Washington began this week awash in the stereo surround-sound of America's two most famously flamboyant flimflammers, simultaneously treating our capital to their identically themed song-and-dance routines.
It was a spectacle unlike anything we've seen bathed in the often-dueling musical comedy spotlights of Broadway and Pennsylvania Avenue. No wonder Washington's overburdened press corps couldn't quite tell which one was the most real phony.
At the Kennedy Center, in what was reviewed as a stunning revival of "The Music Man," a new Professor Harold Hill (Norm Lewis) launched into the comedy hit that made Robert Preston a legend (and vice versa!). My pundit colleagues' confusion began the moment he began singing and dancing that classic refrain: "Ya Got Trouble right here in River City!" The skillful con artist whipped the folks of fictional River City into a frenzy. He wailed about the opening of a little ol' pool hall, twisting untruths into a crisis only he could solve! And yes, he soon had those locals parroting his silly refrain: "Trouble! Trouble! Trouble!"
Just blocks away, President Donald Trump was at the White House, tweeting and interviewing and giving us that identical refrain. He'd long ago mastered Professor Hill's art of the con. We saw it on Campaign Day One, when he rode down on his gold-and-pink-marble Trump Tower escalator into a sea of populism-and began riffing on Professor Hill's "Ya Got Trouble" theme. Trump's version combined the Trouble in River City lyrics of "The Music Man's" legendary composer Meredith Willson (yes, he's got two Ls) with the motivational notions of an earlier lyricist named Machiavelli. Trump's combination gave us his campaign of fear and loathing-and the centerpiece was his nonstop warnings that criminals, drug dealers and way worse are swarming across the Mexico border and into our homeland. He insisted he alone could save us-by building a new, huge concrete wall from sea-to-shining-sea!
Soon, Trump had conned his crowds as skillfully as Professor Hill did-even managing to get them to parrot his lines: "Build that wall!" Also: Who will pay for the wall? "Mexico!"
INTERMISSION: Every half-smart person could spot those artistic cons. Professor Hill was conning River City's folks into buying band instruments. Trump was conning us into buying him a wall. He knew Mexico would never pay for it; his Plan A was always to make America's taxpayers pay for it.
On Monday evening, Trump departed the Potomac River city that is his temporary hometown and traveled to perform again in another river city, El Paso, Texas, just across the Rio Grande from Juarez, Mexico. There Trump repeated the mind-bogglingly false claims he'd uttered in his State of the Union speech-that El Paso had a terrifying crime rate until a wall was built there, and its high crime rate plunged. No! El Paso's sheriff, Republican mayor-and the FBI's stats-said that's false. El Paso had one of America's lowest low crime rates for cities its size years before President George W. Bush built its fence-like wall.
Now consider Trump's repeated claims that only a new wall can stop illegal drugs from flooding into the USA. All law enforcement stats show drugs mainly pour in through gates at legal ports of entry. Recently, officials captured $3 million in fentanyl smuggled from Mexico beneath the false bottom of a cucumber truck. We need lots more inspectors and detectors at ports of entry.
Here's the good news: A dirty little secret has finally been detected in Washington. It's about all those congressional Democrats and Republicans who've been name-calling and fighting over stupid things, shutting down our government sometimes and paralyzing it most other times.
The secret is that, when it comes to securing our homeland, these squabbling, snarling Republicans and Democrats are really in violent agreement. They all always knew Trump's wall was just a campaign gimmick-and that Trump would rather waste your tax dollars than admit that truth. Luckily, most of Trump's fellow Republicans care more about you than he does. Also, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's blurtation that walls are "immoral" is an embarrassment to virtually all her fellow Democrats. They just don't want to say so publicly.
Both parties mainly want to do what needs to be done to keep us safe. In some places, America needs a wall. In many places, America needs a lesser, see-through barrier. In other places, we need nothing new.
Finally, we can get what we need-and America can get on with its own governance.
So let's celebrate our new homeland security, Trump style. Let's give ourselves the parade-led by 76 trombones!