Banbanam

So, the Great Leader tested positive on October 1, went to hospital, come out of hospital, and is now in the frenetic last hours of his campaign for re-election. It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks in the US of A, just for a change.

I found out about the COVID-19 diagnosis late on a Thursday night in a rather confused conversation with ThingOne. Around 11pm he came bounding into the living room saying, "I have news!" He seemed excited and... not exactly happy... more elated, hyper, bouncing. 

I'd just been checking my email and had seen a notification we'd both been sent that a skateboard we'd ordered had been shipped. "Yes, I just saw in my email!" I said, assuming this was what he was talking about. He seemed 'new skateboard' kind of excited.

He nodded, "Isn't it crazy? I mean, it figures, we all assumed this would happen, but somehow, you know, I thought it couldn't really actually happen."

"Oh really? I don't know, I mean it seems about the right timing don't you think?"

"The timing is crazy, really crazy!"

We went on in this way for a surprisingly long time. 

But finally, he said, "What are you talking about?"

"Your new skateboard. What are you talking about?"

"Trump has COVID-19!"

And so we enter yet another jaw-dropping phase of 2020. 

A few days after the bombshell news we had some friends over (no White House laissez-faire around here - all gatherings are masked, socially-distanced, outdoors) and we all talked about our emotions swinging between schadenfreude and guilt. On the one hand there is almost a sense of relief: justice has been done. It didn't seem fair that the G.L. and his cronies could flout all the medical advice and get away with it. But then the guilt kicks in. Jumping up and down with glee seems like something he himself would do. But there was a hope in the air. One usually very mild-mannered guy said, "You can't see because of my mask but I'm just smiling all the time. I hope he gets really sick. The only thing that would make me sad is if this means he won't serve jail time."

I've always wondered why we use the German word schadenfreude. Why adopt a word from another language for what feels like a very English emotion? Turns out I'm not alone - after the G.L. announced his COVID-19 diagnosis, google searches for schadenfreude went up 30,500% overnight! 

Schadenfreude is the compound of schaden, meaning damage or harm, and freude, meaning joy or pleasure. Way way back in the 1500s there was an attempt to assimilate another foreign word into English when 'epicaricacy' was introduced to mean finding joy in the misfortune of others, from the word  epichairekakia (epi, over, chairo, rejoice, kakia, disgrace) first credited to Aristotle. Clearly, epicaricacy never stuck. 

Fast forward a couple hundred years and schadenfreude appears in Germany in the mid-1700s, first in children's books but then, over the next hundred years, in the writings of German philosophers and psychologists. The word first appeared in England in 1853 in the book 'On the Study of Words' by R.C. Trench. He dismissed the word and the emotion itself as being a "mournful record of the strange wickednesses which the genius of man, so fertile in evil, has invented."  The Victorians, however, gleefully embraced schadenfreude. The word was usefully foreign, as if implying no Englishman could truly stoop to such a feeling. Over the next 150 years the word was mainly used  by academics, who no doubt found it useful on many occasions. Then in 1991 an episode of The Simpsons  aired where Lisa explained that Homer's joy over his neighbour's misfortunes was schadenfreude. And so the word and emotion entered the mainstream of Western culture. I'm not making this up, this Simpsons thing is in the official history of the word! 

I recommend reading this delightful history of schadenfreude written by Tiffany Watt Smith (historian of emotions). She describes how, outside the repressions of England, the emotion is timeless and universal. Most languages and cultures have their own word or saying to describe rueful joy in another's discomfort. My favourites are the Japanese saying 'the misfortunes of others taste like honey' and the Melanesian word 'banbanam' from Papua New Guinea. Banbanam describes the act of laughing at another's pain. In its most extreme manifestation, banbanam involves ridiculing one's enemy by distributing their exhumed dismembered corpse around the village, presumably whilst laughing maniacally.   

After four confusing days the G.L. was discharged hospital and our ethical dilemma around our schadenfreude ended. 

According to Trump's doctor he was treated with a bizarre and illogical cocktail of drugs. As well as receiving unapproved medications still in development (antibody treatment) he was also put on steroids, which is usually only given to severe COVID-19 cases. All the reports, however, stated he was experiencing only mild symptoms. His treatment plan sounded very much like "V.I.P syndrome",  a term used by medics for when a very important person uses their power to persuade medical professionals to prescribe unorthodox treatments. 

