Evidence of Donald Trump’s racism has not been particularly subtle to find for those willing to see it. One could point to moments throughout his pre-presidential life, such as renting discrimination, attacks on the Central Park Five, or his shameful participation in the birther movement. One could look to his policies that disregard the humanity of immigrants and people of color. Or, one could notice a pattern of references to minority populations that assume that they are less important and valuable than whites.

What is it, then, that distinguishes the latest set of tweets from Exhibits A through Y? Last week, the Republican president posted the following to Twitter (three consecutive tweets are concatenated here, but are otherwise unedited):

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

The difference is that up until now, the racism, though transparent enough, has all been in subtext. Republicans who didn’t subscribe to his hateful messages but still wanted to defend him out of loyalty to Team Red could at least hide behind a veneer of deniability. This is now a thing of the past. Setting aside the fact that the four Congresswomen in question are all United States citizens, and that three of them were born in the United States, telling people to go back where they came from is textbook racism. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission even cites “Go back where you came from” as an example of discriminatory language. There’s simply no debate here.

So of course, there’s a debate here, with many of the president’s apologists rushing to explain why his racist tweets aren’t racist. A handful of Republicans have denounced the comments, but not nearly enough. Others have remained conspicuously silent. And my advice for that last group is that they read themselves some Shakespeare. And while that’s usually my advice for everyone, I recommend that these quiet Republicans direct their attention to the Duke of Buckingham.

Buckingham is a character in Shakespeare’s King Richard III. He is based on a real person, but I am going to focus on the character that Shakespeare created. The play follows the journey of Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Richard starts the play fifth in line to the throne, but through a combination of a can-do attitude and a ruthless campaign of cold-blooded murder, he is able to become king. His partner in crime is the Duke of Buckingham, who is willing to support Richard’s heinous treachery in order to ingratiate himself to power.

At one point, Buckingham makes a suggestion that Richard likes, and the latter responds “My other self,” which is the highest praise a narcissist can offer. Richard continues to express appreciation for the support, and tells Buckingham “when I am king, claim thou of me/ The earldom of Hereford,” as a reward.

Richard ultimately becomes king, but it’s not enough. His late brother’s sons are still alive and could one day make a claim to the throne. He brings the issue up to Buckingham, expecting Buckingham to be the one to suggest killing them.

RICHARD
Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the touch,
To try if thou be current gold indeed:
Young Edward lives; think now what I would speak.

BUCKINGHAM
Say on, my loving lord.

RICHARD
Why, Buckingham, I say I would be king.

BUCKINGHAM
Why so you are, my thrice-renownèd lord.

RICHARD
Ha! Am I king? ’Tis so—but Edward lives.

BUCKINGHAM
True, noble prince.

Richard becomes angry that Buckingham seems to no longer be his other self. He expresses his desire to kill the princes. This is a step too far for Buckingham, but he still lacks the courage to stand up to Richard.

RICHARD
O bitter consequence
That Edward still should live “true noble prince”!
Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull.
Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead,
And I would have it suddenly performed.
What sayst thou now? Speak suddenly. Be brief.

BUCKINGHAM
Your Grace may do your pleasure.

RICHARD
Tut, tut, thou art all ice; thy kindness freezes.
Say, have I thy consent that they shall die?

BUCKINGHAM
Give me some little breath, some pause, dear lord,
Before I positively speak in this.
I will resolve you herein presently.

At this point, an observer notes “The King is angry. See, he gnaws his lip.” Richard wastes no time before finding another lackey to do his dirty work. As for Buckingham, Richard is finished with him.

RICHARD [Aside]
The deep-revolving witty Buckingham
No more shall be the neighbor to my counsels.
Hath he so long held out with me, untired,
And stops he now for breath? Well, be it so.

And that’s all it took, a moment’s hesitation. At this point, all that Buckingham did to put Richard on the throne is forgotten. Only the most recent test of loyalty counts. Richard denies Buckingham the promised and well-earned earldom of Hereford. Buckingham flees. Richard has him captured and executed. So much for him.

