There is an old proverb that states, “A man is known by the company he keeps.” A little Google search shows that this saying originated over 2,500 years ago, with an Aesop fable titled, “The Ass and His Purchaser.” In it, a farmer purchased the animal under the stipulation that it had to pass muster before the deal was final. When it then befriended the laziest and greediest of the other asses, the farmer realized his mistake and returned it.
All these years later, Donald Trump hired Stephen Miller to be his deputy chief of staff. He is the person primarily responsible for the brutal and lawless roundup and deportation of migrants, many of them citizens. In addition, he has described Trump’s opponents with the following language: “(An) ideology has been steadily growing in this country (that) hates everything which is good, righteous and beautiful, and celebrates everything that is warped, twisted and depraved.” Miller ended that screed with: “It is an ideology whose one unifying thread is the insatiable thirst for destruction.”
If Trump worried as much about the quality of his “purchase” as Aesop’s “purchaser” did, he would fire him immediately, for fear that his own reputation was at stake. On closer examination, however, maybe it is not the item purchased that needs firing but the purchaser himself.
Frederick Longacre
Hockessin
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
