It's Time to Play No Trump

It’s been more than a year since the Hermit Philosopher last posted here. He’s been happily occupied playing bridge, serving as club manager, reading good books, and enjoying family —  the kinds of ordinary pleasures that make life worth the shuffle. He had hoped to stay at the card table and out of the topic of politics, but the game that’s being played in Washington feels like a nightmare at the bridge table. Like going down four, vulnerable, doubled and redoubled.

Bridge, like democracy, depends on a few simple principles. You play by agreed rules. You trust your partner. You respect your opponents. You abide by the contract you’ve made. When someone starts trumping reality or claiming tricks that aren’t theirs, the game collapses. It’s no longer a contest of skill — it’s chaos, it’s dangerous, and it’s immoral.

This is all part of the dangerous game that’s being played in the moral slum that is Trump’s Washington.

Sitting in his gilded Oval Office, Generalissimo Donaldo Trumpo’s reign of error and terror is spinning out of control. A malignant narcissist, he treats truth as an inconvenience and uses power as a toy. He fires officials who deliver unwelcome facts, investigates people he can’t fire, and sends troops into cities that haven’t asked for (and don’t need) federal help. Boasting that he can do anything he wants, he names national institutions after himself, kidnaps the president of a foreign country, and threatens to take over another country’s territory for reasons of “national security.” (Or is it lebensraum? Hard to tell.)

We’ve seen this movie before — in the 1930s and ‘40s in Germany and Spain, and more recently during Trump One. But this time the soundtrack is louder and cruder, and the message is more dangerous because the audience has grown numb.

I’d like to pass this hand — to shrug, to tune out, to tell myself that democracy can absorb three more years of outrage. But every player at the table has a responsibility to play by the rules. When one of them does not, silence isn’t patience; it’s complicity.

We can debate policies and personalities, but the deeper issue is character. No, not his. There’s no question about his character. The issue is ours. Do we still believe in facts? In truth? In institutions strong enough to outlast the egos that inhabit them? Because if we stop calling attention to rules infractions, soon the game belongs only to the cheat.

The Hermit Philosopher doesn’t claim to have answers, only the obligation to ask questions that matter:

• How far can power stretch before it snaps?
• Who speaks for truth when lies are more convenient?
• How many times can we watch someone revoke the social contract and break the rules of the game before we decide to walk away from the table entirely?

I’d rather be talking about card play and grand slams and the meaning of “Unusual 2 No Trump” (irony intended). But at this moment, the country feels like a game where the dealer keeps palming the ace of spades and too many players pretend not to notice. So, I’m laying down my hand and saying what needs to be said. Rules matter. Truth matters. And if we want the next deal to be fair, we’d better start defending these principles.

That said, the most important midterm election in many decades will take place in a few months. A new hand will be dealt. We might not control the cards, but we are responsible for how we play them. ♠