Our tribute to a great man

No man has held America, and the world, spellbound for nearly a decade like Donald J. Trump. But, at 76, Father Time is telling us that he has already lived the average age of the American male, and it’s not too early to think about what to do with him after his natural life is over: Even a great man must die and it’s time to think about our historical tribute to this man whose towering achievements have inspired the public imagination like no other human being before in America.

First, let’s memorialize his great achievements, and then discuss what to do after his death.

Trump’s lifetime achievements can be clearly seen in two modern fields of endeavors: in capitalism and fascism. He became a billionaire in the arena of real estate development, considered the most competitive and unsavory enterprise in our free-wheeling deregulated capitalist era. He embellished his name “Trump” in such a way that his name alone could rake in millions of dollars in profit without producing anything tangible. Typically, he conquered the business world with bravado and guile. Of course, our own peculiar gullibility contributed to his spectacular genius. He said he was a billionaire and America believed his claim.

In political power, he became the leader of America’s fledgling fascist movement with his unique brand of populism and demagoguery, a personal skill that other politicians could only envy and begrudge. His populist instinct and demagogic intuition was so uncanny that, even after he was exposed as the naked emperor, millions of white Americans still flocked to him as their savior and leader. Even through two impeachment attempts by feeble Democrats, he held sway over white America like no other politician ever. After being elected president of America on his first political try, he single-handedly “fascist-ified” the rank-and-file GOP base, U.S. Supreme Court and Republican Congress, now all unrecognizable. This is simply the greatest transformation of American politics and society since 1776.

Human history has never witnessed such a man of singular strengths and attributes for success. Yes, Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, or Peter the Great had recorded greater conquests; moguls like Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Ford, or Andrew Carnegie accumulated more wealth, all true. But no one in our modern history, before or since Trump, has accomplished the very pinnacle of success in both capitalism and fascism to such a phenomenal degree, creating wealth with his name alone and occupying the White House with only naked fear and hate.

Both capitalism and fascism are relatively modern ideologies, one economic and one political, and no man has shown such a remarkable command of agility and verve in both fields of endeavor at the same time. Even as wannabe-fascist president, he carried on with his capitalist business, collecting every dollar he could from the U.S. government, by taking advantage of his political position and power. He left the White House, having refused to call martial law to perpetuate his power, taking only some classified government documents serenely declaring “they are mine.”

Indeed, his casual contempt for human intelligence and social consciousness has never been combined so fortuitously into one single persona in modern history. How could we pay tribute to such an extraordinary man upon his death? Only a grand pyramid or fabulous cathedral would properly fit his incomparable life and achievements.

On my part, I have done much thinking and research on a fitting tribute to this great man after he takes his last earthly breath.

Only today did I come to this fairly brilliant idea: Let’s mummify him! Yes, mummify him! Once we make Trump the Mummy, with plenty of gold to encase his body, as they did with the ancient Egyptian pharaohs and as they do with Jeremy Bentham in modern England, can we say we are doing our duty to honor him.

Jeremy Bentham? We are familiar with the mummies of Egyptian pharaohs, especially the one called King Tut, but are unfamiliar with Bentham. As the founder of utilitarianism, his philosophy — “the greatest happiness for the greatest number,” to pursue pleasure and avoid pain — has become our living creed and made him one of America’s spiritual forefathers. Per his own instructions, Bentham’s mummified body, sealed in a glass cage, is on display at the entrance to the Student Center of University College London. Indeed, he is the perfect model for Trump.

No man in our modern era has enjoyed publicity and craved public adulation more than Donald Trump. Even as he was charged with a crime (perhaps several more to come), he thrived with the attention he was getting while being arraigned. For the eternal attention he would be getting as a mummy-president, he would not be more pleased than to be mummified upon his death. With the cutting-edge mummification technology at our disposal, we can make sure every golden hair on his head and the perfectly tanned facial tonal quality of his will be preserved to satisfy his famous vanity.

Normally, a retiring American president stores his legacy in a “presidential library” where all the documents are housed to represent the legacy. But Trump has not enough documents to fill up a library (even counting the classified documents). Instead, we should build a public shrine, perhaps in the shape of a Trump hotel, for the permanent repository of his mummified legacy.

From his pedestal, he will enjoy the stream of school children on their field trips and throngs of visitors on their pilgrimage to America’s own Mecca.

There, larger than life in every measure, now splendidly reposed in death as a gold-entombed mummy, Trump will be America’s eternal reminder on how easily liberal democracy can turn into populist fascism by just one man

Jon Huer, columnist for the Recorder and professor emeritus, lives in Greenfield.

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