And there is a lesson here for those who would defend Trump over the objections of the better angels of their nature. These tweets are not going to be the end of it. It will get worse. So the question you really have to ask yourself is: how far are you willing to go? Because once you hesitate, stop for breath even once, Trump will forget everything you’ve done for him up until that point. The rest of us won’t.

Consider all of the people who are forever tainted with this dark chapter of American history. I’m not talking about people like Stephen Miller, who uses the administration to promote his own white nationalist agenda. I’m talking about people who otherwise might have had distinguished careers, enjoying some kind of public perception of integrity. I’m looking at you, Sean Spicer. I’m looking at you, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. How’s it going, Kellyanne Conway? Everything okay, Lindsey Graham? What’s the first thing you think of when I say “Kirstjen Nielsen”? How will history remember Bill Barr? Who else wants to join the list?

And, literally while I was writing this, our Republican president attacked Representative Elijah Cummings and the city of Baltimore. Are you prepared to take this train all the way to the end? If not, this might be your stop.

This week, Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) became the first 2020 Democratic presidential candidate to end his campaign.

From All’s Well That Ends Well:

All’s Well That Ends Well

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Swalwell tells end: “Halt!”

Over the past two weeks, we’ve been hearing increasingly disturbing reports about conditions in the detention centers along the border. On Monday, a group from Congress went to visit these camps, and they found the claims to be true. According to Mother Jones, the House representatives report the situation is dire:

The testimony from members of Congress who had the rare chance to visit three Border Patrol facilities in Texas this week has been damning: detained women instructed to drink from toilets, pervasive verbal harassment by guards, and conditions that, for many, confirmed their worst fears of the Trump administration’s cruelty at the border.

The president for his part insists that he inherited the family separation policy that led to this situation from the Obama administration. This is, for lack of a better term, a complete bald-faced lie. The Trump administration would have you believe that this is a continuation of the Obama policy and that they were overwhelmed by a sudden increase in people trying to enter illegally. But they volunteered for this job. This situation was created by a policy of his own administration called “zero tolerance.” This meant, in theory, the arrest of anyone attempting to cross the border, but in practice, it included people legally seeking asylum as well.

Under the Obama administration, illegal border crossings were treated as a misdemeanor. Arrests were reserved for those suspected of serious crimes, like trafficking, and those rare instances did involve family separations. However, these were temporary. Under Trump’s policy, the family separations range in the thousands, and because of inadequate record-keeping, the families may not be reunited. Ever.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the cruelty being inflicted on the detainees is not due to a lack of resources, but rather, a deliberate policy choice. A Trump administration lawyer actually argued in court that they weren’t legally obligated to provide soap and toothpaste to detainees. What’s important to remember is that these are children. Their parents did not commit a felony in bringing them here. And even if they had, it would still be our obligation to treat them humanely. Desperately trying to defend the president’s policy, Brian Kilmeade accidentally said the quiet part out loud when he made the case to his viewers that everything’s okay, because these are not our kids.

Notice how he also frames the current crisis as being a result of increased immigration, rather than a deliberate policy decision, while at the same time affirming that the president is trying to send a message. When Kirstjen Nielsen, then Secretary of Homeland Security, was asked last year if the family separation policy was meant as a deliberate deterrent, she was shocked and insulted, and walked away as reporters continued to ask her the question. However, according to then-Chief of Staff John Kelly, it was intended as a deterrent. Cruelty, it would seem, is the whole point.

This intentional performative cruelty has not only created a culture of viciousness among his supporters, but it has also permeated among those tasked with taking care of the detainees. Last week, ProPublica published an exposé of a secret Facebook page for current and former Border Patrol agents that revealed a mocking disdain for the detainees. The stench is noxious, but the fish rots from the head.

We can argue about whether or not our nation’s immigration policy has been strong enough, but no matter where you stand on that issue, the answer isn’t this. You can’t just say “Well, they broke the law” or “Blame the Dems” while families are being ripped apart and children languish in squalor. One hundred years from now, our children’s grandchildren will study this moment alongside the Japanese internment camps as a cautionary tale. We’re already there. Because it’s truly breathtaking that we’re committing such flagrant human rights violations so brazenly out in the open with so little public backlash.

