Blogpost # M.74 CALL IT “CHUTZPAH”

Those first-generational offspring of Ashkenazic Jewish immigrants to America may be fortunate enough to have retained some passing knowledge of the singularly cultural richness and expressive feature of descriptive nouns and adjectives attributable to Yiddish. The exotic tongue is overflowing with a full panoply of empirically based, expressive vocabulary, quite distinct from the more prosaic, American English, the latter, ubiquitously useful in the preparation of bills and invoices. For example, the word, “mensch“ or “menshlikite,” which in our lexicon translates merely to “man” and “mankind,” carries with it, in Yiddish, a positive affirmation of admirable character, possessing sincerity, compassion, and the valuable humanistic capability for empathy. The word, “fahrschtant,” in the Yiddish context means more than its derivation, the German word for comprehension; it carries with it an intimation of depth and emotionally based, insightful understanding. The word, “gonif” translates to a ubiquitously expanded designation of more than the literal, “thief,” or “crook,” and may be utilized, when relevant, to designate a person’s systemic inclination to be systemically untrustworthy.
However, our recollected and usefully expressive, mot de jour, is “chutzpah.” The latter, is a word which, to do its syntax justice, would require an arsenal of descriptive English adjectives and a relation of analogical experiences. At the risk of reductionism, we would, for contextual purposes, merely state that said Yiddish judgmental noun refers to “extreme nerve,” presumption,” or, perhaps, “shocking factual presumption.” An illustrative example might be the apocryphal murderer of his parents who pleads with the Judge for mercy because he is an orphan.
In our view there is no more astounding demonstration of “chutzpah,” than yesterday’s statement by Donald J. Trump. After being afforded the entire juridically appropriate measure of criminal due process, in asserting that his conviction (by a unanimous jury, of all 34 counts of felony) was “rigged.” It was equivalent in rational merit to the spurious orphan claim by the murderer of his parents, or, perhaps to a conceived charge of anti-Semitism lodged by Adolph Hitler against Golda Meir. Words taken from the American lexicon, such as “inappropriate,” “nervy,” “undeserved,” or “shortsighted,” are, sadly, emotionally insufficient and expressively impotent. We would contextually declare that the only sufficiently descriptive term for Trump’s astoundingly inappropriate, cynical and myopic complaint is pure and unadulterated, “chutzpah.”
It was Trump, the unabashed public declarant of a firm resolution to be a dictator and despenser of the American Constitution, the trademark owner of the societally damaging concept of “alternate facts,” the business record deceiver and tax defrauder, the serial adulterer, the rapist and conspiratorial hush money practitioner, tactical vote denier and (television witnessed) soliciter of State officials to alter voting results, the purloiner of National top secret documents, surreptitious inciter of the insurrection, user of the Presidential Office to surreptitiously garner profits for his private business interests, in substantial violation of the “Emolument Clause” of the U.S. Constitution, utilizer of undemocratic tactics to deceitfully delay qualified candidates for SCOTUS in order to secure Justices receptive to his personal influence, practitioner of serial mendacity and an ample record of ubiquitous criminality that cried foul, as a response to his conviction by the unanimous vote of twenty impartial law abiding citizens.
Over the years, it has been the unjust and disturbing observation that autocratic opponents of democracy, demandingly, brazenly and tactically, avail themselves of every conceivable right and principled democratic protection, in their attempted goal of the destruction of the institution from which those rights are derived. In the subject prosecution, the Court and the juridical system took great pains to afford to Trump, all of the constitutional rights and laws applicable to New York defendants, charged with criminality; a practice which undoubtedly would be obsolete should Trump succeed in his stated intention to be an autocrat, if elected to the Presidency. It is truly disturbing that Trump, having availed himself of the services of a reputable defense attorney of his own choosing, and being the recipient of the strictly mandated protections afforded to all criminal defendants under the solicitous New York Criminal Laws, been fairly adjudged guilty of all 34  felony charges, by a unanimous jury of citizens, would declare that the trial was “rigged” against him by his political opponents. Such assertion can only, under the presenting circumstances, especially considering his ubiquitous acts of deceit, be denominated no less than classic “chutzpah.”
-p.