The Incredible Shrinking Trump

In 1957, in the heart of what some term the Golden Age of Science Fiction, a film allegory called The Incredible Shrinking Man was released.

The protagonist of the film, a businessman named Robert Scott Carey, is exposed to that most favored of plot devices of 1950s movies, radioactivity.  As a result of too many roentgens, he begins steadily to shrink, becoming so small as to be able to fit through the tiny openings in a window screen.  But by the end of the film, Carey has accepted his fate with dignity, concluding that he still matters, because to God, there is no zero.

Given the most recent example of solipsistic behavior from Donald Trump, it's hard to imagine Trump arriving at the same degree of enlightenment.  Today, undoubtedly in petulant response to the skilled politics of an intelligent, powerful woman, Mr. Trump rescinded the ability of the Speaker and her associates to use military aircraft to fly to areas of the Middle East in order to visit troops.

I agree with Robert Carey - to God, there is no zero.  Or, as some of the Buddhist teachers whose work I so admire have put it, everything is important.  But even an enlightened approach has trouble discerning redeeming value in Donald Trump.