After seeing the latest 2016 campaign debates that were filled with even more attacks, insults, and down and dirty humor, I thought of another traditional fairy tale that highlights the frustration of those who feel put upon and exploited by those who are more powerful. In this case, they just hope the offending person will just go away, so they can get their house back in order - in this case, the Republican house.
I started look at the campaign like a fairy tale with three stories I recent wrote on the Huffington Post Blog: "Two Fairy Tales about Donald Trump", "Snow White and the Seven Candidates", and "Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf".
Now with the three remaining Republican candidates joining together to get rid of Trump, what would be more fitting than the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," where Trump is Goldilocks with his blonde hair, while Rubio, Cruz, and Kasich are the remaining three bears. In the traditional story, the three bears -- Mama, Papa, and Baby Bear -- come home to see their cottage has been ransacked, and they discover the intruder, Goldilocks, sleeping in their bed, whereupon Goldilocks flees, and the bears are happy they have their home back. Which seems to be exactly what the three remaining candidates want. Goodbye, Trump. Just go away. Then, the three candidates and the Republican Party are happy again.
In this case, the original story, which was part of British folklore, was first published in 1837 by Robert Southey, a British writer and poet. He called it "The Story of the Three Bears," and it was about a little bear, middle-sized bear, and huge bear, who live in a house in the woods, and they each have their own porridge bowl, chair, and bed. Significantly, while they are out for a walk in the woods, an intruder who enters their house is an old ugly woman, who is considered impudent, bad, foul-mouthed, and deserving of a stint in the House of Corrections, which sounds like some of the accusations leveled at Trump. But eventually, the old woman was turned into a pretty little girl in 1849, when Joseph Cundall published his Treasury of Pleasure Books for Young Children, and after twenty more years, the girl became known as Golden Hair and finally Goldilocks in Old Nursery Stories and Rhymes, published in 1904.
But however you slice and dice it, this description of the old foul-mouth intruder or girl with the golden hair seems to perfectly fit Trump based on his behavior and yellow mop of hair.
The story seems a perfect fit, too. As the popular story of Goldilocks goes, after she knocks upon the house in the forest, which might be compared to the Republican Party, she finds no one home. She knocks and when no one answers, she walks right in -- just like Trump did when he announced his candidacy. Then, she sees three bowls of porridge on the table, finds the first one too hot, the second one too cold, and the third one just right, which might be like Trump deciding on his strategy, as he first insults some Mexican immigrants as rapists, insults Megyn Kelly and other women, and finds that his attacks on Muslims and deporting illegal immigrants are just about right.
Then, as the story continues, after Goldilocks eats up the three bears' breakfasts, she walks into the living room and sees three chairs. She finds the first and second ones too big, but when she sits down in the smallest chair, it breaks into pieces -- just like what seems to be happening to the Republican party.
After that, feeling very tired, Goldilocks lays down to rest, but she finds the first bed too hard, perhaps like Ted Cruz; the second bed too soft, perhaps like Marco Rubio; and then she lays down in the third bed and finds it very comfortable. Perhaps think of John Kasich, trying to be the adult of the remaining candidates. Then, she falls asleep.
That's when the bears come back. You might consider the big bear like Ted Cruz, who's full of anger and bluster; the little bear, like Marco Rubio, sometimes called "Little Rubio" by Trump; and the medium-sized bear, as John Kasich, since he's tried to navigate a middle course and stay calm, while all around him is uproar and fury.
In any case, after the three bears confront Goldilocks together, she screams for help, jumps up, runs out the door back into the forest, and never comes back to the home of the three bears. And that would seem to be the outcome the three Republican bears would like: To have Trump leave their Republican Party home for good.
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Gini Graham Scott, PhD, writes frequently about social trends and everyday life. She is the author of over 50 books with major publishers and has published 30 books through her company Changemakers Publishing and Writing. She writes books and proposals for clients and has written and produced over 50 short videos through Changemakers Productions and is a partner in a service that connects writers to publishers, agents, and the film industry. Her latest books are Scammed, Lies and Liars: How and Why Sociopaths Lie and How to Detect and Deal With Them, and The New Middle Ages: How the Growing Inequalities Between Rich and Poor Threaten Our Way of Life.