The matter of the beans

In which we consider imagery, Spanish art, government ethics, and beans.

Everyone tells tiny lies.
What's important, really is, the size.
Only three more tries and we'll have our prize.
When the end's in sight, You'll realize:
If the end is right, It justifies
The beans!

-Stephen Sondheim, Into The Woods

Trumps and Beans

It’s been a wild week for beans and corruption. At a recent White House event, the CEO of Goya Foods, a brand especially popular in Hispanic households and in Latin American cuisine, praised Trump publicly and effusively. Anti-Trump resisters then advocated for boycotting Goya Foods. In response, adviser-daughter Ivanka M. Trump and then Donald J. Trump himself entered the fray with these photos, unabashedly shot and presented like advertisements.

The images are weirdly pathetic. Ivanka’s looks like it was photographed in a Days Inn. That two-handed pose is, I imagine, the very first move taught in hand modeling classes. Donald’s is even worse: a selection of products arrayed across the famed Resolute Desk, a half-hearted attempt at balanced composition, a dopey grin and thumbs up exactly like a character in a 1990s Mentos ad (“The Freshmaker!”). As my pal Dwain observed, he looks like a guy who has just successfully shoplifted aisle 7 of a Piggly Wiggly.

In these images we see the halls of democracy, indeed the Oval Office itself, reduced to a QVC set. Trump might as well be selling a set of stackable nesting plastic containers; Ivanka may as well be hawking 3-in-1 shampoo, conditioner, and body wash.

And does anyone really think Trump has a favorite brand of coconut milk, or that Ivanka enjoys cooking up a potful of Goya beans? Of course not. The grift here is obvious; no one’s even attempting to conceal it. Goya’s CEO purchased these images — these tawdry advertisements — with his flattering words. Similarly, I recall candidate Trump explaining that he favored Vladimir Putin “because he’s said very nice things about me,” as if that should matter to voters. Flattery vs. insult, not good vs. evil or right vs. wrong or wise vs. foolish, is Donald Trump’s primary axis of evaluation and behavior.

Those Pesky Laws

There’s also the matter of federal law, particularly 5 CFR Part 2635 - STANDARDS OF ETHICAL CONDUCT FOR EMPLOYEES OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH. Let’s focus on the important bits:

“An employee shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity.”

To be fair, Donald Trump, as president, is technically exempt from some of these regulations (though not from the principles that inform them). Ivanka, as adviser, is surely not. And there isn’t a government ethicist in the world who thinks a president should use the Resolute Desk to hawk foodstuffs on behalf of a CEO who donates bigly to him. Ivanka Trump likely broke a law here; Donald Trump certainly broke a norm.

Of course, they don’t care. And why would they? There’s never been a law, principle, guideline, tenet, norm, or ten commandment that a Trump wouldn’t violate for a buck.

By the way, speaking of Goya

I have a totally crackpot pet theory that the names we encounter in these mad times are a clue that a Dickens-like wit is actually creating these characters and authoring this drama. For example, just like Ebeneezer Scrooge is a perfect name for a miserly crank, so is Kellyanne Conway the perfect name for a white house official who embodies the “way” we are “conned.” Or when a minor, awful character like Derek Chauvin — the Minneapolis cop who knelt on George Floyd’s neck — enters the news, I think: Chauvin. That’s got to be connected to chauvinism. I put on my amateur etymologist’s hat, and learn of a character in French literature named Chauvin whose name evolved to mean “excessive belief in the superiority of one's race.” Kind of a terribly perfect name for the cop with the murderous knees, huh?

So when someone or something new shows up in our story — in this case Goya Foods — I wonder: what’s the cosmic dramatist getting at here? Could Goya Foods be a reference to Fransisco de Goya, the Spanish artist from the late 18th and early 19th centuries? And then I find myself investigating Goya’s life and artistic approach. Goya (the painter, not the beans) was known for two types of art: grotesque forms of demons and monsters, which he created on his own time, and portraits of the Spanish upper classes, including the ruling nobles, which he created to earn a living. Often, the former would creep into the latter, so that the Goya’s nobles display hints of exaggerated nightmarishness.

I suspect Francisco de Goya would do a bang-up job painting the Trumps.

107 days until the election, friends.

Ed. Note: Shortly after publication, this essay was updated to include the Into the Woods epigraph. Thanks to my Sondheim-loving daughter Lucy Scherschligt Zarns for the suggestion. -JCS