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Donald Trump, as some of his most ardent fans will admit, is not always a a paragon of personal virtue. Although the president’s assistants sometimes treat him as if he is small, as a political scientist Daniel Drezner noticedhe is not particularly well-mannered. Trump frequently behaves in ways that would result in detention or other punishment for an elementary school student: bald-faced dishonesty, name-calling, impoliteness, refusal to share, and inability to use your inner voice. In other words, Trump sometimes seems to have missed all the lessons children should learn from fables and fairy tales. (Meanwhile, his administration is seeking to evict some lessons on tolerance from classrooms.) But perhaps it’s ruthless: Trump doesn’t ignore those fairy tales; he just teaches them different lessons than the familiar ones. Here’s a collection of classic stories and their morals, reinterpreted for MAGA political correctness.
“The Three Billy Goats Gruff”
Plot: Three goat brothers must cross a bridge guarded by a malicious troll who wants to eat them. Walking in succession, they manage to trick the greedy troll into waiting for the third and eldest brother, who throws him into the water and kills him. Once the troll is killed, the bridge is free for all.
morally: Goats could save time and earn money threatening destroy the bridge and kill the troll, then suggest a joint venture with the troll to share the proceeds paid by those who want to cross the bridge.
The Rainbow Fish
Plot: The fish is covered with beautiful iridescent scales. The tick makes him very proud, but also isolates him in society, because the other fish envy them and resent the Rainbow fish for not sharing. After giving away a scale, he makes his first friend. He soon shed all but one of his scales, and with the other fish he formed a close-knit social group.
morally: Friendships are fundamentally transactional.
“Goldilocks and the Three Bears”
Plot: A family of three bears, preparing breakfast, finds it too hot to eat and decides to take a walk. When they return, they find that a girl named Goldilocks has tried their breakfast, sat in (and broken one of) their chairs, and is now sleeping in one of their beds. Goldilocks, startled by the arrival of the bear, jumps out of the window and is never heard from again.
morally: People with golden hair are entitled to anything they want and they must not have consequences for their actionsespecially if they are official acts.
“Pied Piper of Hamelin”
Plot: The citizens of a small German town besieged by a rat infestation hire a man with a magic pipe to lure the rodents, which he does, coaxing them to their deaths in a nearby river. But when he comes to collect the reward, the local authorities refuse to pay him. In retaliation, the piper uses his instrument to lure the town’s children, who are never seen again.
morally: Always pay sellers what they owe them. Charismatic European leaders are a threat to the future of your society.
“The Ant and the Grasshopper”
Plot: The hard-working ant gathers food for the cold months all summer long, while the lazy grasshopper dances and sings. When winter comes, the grasshopper is cold and hungry and goes to beg for food from the ant, who refuses to share any of his bounty, resenting the grasshopper for not planning.
morally: Ants are small and weak, and the grasshopper is under the title to destroy them and take the food he needs. He could also consider introducing tariffs.
“Hansel and Gretel”
Plot: Two young children have been abandoned in the wilderness by their parents, who cannot afford to feed them. They arrive at the witch’s house, who locks them up and plans to cook and eat them. But when the witch tries to put Hansel in the oven, Gretel pushes her inside instead, burning her to death. The children, freed, take the witch’s treasure and return home with the means of subsistence.
morally: Unaccompanied minors they are a violent danger and must be expelled.
“Rumpelstiltskin”
Plot: After a foolish miller falsely claims that his daughter can spin straw into gold, the king imprisons her and says he will marry her if the story is true and kill her if it is not. Crying in her cell, she is visited by a magical devil who offers to turn straw into gold in exchange for her firstborn. The ruse worked and she marries the king and gives birth to a child. The Imp returns for the baby and the Queen is deprived. The girl agrees to drop her request if she can guess his name, the wildly improbable “Rumpelstiltskin”. Although she can’t guess the name, she hears him say it to himself and manages to hold her child.
morally: If you are in business turning things into goldtrying to stay hidden is counterproductive. Just paste your name all over everything.
“Cinderella”
Plot: The girl is being bullied by her stepsisters, who call her Cinderella. One day an invitation arrives for all the young women to come to the ball so that the prince can choose a wife. The evil stepsisters force Cinderella to stay at home working, but her fairy godmother gives her a magical dress and carriage – with the warning that she must be gone by midnight, when she will return to her normal appearance. At the ball, the prince is smitten but can’t get her name before she storms out shortly before midnight, leaving behind a single glass slipper. The next day he searches the kingdom until he finds a woman who fits the slipper and marries her. They live happily ever after.
morally: The message of this story is confusing, riddled with mysteries and contradictions. Why would you what matters is whether the shoe fitsand why would a rich prince want to stay married to the same person forever? And how big was the prince’s ballroom anyway?
Related:
Here are three new stories from Atlantic:
Today’s news
- The The Strait of Hormuz has been reopened for commercial trafficaccording to the Iranian foreign minister. However, President Trump said on social media that the US blockade of Iranian ships will remain until “OUR TRANSACTION WITH IRAN IS 100% COMPLETE”.
- A A 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has come into effectprompting thousands of displaced families to return to southern Lebanon. Israeli forces remain in Lebanon and have warned residents not to return, and Hezbollah has not clearly backed the ceasefire.
- Testifying before members of the House of Representatives, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said a new study found no link between Tylenol use in pregnancy and autism “garbage” and should retire.
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Evening reading
Iran had Doomsday weapons all along
Author: Alan Eyre
President Trump said he went to war to prevent Iran from ever having a nuclear bomb. Unfortunately, the war it launched led Iran to discover that it already had an extremely effective doomsday weapon—one that promised the economic equivalent of mutual assured destruction. The Strait of Hormuz has always been vulnerable; The United States has always known that Iran might try to shut it down if attacked. But neither Washington nor Tehran imagined how easy it would be for Iran to do so, how difficult it would be for the US to reopen it, or how widely and quickly the economic effects of the closed strait would dissipate.
More than Atlantic
Culture Break
Look. David Sims on a real crisis The Pitt‘s season two (now streaming on HBO Max).
Read. Mankind devised a a new form of humiliationthe eighth deadly sin, writes James Parker.
Rafaela Jinich contributed to this newsletter.
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