The president-elect and his unelected mega-billionaire buddy have gone full Dickens in their attempts to make greed great again.
Reginald Owen, who plays Scrooge, talks to his deceased business partner Marley, played by Leo G. Carol, during the 1938 MGM production Christmas song.
Charles Dickens, in his most famous 19th-century moral, introduced us to the “squeezing, plucking, grabbing, scraping, grabbing, greedy, old sinner” Ebenezer Scrooge. Today, Scrooge’s name has become synonymous with the vindictive and destructive greed practiced by our billionaire class.
No serious reader Christmas song It is doubtful that if the author of so many of literature’s greatest popes were before the public conscience, Dickens would have called out the old sinners of the incoming Trump administration. He will be especially at odds with the president-elect and his meddling associate Elon Musk, who have created a modern version of the partnership of Scrooge and Jacob Marley, who – before the late Mr. Marley was heavily burdened and sincerely repentant through the afterlife – were partners in greed.
Despite Trump’s November voter turnout, Musk does not hold elected office. However, even if he enjoyed the relative legitimacy of a cabinet position, it would not justify the brutal shenanigans of his Department of Public Administration. Or about Trump’s respect for Musk’s shadow government. None of these misanthropes has the popular mandate they are now claiming for attacking the interests of the poor, vulnerable, sick and elderly.
However, as Christmas approached this year, Trump and Musk joined forces to support a budget resolution that, among many noble initiatives, included funding fight childhood cancerwith the duo claiming that the resolution contained “unnecessary waste.” This intervention, more Scrooge than Scrooge, created a storm about the heartless brutality of people who, due to the growing influence of an unelected mega-billionaire, are now called “President Musk” and “Vice President Trump”.
An attempt by Musk and Trump to scrap Gabriella Miller’s first child study Act 2.0 was quickly overturned by a bipartisan coalition in the Senate. But the protracted settlement fiasco wasn’t the only Dickensian measure unveiled by Musk and his partner at the Department of Government Efficiency, Vivek Ramaswamy. These privileged charlatans are now, with the encouragement of a growing number of Republicans in Congress, openly considering the prospect of “entitlement cuts” that would tear up the social safety net and, many fear, clear the way for Republicans to realize their historic goal of privatization of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
The headlines tell how supporters of the promise to “Make America Great Again” defined “again” sometime in the winter of 1843. Rolling Stone the header declares“Elon Musk wants to pay for your Social Security and Medicare tax cuts.”
This is quite a Dickensian equation, the kind the author expected in the opening note Christmas song.
Remember how Scrooge was approached by the gentlemen who appealed to his “liberality” to “make a little relief for the poor and destitute who suffer greatly at the present time”?
The public benefactor informed Scrooge that “a number of us are trying to raise funds to buy the poor people meat and drink and heating. We choose this time because it is the time of all others when want is keenly felt and abundance rejoices. Why are you being imprisoned?”
“Nothing!” – answered Scrooge. He explained: “I don’t have fun at Christmas myself, and I can’t afford to make idle people happy.” When informed that he could relieve the burden of the poor, he replied, “That is none of my business.”
So began Dickens Christmas songa book that repeated the radical tenor of the time when the world began to recognize the truth that poverty and desolation should not be accepted by civil society – or civilized people. Dickens made Scrooge speak the language of the corrupt merchants and politicians who opposed the revolutionary movements sweeping Europe as the author composed his ghost tale.
Dickens imagined that the inspired ghosts of Christmas past, present and future would change Scrooge. After a disturbing Christmas Eve, during which he was mentored by a dead and repentant Marley, the businessman was in a hurry on the streets of London and ran into one of the gentlemen. Scrooge announced his desire to give generously to the current collection and to provide that “it includes a great many arrears, I assure you.”
The poor suddenly became the business of the miser. So it was that Scrooge became “as good a friend, as good a host, and as good a man as the good old town, or any other good old town, town, or small town in the good old world, knew.”
Scrooge has changed. But there is no sign yet of the Scrooges of today “glowing with the good intentions” that made Dickens’s old sinner a better man. Indeed, there is every evidence that the brutality of Trump and Musk could put Ebenezer Scrooge and Jacob Marley to shame. We can only hope that the ghosts of conscience are on their way — along with the day when we all get to celebrate Christmas well.
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