"Everyone Has a Price"

What Trump Fails to Understand About Principles

“Everyone has a price. The important thing to find out is what it is.”

That quote (the sayer of which is provided further below) is at the core of Trump’s being. The statement "Everyone has a price" suggests that every individual can be influenced or persuaded to act in a certain way if the incentive or compensation is sufficient. It implies that, regardless of one's morals, beliefs, or values, there exists a point at which a person can be swayed by money, power, or other forms of reward. Trump’s core principle is that, and he has sold his soul out a number of times, pretty cheaply I might add.

Overall, the basic idea reflects a belief in the transactional nature of human behavior that motivations can be quantified in terms of value. There’s a story about George Bernard Shaw that he once asked some grand lady “Would you sleep with a man not your husband for a thousand pounds?” and she replied flirtatiously “Well it would depend how handsome he was.”

“Would you sleep with me for ten shillings?”

The woman, clearly offended shot back “How dare you! What do you think I am?”

Shaw, ever the cool customer, replied, “We have already established that, madam. We are now just negotiating the price.”

One of the greatest plays of all time is “Faust,” about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil for knowledge. It’s such a common concept that any such deal like that now is considered a “Faustian Bargain.” It’s not uncommon to gloss someone so good at something that they “Sold their soul” to do it so well, such as famous Blues legend Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil to play blues guitar. ¹

To be sure, the best encapsulation of the Faustian Bargain was from the Simpsons when Homer sold his soul for a doughnut to a Ned Flanders looking Satan.

This is the underlying principle Trump lives and breaths by. Everyone has a price, everything can be negotiated, everything can be worked out in a deal. In business contexts, sure, that could be true. In business, one side of the transaction most often is financial consideration; money or some form of equivalent in that there is some financial value. To that end, yeah, in business someone is selling a good or a service for money. To go even futher, sure, a lot of people would be glad to sell what little ethos they may have for a little extra added comfort in their life. The problem with Trump’s vision is that in politics and government, that isn’t always the case.

When No Price Can Be Met

The idea that everyone has a price is a pretty cynical one, suggesting that personal integrity or ethical standards can be compromised for the right incentive. This isn’t always the case, just ask Sir Thomas More.² For those who don’t know the story, More was the Lord High Chancellor of England during Henry VIII’s early reign. Henry desperately wanted out of his marriage to Catherine of Aragorn. Henry also had some serious complaints regarding Papal Authority in England. With the Protestant Reformation already spreading across Europe, Henry decided he was going to create his own religion, “The Chuch of England” placing himself at the head of it. That didn’t go over very well in Rome and More, being a Catholic adherent, thought what Henry was doing amounted to heresy. Time and again when given the chance to go along with what the King was doing, he refused to do so. When the carrots failed as motivation, More was given the stick, being thrown into the Tower of London and tortured. Ultimately, he lost his head for his beliefs.

Of course, the biggest examples of this center on religion—it’s an area that most defines people’s personal ethics and beliefs. What people will do for their views of the afterlife and the supernatural knows no bounds. When one believes they have a directive from God to do things, there is really nothing they won’t do to see that through, and nothing is sufficient to get them to stop it either. Just ask any jihadist if you can find one.

When it comes to principle, and one’s moral code, people do not readily negotiate those away. There really are only two things that matter in this life; what we choose to live for and what we choose to die for. When a person is forced to choose what issues are important enough for them that they will die for them, no form of compensation is adequate. What’s more, the harder they fight when confronted by those who want them to compromise their beliefs, the stronger they can get. This is how Navalny in Russia and Zelenskyy in Ukraine demonstrated their moral beliefs, the former to his death.

Then there is the question of value itself:

• What is the cost of betraying friends and allies?

• What is the long term price of providing something now that costs exponentially more in consequences later? Alternatively, how do you quantify the cost of prevention, now and long term?

• How much would you pay for intangible benefits without dollar value?

In Trump’s mind, these are very easy to put dollar figures on and it would undoubtedly be low, because Trump seldom considers long term costs and consequences, only the short term gains. Often, those gains come with damages that he either doesn’t consider or proactively ignores.

And that gets at the heart of what Trump doesn’t understand. These ethics and personal principles that people hold dear expand beyond just their normal lives and lifetimes. When all you care about is yourself it’s easy to make the choice to deal things away if you like. When you consider the security of your children and grandchildren, it’s a more difficult decision. That’s why the “Rule of Law” is so important to so many; because its a principle that extends beyond one’s sense of self, it’s something that applies broadly, fairly, across everyone, today, and into the future. Trump finds it frustrating because it’s just an obstacle to him doing what he wants, without consequences.

Sure, one may be able to buy a vote from a person, but can you buy their belief in democracy altogether? That’s a little harder. Trump may feel aggrieved by Zelenskyy for various reasons,³ but the more he tries to force Ukraine into a deal, the better Zelenskyy looks for holding to principle. Trump may say “You don’t have the cards,” but everytime he forces the issue everyone else deals Zelenskyy the “trump” card of further support. He’s now withholding military aid, which in return is now being taken up by the Europeans in response. Trump has had no problem demonstrating that he himself has negotiated his principles away to Russia a long time ago. He thinks if the price is right everyone else should too and anyone who views it differently than he does just isn’t smart.

That quote at the top of the page has been used and reiterated and restated a number of different ways over the years, but the one I used in the first sentence was by Pablo Escobar. Escobar thought similarly as Trump does, very transactional. He was the largest drug kingpin of the 20th Century and many consider him to be the first gangster billionaire. He also eventually made it into elective office. Eventually though, he couldn’t buy everyone, Colombian authorities raided his home and he was killed.

Turns out there are some things money can’t buy.

PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day

Escobar had his own private zoo, complete with all sorts of exotic animals shipped in from around the world. This included numerous hippopotomuses considered too dangerous to move to zoos like the other animals. Well, the three females and one male mated and took over the local ecosystem. There are now an estimated 169 hippos in the preserve and local officials don’t know what to do with them.

Hippos are generally mean tempered, and when feral like this cannot be domesticated. They have attacked locals, eaten crops, and on rare occassions ventured into local towns.

PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject

“For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul.”

-Mark 8:36

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. There’s also the corallary to those that the Devil offers something of enormous value if the person can do something better than he can, such as in “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” where he offers a “Fiddle of gold, against your soul, ‘cause I think I’m better than you.” Say what you will about Charlie Daniels, but this song is definitely still a gem.

2. I have always believed that in history nobody was more appropriated named than More. “Mores” being a set of principles and beliefs one clings to, Sir Thomas More demonstrated that right to the end.

3. This is my normal reminder that Trump was first impeached for trying to blackmail Zelenskyy to manufacture dirt on the Biden family. He was caught on tape, trying to leverage military aid to Ukraine, and Zelenskyy refused.