This president likes to strut like a prizefighter, but he has a glass jaw. He will cave to public pressure, as he has done so many times before. We can’t lose our stomachs for this fight. Democrats have one chamber of Congress and the public microphone that goes along with a primary election. We are not without a voice here.

From Henry VI, Part Three:

And there it doth remain,
The saddest spectacle that e’er I view’d.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Let’s eradicate the set dirt-ridden hate camp.

We have to end this.

I’ve been resisting supporting impeachment (rhetorical jokes aside) because I think it’s generally harmful for the country, and all for what? President Mike Pence?

Even when the Mueller report was released, detailing an abundance of evidence of obstruction by the president, and an explicit invitation for Congress to take up the baton (volume 2, page 8), I still wasn’t fully convinced that impeachment was the best option.

I’ve now come around. His behavior since the Mueller report was completed has been far worse than anything that’s in the report, and that’s already a high bar. The difference now is that if his power isn’t checked, it could do long lasting damage to our democracy. President Pence would be bad, but we’d survive it.

The dishonest release of the Mueller findings was just the beginning. We then saw a blanket denial of all Congressional subpoenas for documents and testimony. He’s now starting a ridiculous mock investigation into the FBI to further the cover-up of his crimes. What is impeachment for, if not for this?

In other times, the President of the United States knowingly spreading doctored videos of the Speaker of the House to make her appear drunk or impaired would be the worst thing he did this week. Now, it barely makes the list.

And if he loses in court and a judge tells him to release the documents, and he still refuses, then impeachment may not be the best option. It might be the only option. And who knows what happens next?

From Macbeth:

And you all know, security
Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Motherfucker lousily escalates a snowy indemnity.

Sorry about the language. That’s just how the letters worked out. And civility is so 2018.

Happy 455th Birthday to Shakespeare!

In honor of the occasion, I present… Shakespeare Memes!

It’s hard to do Hamlet.

Not only is the text expansive and emotionally complex, but the title’s iconic place in the culture carries with it unreasonable expectations, overbearing precedent, and insidious overfamiliarity. Fortunately, in the Titan Theatre Company’s current production, director Lenny Banovez doesn’t try to “do Hamlet.” Instead, he delves into the well-known script to discover the play hiding beneath, and works with a top-notch cast to create something both faithful to the text and freshly original at the same time. It was the best production of Hamlet I have ever seen.

The title character was played by Laura Frye. Her Hamlet’s melancholy was mixed with a healthy dose of choler as well. The result was a passionate intensity that heightened the conflict of each scene and created a riveting experience in the theatre. One of the remarkable features of Hamlet is how each scene is a mini-masterpiece in itself. But this production understood how all of the pieces fit together, and I never felt like I was watching a cliché. Frye’s earnest and energetic performance contributed to that a great deal.

I should disclose at this point that I had friends in the cast. I’ve known Annalisa Loeffler (Gertrude) for many years, and I met Michael Selkirk (Claudius) when the two of them performed in The Winter’s Tale a few years ago. So when I tell you they were both electrifying in their roles, you are free to factor in my bias. But like many New Yorkers with theatrical connections, I frequently see friends in all kinds of productions, and they don’t all get that from me, so I’ll just leave it there. I’ll also add that the cast was phenomenal across the board. Hamlet carries the show, but can’t do it alone, and the scene work is what elevated the play from a just another great performance to something truly sublime.

I hadn’t expected any of this when I sat down. I knew the production would be good, and I looked forward to hearing some talented actors perform Shakespeare. As I’ve discussed before, this has a physical effect on my brain, and actually leads to a kind of a high. And indeed, when the court filed in and Selkirk took over the stage with his opening Claudius speech, I was drawn in immediately. The theatre was a small black box, and I was in the front row, so it was an immersive experience from the start. And during the first stretch of the play, through intermission, and well into Act III, I enjoyed the production as I would any well done performance of Shakespeare.

