The President and his Fool

     In Shakespeare's King Lear, the fool and Lear exchange some the most humorous and honest dialogue.  The Fool, for all his discursive ramblings, imparts warnings and wisdom to the King who, of course, takes only his own counsel.  By the third act of the play the Fool vanishes, leaving Lear raging against the wicked duplicity of Regan and Goneril.  Mad though he is, our sympathy for the arrogant king must be unrelenting.  His decision to leave the kingdom to his daughters so he may romp freely through the land, unburdened by the demands of ruling, is his colossal and arrogant blunder, but is nevertheless forgivable.   Because Lear sees only the antecedent world he ruled, he believes he will always command the fealty he took for granted as King.  His Fool (and others) knows better.

     Today we have our own mad leader, Donald Trump, who spouts his rage on Twitter against all the reporters who refuse him the fealty he demands of them.  But there is one media personality who genuflects nightly to him; who praises everything Trump says or does; and who serves as one of Trump's most valued advisers.  He is Sean Hannity.  Over the course of the 2016 campaign and during Trump's presidency, Hannity morphed into the role of a medieval fool.  Unlike Lear's honest Fool, Hannity has never offered Trump honest or remotely accurate facts.  If he had, he wouldn't remained Trump's most trusted friend in radio and on television.  As everyone knows, advisers who state facts candidly find themselves dismissed summarily from Trump's retinue. 

     Just as Lear and the Fool make a perfect contrapuntal pair, Trump and Hannity form a perfectly synergistic one.   Both men pathologically hate the media; this hatred often curdles their speech with invective and coarseness.  Both men have also never met a conspiracy about their opponents that they didn't delight in promoting.  Trump and Hannity promoted the smear that President Obama was not born in the United States.  In fact, after Obama had released his birth certificate, Hannity continued to push the conspiracy and in October, 2016 offered to buy Obama and his family a ticket to leave the country.  https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/hannity-obama-kenya-birthers-230317

     As with Trump, Hannity enjoys also smearing conservatives with insinuations that have no basis in fact.  While interviewing Trump during the primaries, Hannity permitted Trump to advance the conspiracy that Ted Cruz's father was involved in the assassination of JFK.  Even conservative publications, such as National Review, have chided Hannity for his spreading conspiracy theories.  One particular egregious example was when Hannity zealously hyped the conspiracy that Hilary Clinton and the DNC had Seth Rich murdered.  https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/05/sean-hannity-seth-rich-conspiracy-theory-disgrace/ 

     Of course, a favorite conspiracy of Trump and Hannity is the "Deep State" and the evil FBI.  According to Hannity, the "Deep State" consists of secret operatives within the government, usually Obama appointees, who are scheming to  destroy Trump's presidency.  Hannity's suspicion of the covert state with the state sounds vaguely familiar.  Could it be that Hannity has watched "Three Days of The Condor" and fancies himself a contemporary coiffed and severely lacquered Robert Redford?  Hannity has attributed the Russian hacking of the 2016 election to this "Deep State."  He alleges the CIA possibly hacked the election and made it appear as if the Russians did it.  He purports that Mueller is working with Comey and the Clintons and all of them, as members of the "Deep State," are colluding to bring down Trump's presidency.

     Some might dismiss Hannity's dissemination of conspiracy theories as just more rantings of another right wing quack.  Unfortunately, millions of Americans believe his lies.   And Hannity's influence extends beyond the average citizens who listen to his radio program and watch his Fox broadcast.  President Trump watches Hannity's television program regularly and frequently calls Hannity for advice and talking points.  http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-kelly-20171010-story.html  After listening to Hannity alternately sing praises of Trump or rail against the president's critics,  Trump reciprocates, by exclaiming how great Hannity is personally and offering endorsements of Hannity's show. 

     The President and his Fool share more than just mutual admiration.  They belong to an unmistakable fraternity of misogynous men who pretend to respect women, but really regard them as simply subordinate to men.   When people point out this obvious sexism, they attack them, calling them agents of the politically correct thought police.  We all have  heard the repeated stories of Trump's salacious exploitation of women.  And what of Hannity?  No stories have surfaced about Hannity abusing or taking advantage of women; but there is plenty of evidence of his sexist personality.  But he certainly revealed his sexist mentality when he commented that Hilary Clinton came across as a grandmother more qualified to change diapers than be President of the United States.  Here is an insult about a woman who has been a lawyer, senator and Secretary of State; Hannity's experience has been that of a dishonest, pontificating knave. 

     Hannity's comment about Hilary Clinton is just a small extract of the extent of his sexist attitude  toward women.  To take full measure of the menace of his misogyny consider his attempt to defend Trump after the Access Hollywood tape revealed Trump's assertion that he could sexually assault women with impunity; or his support of serial sexual harassers Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly; or his initial defense of the degenerate predator Roy Moore.  Trump and his Fool may profess their belief in the equality of women and men, but no one is fooled by their false words.

     Lear's Fool loves his King, and though his ironic discourse never punctures Lear's illusions, his wit never strays from truth.  The  Fool lays before Lear facts that Lear listens to but never hears.  Thus the tragedy rolls inexorably through the play's bloodletting and deaths.  Trump's Fool, on the other hand, hears distinctly all his master says and faithfully recycles conspiracies and lies the President tells or needs to be told to uphold the unethical and sordid farce unfolding day after day in Washington and Mar-a-Largo.  In Hannity, Trump has his devoted Fool; in Trump, Hannity his glorious leader.  Now the rest of us have to endure two insufferable fools until election or impeachment or indictment thankfully removes one of them.