The windows of bookstores and the marquees of movie theaters across America all sing the praises of Homer's 2,800-year-old "The Odyssey." This prompted me to review the Greek myths and legends I enjoyed so much as a boy. More than any other, the tale of King Midas, which dates from around the same period as Homer's epic, grabbed my attention.
As the story goes, the god Dionysus granted Midas a single wish, and he chose that everything he touched would turn to gold. How could that not turn my mind to the current inhabitant of the White House and Mar-a-Lago who seems determined to encrust White House ornaments, walls, bathrooms and picture frames in gold tinsel?
Upon further thought, I decided that what Donald J. Trump touched turned not to glittering gold but to dull brown dung. He is the 21st century's anti-Midas.
In a metaphor for what he has done to the country, this anti-Midas turned the glittering reflecting pool between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial into a murky green cesspool. He transformed Jackie Kennedy's gorgeous White House Rose Garden into a Mar-a-Lago-style concrete patio and ripped up the White House lawn to build a martial arts ring. The White House's historic East Wing is now a dusty construction pit. He has envisioned building an Arch of Trump, which would resemble the never-built Nazi Triumphal Arch and block the view of Arlington Cemetery from the Lincoln Memorial.
In a figurative way, he is turning the gold that makes America special into dung. Ronald Reagan said, "We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people — our strength — from every country and every corner of the world." Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, inventor Nikola Tesla, wireless innovator Hedy Lamarr, TV pioneer Desi Arnaz, saint Mother Cabrini, actor Sidney Poitier, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and "God Bless America" composer Irving Berlin — all immigrants. Trump is drastically cutting immigration, again turning a rich American gold mine into a depleted hole in the ground.
He is attacking the very words of the Constitution. In the most egregious example, his Executive Order 14160 directly challenged the 14th Amendment's declaration that people born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are citizens. A Reagan-appointed district judge wrote in his decision: "I can't remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order." The Supreme Court overturned Trump's order.
Trump appointee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has turned the Centers for Disease Control, the gold standard in national public health agencies, into dung. As of July 23, 2026, confirmed measles cases in the U.S. had surged to 2,317, a 178-fold increase in just over six months compared to all of 2020. Moreover, Kennedy disbanded key FDA food-testing advisory committees and gutted CDC parasite-tracking teams. The predictable result? A record-setting, multistate outbreak of the Cyclospora parasite that left thousands of Americans suffering from severe intestinal illness. Pure gold to pure dung.
When Trump took office in January 2025, no American troops were engaged in combat. On Feb. 28, 2026, Trump launched a war against Iran without making a compelling case for doing so. As members of the U.S. military were killed and gas prices zoomed, his approval numbers plummeted to an all-time low.
Trump also waged war on American higher education in an attempt to "punish" elite universities for their campus politics. By stifling American innovation, he is allowing China to challenge the U.S. for the global lead in AI. Moreover, potentially lifesaving medical research in university labs has been squelched. For example, a stop-work order last year paralyzed a $60 million "TB Moonshot" at Harvard aimed at developing a vaccine for the world's deadliest infectious disease. Trump's Justice Department has doubled down, suing Harvard to claw back billions in grants.
The U.S. Agency for International Development saved an estimated 92 million lives in the first two decades of this century. Pure gold. Trump has virtually shut it down, condemning millions to preventable deaths.
The postwar explosion in free trade led by the United States was a key driver of global prosperity. From 1945 to 2025, world trade volume increased 45-fold as the world economy grew 15-fold in real terms. Trump's response? Raising trade barriers and imposing illegal tariffs. Gold to dung.
In 1999, Secretary Albright called NATO "the greatest alliance in the history of the world." As president, Trump has threatened to pull the United States out of NATO and even attack a NATO ally. Former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has said the U.S. is "not a very reliable boyfriend right now" and that Trump is "the bully-in-chief." From gold standard to cow patty.
The original Midas regretted what he'd done when he turned his beloved daughter into a statue of solid gold. The anti-Midas who turned so much of the figurative gold of this country into dung shows no signs of regret now. I doubt he will in the years to come either.
It's up to us Americans to break Trump's spell.
A renaissance man, Keith Raffel has served as the senior counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, started a successful internet software company, and had six books published including five novels and a collection of his columns. He currently spends the academic year as a resident scholar at Harvard. You can learn more about him at keithraffel.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at creators.com.
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