A Tale of Two Nations

 

     She was 96. She had been on the throne for nearly 70 years. Yet, I imagine, it still came as a shock to many of us all over the world to hear that the Queen of England, Elizabeth II, had passed away today. Newspapers the world over frantically searched for, dusted off and updated obituaries that were written in advance a generation ago.

     It came as such a shock to us who'd lived within her record-setting reign because Queen Elizabeth II had lived such a long, full and rich life that I suspect, as with Fidel Castro and his passing, we almost thought she'd live forever. It was practically an article of faith. Long live the Queen? Oh, she'll go a bit further than that.

     As with her great great grandmother Queen Victoria and Elizabeth I long before that, Elizabeth Windsor was so far down the line of succession, it didn't look as if she'd be the reigning monarch. But sudden deaths and abdications will do that. By the time she'd ascended to the throne in 1952 as a young woman in her 20s, the Queen was merely a figurehead. That process had begun during Victoria's reign in the 19th century after Prince Albert's passing in 1861.

     Still, from the time she'd first worn the crown, one got the sense that, if she held any real power and any serious responsibilities regarding Great Britain's governance, Elizabeth II would have been up to the task. Over the course of her nearly century-long life, she'd become more than just a powerless goodwill ambassador from Great Britain.

     She'd weather the Suez crisis early in her reign that betrayed the British empire's limitations. She'd also lived enough to witness 13 presidential administrations and to meet many of those presidents. So it's natural to recall the circumstances surrounding the last one she'd ever met.

 

     Donald Trump's now-infamous trip to Great Britain in 2019 was as many of us had expected: A clusterfuck of historic proportions. The trip was preceded by Trump's desire to ride in the Queen's golden carriage, which automatically would've been a security nightmare for all concerned. But, to many of us who were embarrassed by Trump's antics and pretenses to British royalty, the very avatar of that visit was the now infamous photos of Trump with his best sour puss, standing next to the unfailingly pleasant monarch wearing a white waistcoat that was much too long for his jacket.

     But the most cringe-worthy moment, aside from making the Queen wait for his arrival, was the obligatory review of the palace guard. Trump thought nothing of walking in front of the tiny Queen of England, completely eclipsing her from sight with his bloated bulk. The Queen had to look around him then set him straight, even pantomiming a walking motion to let him know one does not walk in front of the Queen of England but beside her.

     It was yet one of countless illustrations of Trump's bloated self regard, that he would place himself on a level with the majesty and gravitas of the highest level of the British monarchy and instead achieving, after all that work, to look like a little boy dressing up in Daddy's clothes.

     When Trump met the Queen, it was just a little over a month and a half before he made that now-infamous call to Ukraine's new President Zelenskyy in which he attempted to dangle nearly $400,000,000 in military aid, that was allocated by Congress, in return for Zelensky's pledge to announce an investigation into Joe Biden. It was the call that resulted in the first two impeachment proceedings.

     Looking back, the queen and Trump had one thing in common- Both had made vows at the outset to work for their people. On her silver jubilee, the queen recalled her famous vow in 1947 by saying, "When I was 21, I pledged my life to the service of our people and I asked for God's help to make good that vow. Although that vow was made in my salad days, when I was green in judgement, I do not regret, or retract, one word of it."

      Trump immediately made and kept making a mockery of his vow to work for the American people by going golfing at Mar a Lago his first weekend in office and for countless scores of times during his mercifully brief four years. He made it a mockery by enriching himself his family and friends as much as he could.

     Then, of course, there's the newest scandal involving the Top Secret documents he took to that same resort.

     Elizabeth II was a World War II veteran, having served as a truck mechanic. Her brief stint in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) alone was more time spent in military service than everyone in the Trump family combined (perhaps if asked for his innermost thoughts on the subject, Trump would say she was a sucker and ask aloud what was in it for her since she already rich). While largely powerless beyond merely ceremonial duties, Elizabeth II had an unwavering, rock-solid commitment to the Commonwealth and to the people of Great Britain. She worked until the day before her death. Trump spent his dwindling, swindling hours in power deciding which documents to steal and take to Mar a Lago.

     It was Old School class and devotion to duty to the affairs of state that Trump never glimpsed. The two contrasted literally as dramatically and noticeably as night and day and we won't have to wait for posterity to tell us down the road which represented the night.