The Emperor's New Clothes

Way back in the nineteenth century, Hans Christian Andersen wrote a short story called "The Emperor's New Clothes." (If you're interested, the English translation can be found here.)

The basic vibe, in case you're not inclined to read it, is that these weavers promise to produce magic clothes for an emperor. The weavers tell him that his clothes will appear invisible to anyone who's unworthy. Then the weavers commit some fantastic object-work, pretending to clothe the emperor without actually clothing him. (These weavers probably would have been great at improv. Perhaps they were court jesters in disguise?)

The Emperor, as illustrated by Vilhelm Pedersen

As you might have guessed, their little experiment yields some unsettling results: no one wants to tell the emperor he's naked, because they're afraid he'll condemn them.

Sound familiar?

Jeff Sessions's testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee was like a sad, Billy Wilder sequel to that story. The way he squirmed in his seat, equivocating about laws and duties...it was clear he knew he was wrong. Furthermore, I suspect he knows that Trump is wrong, too—surely Jeff Sessions isn't that dumb. But throughout his testimony, I had a tingling suspicion that, no matter what happens, Sessions will take the fall for Trump. He is going down with that ship, no matter what the price.

I'm not saying Sessions didn't break the law, or that his politics aren't repugnant. What I am saying is that Sessions will stop at nothing to protect Trump, even if it means obstructing federal investigations. This frightens me. Is our democracy really so broken that we can't elect leaders who support us?

I don't think so.

I think that, speaking generally, the Russian interference in our 2016 presidential election was an attempt to undermine American faith in our democracy. It's not a perfect system, of course. But if this election has taught us anything, it's that we need to charge unflinchingly ahead within the framework of our existing system. We need to vote, and we need to elect leaders who want us to vote, too. We need leaders who will listen to their constituents and who will accordingly challenge the structure of our government. We need leaders who will speak truth to power, who will modestly admit their shortcomings, who will always strive for a better country.

Throughout this whole post, however, I'm circling the question I don't have an answer to: what about the damn weavers? What's their role in this? Instinct tells me that these weavers are heroes, for several reasons:

1. They outsmart the all-powerful emperor.
2. They draw attention to the societal inclination to affirm authority figures.
3. They're really good at pretending to weave.

Still, I can't place them in the context of our current political situation. Are our weavers the Russian government? Or maybe all the people who neglected to vote? Or maybe even the old white men who wrote our Constitution so long ago? Most of these figures aren't heroes.

Then again, maybe it's time to revise our conceptions of fairy tales.