The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg…strikes again
One of the recurring headlines of this election cycle has been: “How could this Election be close?” How could this man come this close to being in power again?
For those who may wonder “How could this be happening?!” in relation to these United States and the allure of Trump & Trumpism-here is one offering. It comes from a wise American who lived many years ago. Mark Twain wrote a short story in 1899 about the American penchant for allowing ourselves as a group to be enticed and fooled by those with dark intentions and malice aforethought.
Twain wrote “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg’ in the year 1899 and the short story was an immediate hit. It appeared in Harpers Magazine in December and was immediately successful.
The plot revolved around a man, a stranger who was described as a ‘bitter and vengeful man,’ who concocted a plan to expose the supposedly virtuous townspeople of the fictional town of Hadleyburg. The man had been wronged in some way that was never disclosed.
But this vengeful man created a plan that involved a bag of money to be given as a reward to the kind stranger who had helped him with good advice years ago. And in the lie he fabricated, the stranger who had been helped was now a successful businessman and wanted to reward the couple from Hadleyburg with a bag of gold worth $40,000 ( A huge sum for those days!)
And so, the nineteen prominent couples were all sent the same ‘secret’ note that allowed them each to believe they were the ones who had done the favor. And all of them wrote the same tell-tale false advice out to give to the person who would read the notes and subsequently expose them all as fakers and phonies who didn’t deserve the money or the accolades!
This story brings to mind many of the things we have heard about con men who impose their stronger wills on the weak-minded. President Lincoln said it best, “You can fool some of the people all of the time…”
The summary includes the notion that evils are often caused, in Twain’s World, from the ever-present specter of Human Vanity. Twain was illustrating to us how easily people may succumb to temptation-if their integrity never has been put to the test!
We have been put to the test in this election cycle. There was an interesting discussion the other day on television which involved the many wealthy people who have turned a blind eye to the excesses and the dark character of the Republican Nominee for President. The question was always “Why?” Why are these people allowing themselves to be fooled? Why don’t they have the courage that others, with far less resources, have shown? How can they not realize what is at stake?!
In the aftermath of this election, there will be a reckoning. If the darker character prevails, then there may be a full-blown Resistance Movement as there had been in past cycles of Trumpism. And in this case, there may be violent confrontations.
If Trumpism does not prevail, there will be a different kind of reckoning. There will be finger-pointing and much pontification and many people running away and living in denial of the after-effects of supporting a dark horse such as Trump. Hopefully, on The Day After- cooler heads will prevail and we will not have violence from either faction. But one thing that is certain is this. Our integrity has been put to the test.
The integrity of the American people is on the line. We have been exposed to temptation in the form of a flatterer and a marketer who has been telling many people the exact things they would like to hear each day for almost a decade. He has been whispering in their ear, and he has been amplified by a group of weak-minded individuals who have aided him in this cause. They have aided him in the halls of Congress and on the airwaves and by allowing themselves to be pawns or sycophants or cronies or whatever word comes to mind. One thing that is clear is that there is a huge vacuum where leadership should have existed.
Real leaders are those who, at certain times, tell their followers the things they do not want to hear. He or she acts in ways that help to model the example of leadership that we would like to see in our own lives and in the lives of our children.
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg, in Twain’s story, was the one who exposed the hypocrisy and the true nature of many weak-minded individuals. In Twain’s story, the instigator himself was not a good man or a leader. He simply knew there was hypocrisy and that a vacuum existed; and he saw an opening and he took the opportunity to expose others.
This has been set up for us on a much larger scale in this election. The Man that Corrupted Everytown, USA is the same man who has been exposed as a charlatan and a fraud and a criminal. However, he has not been defeated.
When and if the final coup de grace is delivered by the American people on November 5th, it will help to end the psychological reign of terror that many of us have been experiencing and imagining for several years. A corrupt man who exposes the frailties and the weaknesses of our own American political system, as well as the American society at large, is a dangerous man to return to power. It will be a fitting end if a new generation of younger and more ideological voters manage to end the era of Trump. It may not end the era of Trumpism in our country, but there will be a willingness to look deeper and examine our own faults and vulnerabilities as they exist currently.
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg is available to read on my 6 Degrees website here…I highly recommend this short story to all who may want to examine the reasons the American people find themselves in the position of voting for a man who could, and has, corrupted so many in this country and within his own party!
