A Reverse Dayenu for Passover in the Time of Trump

Recently, a cousin (whose general politics are considerably to the right of mine) posted on Facebook an anti-Trump/pro-Biden piece.  A friend of hers responded that she likes Trump because he is "a businessman, not a politician." 

I typically do not get into the middle of these sort of Facebook battles, but this time I could not resist, probably because Passover had just ended, and the song Dayenu was very much in the forefront of my consciousness.  Dayenu is the song that speaks of each of the God’s blessings in the course of the Exodus from Egypt, and how each one would have been sufficient – Dayenu – but that God gave us more.

Here is what I wrote: 

We have now had more than three years to watch Trump in action. There is a difference between a legitimate businessman who has at least some sense of constitutional government and a huckster who only cares about his personal advantage and has no sense of decency or empathy. He is a reverse DAYENU.

Trump came into office on the wave of the Obama recovery from the last economic collapse. To the extent Trump seemed to surf that wave, it was because of the sugar high of giving billions away to his Mar-a-Lago friends in tax cuts and securing short term profits by destroying government environmental and other regulations that protect the vast majority of Americans. DAYENU.

Trump buys political capital by turning social policy over to right-wingers who would be perfectly comfortable with the Anti-Semites portrayed in Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. He gives aid and comfort to racists, xenophobes, and Anti-Semites (presumably thinking that he could protect his own Jewish family members and allies -- like the rabbi in Roth's book). DAYENU.

Trump cozies up to the worst, often murderous, dictators of the 21st Century, like Vladimir Putin of Russia, Kim Jong Un of North Korea, Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, Viktor Orban of Hungary, and Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, while at the same time denigrating American intelligence and military officers who have kept us reasonably safe and free for decades. DAYENU.

Trump tries to bribe other foreign leaders to lie about his American political opponents, at the potential cost of our national security ("I would like you to do us a favor, though."). DAYENU.

Trump ignored warnings from the previous Administrations about the dangers of pandemics, dismantling the governmental offices that had protected us in the past and were prepared to do so in the future -- and in so doing laid the foundation for the health crisis and economic collapse we are now enduring. DAYENU.

I could have included many more “verses.”  But just these were “Dayenu.”