I talked with a doctor friend who said that based on him being prescribed steroids, which can cause varying degrees of psychosis, and also accounting for  the documented psychological effects of COVID-19, Trump should have been declared incapacitated for around six weeks. 

Of course that didn't happen. 

Really, the behaviour of the G.L. has become so weird that I don't know how anyone would tell the difference at this point. 

But what does happen when a president is medically unfit for the job? 

Article II of the original US Constitution from 1789 stated that, "In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President" and that the Congress (Senate and House of Representatives) would provide the case for removal. 

This rather vague article has caused several problems over the years. 

Before the Congress made a serious effort to amend the constitution, six presidents died while in office causing varying degrees of confusion. One president, William Harrison, died just 31 days into his first term! 

As an aside, my favourite story about a time when a president likely should have been replaced was that of Woodrow Wilson. Wilson suffered a stroke in late 1919. He was initially unable to move or speak. His wife Edith Wilson and his doctor kept his true condition secret, not just from the public but also from the government, since Edith mistrusted the motives of the Vice President and other political opponents. She became his 'steward' until the end of his term in March the following year, essentially acting as a gatekeeper to all official documents and business for the president. She would run upstairs to his room in the White House, apparently to consult with the president, and then return with decisions and even signatures. Modern historians now regard her as essentially having acted as the nation's chief executive during that time. Woodrow Wilson died a few years later in 1924. Edith Bolling Wilson went on to head the board of the Women's National Democratic Club, was present in Congress in 1941 for President Roosevelt's address to declare war, a declaration that mirrored Woodrow Wilson's own declaration for the First World War, and she attended the inauguration of President Kennedy shortly before her death in 1961, aged 89. 

The tipping point for constitutional reform was the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. When Vice President Johnson was sworn in he was 55 years old and had already suffered a heart attack. Should something happen to Johnson, the next in line would be the 71-year old Speaker of the House and then the 86 year old president of the Senate. It seems funny now that concern about these aged politicians should provoke constitutional change. On the ticket this year we have Trump at 74, Pence is 61, Biden is 78. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House is 80. Kamala Harris a baby at 56. 

The final 25th amendment was ratified in 1967 and its four sections lay out guidelines for the death, removal, or resignation of a sitting President. To date, the 25th amendment has been invoked six times. The first time was when Nixon nominated Congressman Gerald Ford to become Vice-President when Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973, and then within a year Nixon himself resigned and Ford became President and nominated Nelson Rockerfeller to the post he left behind. The other three times were when Presidents temporarily transferred powers to the Vice President while undergoing colonoscopies - Reagan once and George W. Bush twice.

With COVID-19 spreading within the White House and other parts of the US government,  politicians are looking to further codify ways to remove a President who is unfit to serve. Nancy Pelosi introduced new legislation on October 9 to set up a special Congressional commission that would have the power to remove a president. “This is not about President Trump,” she said. “He will face the judgment of the voters, but he shows the need for us to create a process for future presidents.”

Well, the day of judgement for Trump has come. The ridiculous debates, the superspreader rallies, the incitements of violence, voter intimidation and vote suppression... tomorrow it all comes to a head.

 Tonight, the real media (aka the 'liberal fake news') is showing its heightened anxiety, full of stories about the alarming rise in gun sales, about the possible non-concession scenarios that will play out once the polls close, including, at the most extreme, the prospect of civil war. Many states have readied the National Guard in case of violence on election day and beyond. Meanwhile the real fake news - Fox News - is doubling down on stories about voter fraud and 'battleground fixes' in the courts and other entertaining headlines such as "shirtless man, bikini-clad woman clash with Trump supporters."

If Trump loses around half the country will explode with pure joy mixed with a lot of schadenfreude, and maybe even some banbanam. The other half? It is hard to say. At this point I don't know what to expect. I can't tell how much of the alarmist hysteria is hype, how much is realistic, how far the madness could really go. It is unsettling to say the least. But in this crazy year it feels like just another hurdle to wearily face. 

While looking up schadenfreude I came across another German word used in English without translation: weltschmerz. Meaning literally 'world-pain' or 'word-weariness' it is "a feeling of sentimental sadness or pessimism; the weariness that comes with knowing that the world is going to let you down no matter what and there’s nothing you can do to stop it."

Now, there is a word made for 2020.