . . . or with LIBERATE tweets to camouflaged militants who the virus can overrun before they've even cocked their pistols . . . or with lies that undermine science (it's all a "fake news" hoax) . . . and so makes it permissible to ignore -- as he does -- his own advisors.
He's a modern day masque . . .
Without a mask.
Literally, he refuses to wear one, and figuratively, his phoniness unmasks his performance. There is nothing great or perfect or even all that competent about it, all of his word salad and tweeted insults to the contrary notwithstanding. The death toll mounts, the division grows, the denial remains, and the uncertainty continues.
At the end . . .
Only the courtiers are dancing.
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