According to CNN, President Trump’s White House — or, as we are coming to know it, “the Business Administration” — is seeking corporate sponsorships for the annual Easter Egg Roll. This is a tradition initiated by Dolley Madison in 1814 and reinstated in 1878, under the otherwise unpopular Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes.
Hayes, known to Democrats of the day as “Rutherfraud B. Hayes” for allegedly stealing the election from Samuel Jones Tilden by a single electoral vote after months of wrangling and backroom deals, managed to stay out of trouble and remain in the history books by avoiding scandal and controversy for four years. The Egg Roll was considered a nice thing to do, a non-political social event, possibly even generate a little positive PR for an otherwise lackluster administration. Throw a Burgoo. Kiss a baby. Shake hands. Hold an Egg Roll.
The original events on public lands such as the Capitol lawn and the Mall were funded out of private means. Since 1977, it has been heavily sponsored without fanfare by the American Egg Board . . . which might be able to use a little positive PR itself right about now. It has never used taxpayer money. Trump’s Business Administration, however, which sees everything through a short-term or immediate gain or loss lens (which isn’t particularly good business strategy if you want a viable and long-term business), evidently sees a chance to make a quick buck on the deal . . . and garner a few allies in the corporate world; one hand washes the other, you know.
This, of course, opens a whole panorama of possibilities for the president who made a deal for someone else to write The Art of the Deal (1987) for him. Have they sold the TV rights yet? What about individual sponsorships for participants, with the kiddies each having a sponsor or two with the names and logos displayed on their Easter bonnets and coats? How about a book contract? The film franchise? — White House Egg Scramble VII: This Time It’s Personal. (A scene was included in National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) but was not a main plot element; it’s just begging for a dramatic treatment of its own.)
And why stop there? With the current frenzy to shut down presumably wasteful government agencies, prune out the deadwood and useless eaters, and cut spending (except for multimillion dollar flights to play golf instead of using a local course), corporate sponsorships could easily take up the slack. “This tax collection is brought to you by Tax Farmers, Inc., Padding Your Tax Bill Since 2026!”
The military, especially, could use a little dressing up; tanks and jeeps would look much better with some snappy slogans and artistic logos painted on them. Film rights alone could bring in beaucoup bucks, especially if a charge is announced, “This battle is brought to you by ACME Munitions!” Soldiers, knowing their dying moments were to be immortalized on film (except for brief pauses for station identification), would be inspired to heights of heroism, possibly even with their last breath gasp out an endorsement, e.g., “I . . . die happy . . . if you will . . . buy ACME!”
A bombing raid could be advertised in advance to get the most publicity for the sponsors. We understand this is already being done for select media outlets, such as The Atlantic. War for profit, or at least short-term gain (especially when dealing with someone like Putin) could be very lucrative . . . in the short term.
. . . and if you don’t mind a million or so human casualties, gutting your country’s ability to defend itself for generations, creating a demographic apocalypse, and restarting the arms race with the threat of nuclear mega-proliferation. Shades of Tom Lehrer’s ditty, “Who’s Next?” originally sung by Nancy Ames on the now-forgotten 1960s satiric television show, That Was the Week That Was.
War for profit has historically been a losing proposition, but that’s because no one thought of having a war sponsored for profit and entertainment by the corporate world, except for science fiction writers, such as Mack Reynolds, Richard K Morgan, Paolo Bacigalupi, William Gibson, Ian MacDonald, Robert Asprin, and Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, etc., etc., etc. The mineral rights alone could pay for the cost of corporate conquest. When the goal is to rid a country or area of the lowlife scum who currently inhabit it, there could be additional deal possibilities in turning conquered land into simply fabulous resorts, complete with belly dancers, swimming pools, and golden statues of gods and heroes.
Returning to the Egg Roll, according to CNN, the whole corporate sponsorship shtick raises a few ethics issues. We don’t know about that, but, kidding aside, we do know it’s just a trifle crass and abysmally vulgar. It’s like the parents who use their kid’s birthday party primarily to network with business associates or lecture on feminist or masculinist ideology. It sort of misses the whole point of the event, not to mention being incredibly self-serving.
Now, we have no objection to government or anything else being run in a businesslike manner. Even charitable acts must partake of that to some extent, especially since you can’t give away what you don’t have, thereby raising questions as to where you get it in the first place. Charity and government, however, are not businesses, however businesslike they might or should be.
Charity and government, along with families, religion, and host of other things should be businesslike, but they should never, repeat never look at anything in terms of “What’s in it for me?”, i.e., a transactional or dealmaking approach to their activities. Charity is based on need, not on ideology or anything else.
Qualifying recipients only builds lasting resentment. The despicable “Soupers” in Ireland during the Great Hunger, who gave food to people if they converted to Protestantism (with few takers) are excoriated to this day by Catholic, Protestant, Jew, atheist, and agnostic alike . . . and we didn’t add Muslims because we personally don’t know of any weighing in on the subject, but assume they would be as disgusted as anyone else.
As for disinterested charity, to this day any member of the Choctaw Nation gets a very warm welcome in Ireland because in 1847 their ancestors collected $170 — a significant sum in those days — and sent it to Ireland for famine relief. This was barely a decade after they had been forced off their own lands in the East and moved to Oklahoma. They asked for nothing in return and could have put the money to good use themselves; they just heard other people were in trouble and wanted to help.
As for any quid pro quo for foreign aid and military assistance, well, yes, the Dutch, Spanish, and — especially — the French did receive some benefit from helping the United Colonies become liberated from Great Britain . . . but not directly from the new United States. Without French assistance, as Barbara Tuchman argued in The First Salute (1989), the American Revolution could not have succeeded, and France, Holland, and Spain gained a valuable friend in their seemingly endless “disagreements” with Perfidious Albion.
America, however, gained far more: its independence and, later, the Louisiana Purchase at a bargain price — which could easily have gone to Spain, and which already had a military presence there, had not Napoleon needed money to carry on his struggle against the nation of shopkeepers. Today’s yapping about the Statue of Liberty versus American lives lost in the First and Second World War against a common enemy seem surreal and — as appears to be typical of this most unbusinesslike Business Administration — incredibly spiteful, petty, and ungrateful. What, we can’t thank France for saving the United States? They held all the cards! We were playing with starting a world war against the greatest empire the world had ever seen! And you call that a suit? Not even a wig!
The bottom line is government should govern, not engage in business deals. Yes, government and everything else should be run in a businesslike manner, but that doesn’t mean putting profit or short-term gain above people — even or especially in private sector business, and most especially in government.
Business in the private sector is run for the benefit of the owners, which is the best argument in the world for making everyone an owner through the Economic Democracy Act. Government “business” in the public sector is run for the benefit of the citizens; the first words of the U.S. Constitution are not, “I, the State”, but “We, the People.” Government should act in the best interests of everyone, if possible. The return is not in the financial bottom line, but in the quality of life and the health of the social order — which the current “Business Administration” in Washington seems to have lost sight of.
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