It was somewhere around the closet scene that my world started to tilt. Frye and Loeffler painted each moment with all of the colors in the scene’s palette: rage, disgust, shame, regret. And I found myself feeling the fear and pity that Aristotle associated with the dramatic tragedy.

It just kept getting worse from there. Andrew Garrett played Laertes in his return to Denmark with a strong desire for vengeance, but left himself room for what happens next. Laura Menzie enters as Ophelia, and her mad scene almost had me in tears. Not only was her performance of a difficult scene powerfully empathetic and believable, but Garrett’s reactions built the horror of the scene without drawing focus away from her. By raising the stakes, they keep the momentum of the dramatic action. Menzie and Garrett had been so charming and likeable in their earlier scene together (along with the brilliantly comic Robert Meksin as Polonious, who stole every scene he was in) that when we see the unravelling of their family, we feel the full tragic force of their downfall. And when Gertrude delivers the news that Ophelia has died (Loeffler’s finest moment), Garrett’s reaction makes us understand in our bones that Hamlet is now in serious danger. I was shaking.

And then out comes T. Stacy Hicks in an inspired turn as the Gravedigger, and we have permission to laugh again. Shakespeare sure did know his craft.

I apologize to the cast and crew for using shorthand like “the closet scene” and “the mad scene,” because their performances felt like they were the first time anyone had ever acted these roles, and they don’t deserve to be reduced to a deck of playing cards. But at the same time, Shakespeare purists will have no problems with this production, as even the most creative choices are textually supported. The biggest adaptation was that a lot of the minor characters were conflated into a single character named Osric (portrayed chillingly by Anuj Parik). This Osric was no fop, but rather a stoic bodyguard/lieutenant type of character with a gun who carries out orders from Claudius with ruthless efficiency. But even this choice is well supported by the text, because it’s consistent with the character of Claudius. This is a man who killed his own brother and usurped his nephew to become king; of course, he’d keep a guy like this around.

Titan’s Hamlet is running one more weekend (April 11-14), which is good news for you, and probably for me as well. I’m likely to return to see it again, as well as any production Titan does in the future. Watch this space.

From A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

Thus have I, Wall, my part dischargèd so,
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Trump caved. Bigly.

So this wholly gaga shutdown has ended.

Now, a trial ahead.

The president is paying very close attention to an impending storm this week, and by that, I mean Paul Manafort’s cooperation with the Mueller investigation.

Manafort was candidate Trump’s campaign manager in the summer of 2016. If there was Russian collusion, he would likely have been in the loop. But that’s just the thing we know. This cooperation could potentially produce a long list of shady activities we wouldn’t have even known to ask about.

I won’t speculate any more about that, but if Mueller is cutting a deal, he must be getting something in return. What say you, Shakespeare?

From Henry VI, Part One:

Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Paul flips: a black portent for a cheat sheet.

From Macbeth:

Some say he’s mad; others that lesser hate him
Do call it valiant fury; but, for certain,
He cannot buckle his distemper’d cause
Within the belt of rule.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Fear: Trump in the White House by clearheaded Bob and the calculated anonymous Times article mark the last stretch of this hurt lifeless vision.

John McCain, a war hero turned public servant, passed away yesterday at the age of 81.

From across the political spectrum, tributes too numerous for me to list or link poured in over old media and new media alike. In a moment of apartisan solidarity, I retweeted a touching sentiment from Sarah Palin:

Today we lost an American original. Sen. John McCain was a maverick and a fighter, never afraid to stand for his beliefs. John never took the easy path in life – and through sacrifice and suffering he inspired others to serve something greater than self.

The current president’s tweet was a bit terser: “My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you!”

Brit Hume, of all people, reacted “Still not a kind word about McCain himself.” Indeed.

From Othello:

He hath a daily beauty in his life
That makes me ugly

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

He may sulk, hit hay at a giant he feels humiliated by.