Category: Trump

The Great Revolt – by Salena Zito and Brad Todd – A Book Review – Part 2

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In Part 1 of this review I said that there were a number of personal accounts by Trump voters in swing states that provided remarkable insight into how Trump was able to topple the Midwestern “Blue Wall.”  After finishing up the book I can confirm that this is the case.  But this only one of several facets that the book reveals about the current state of the American electorate and how it intersects with the political parties, the media, corporate America and the globalist elites in general.

I will divide the review into appropriate topics that correspond to the book’s logical components.  But first I’ll give a general synopsis of the overall conclusion of why Donald Trump was elected President of the United States.

The bottom line is that Donald Trump ended up with a healthy majority of electoral votes (304 to 227) because just ten counties in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa flipped their votes from Democrat to Republican.  Each of these counties had voted for Obama in both 2008 and 2012.  Trump was able to convince Democratic voters to vote for a Republican presidential candidate.  The rest of the book is devoted to figuring out why this happened and what the larger significance is.

The book is divided into a number of chapters, each named after a particular group of Trump voters that because of their circumstances either flipped from the Democrats to Trump or stayed with Trump despite an ideological conflict with him.

The categories are:

  • Red Blooded and Blue Collared
  • Perot-istas
  • Rough Rebounders
  • Girl Gun Power
  • Rotary Reliables
  • King Cyrus Christians
  • Silent Suburban Moms

The category names are probably transparent enough to more or less figure out what each group is defined by.

For each of these categories there are several individuals who exemplify the profile but live in a different location.  These locations are rural, town and cities located in the ten counties in question:

  1. Lee County, Iowa
  2. Howard County, Iowa
  3. Macomb County, Michigan
  4. Lake County, Michigan
  5. Ashtabula County, Ohio
  6. Stark County, Ohio
  7. Erie County, Pennsylvania
  8. Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
  9. Kenosha County, Wisconsin
  • Vernon County, Wisconsin

 

In each of these categories and in each of these locations we are shown how the Democrats went from being the natural or default choice to instead become the reason to believe in the unlikely personage of Donald J. Trump.  Although the list includes some individuals who are affluent and highly educated they all reside in areas of the country that have been either taken for granted or abandoned by the Democrat Elite.  They range from pillars of the community and entrepreneurs to folks who have barely survived hard economic times that coincided with personal tragedy and challenge.  But they all look to Donald Trump to correct problems.  Economic problems, cultural problems, moral problems.  Not all of these people are conservatives or even moderates.  Some are demonstrably old school Democrats.  But what they all are is self-described Americans.  None of them think of themselves as citizens of the world.  None of them have bought into the globalist perspective and many of them are obviously mourning for the death of their homes.  Places like Erie and Freeland Pennsylvania are for all intents and purposes dead.  There aren’t any growing industries and even the few employers left are slowly moving out to the sunbelt.  Young adults leave for opportunities elsewhere.  Parents and grandparents stay because they can’t sell their houses.  Who would buy them?  All they are left with is memories of happier times when they were part of a thriving community with a future and the dignity of earning a living and raising their families.  In these places voting for Donald Trump is almost a reflex.  A final self-defensive movement.  But other examples show communities that are still viable and even thriving but recognizing that the Democrats don’t pretend to care about the values that differentiate these communities from the progressive narrative.  Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio.  These are all places that are seeing themselves ignored because they are the areas where remnant blue collar communities are supposed to disappear and be replaced by the new constituencies that are earmarked for inclusion in the “coalition of the ascendant.”

In the next installment I’ll give my thoughts on some of the stories and what I think they mean to me, in other words, how they square with my own understanding of the American situation.

Trump vs Kim Jung Un and the Bad Example

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I went through the “Trump vs” spoof posts and picked the one I liked best.  I’ll post one section a day but if you want to read ahead or start at the beginning I have the links at the bottom and top of each post to the previous and next installments.  This one began back in March 2018.

 

Trump vs Kim Jong Un and the Shanghai Noon

 

Dramatis Personae: President Trump – (PT); Vice President Pence – (VPP); Melania Trump – (MT); James (Mad Dog) Mattis – (JM); Kim Jong Un (KJU)

 

Scene 1- 8am White House West Wing; Oval Office; President Trump sitting at his desk with the office phone on his ear.  Vice President Pence is just entering through the door.

VPP – Mr President?

PT – (speaking into the phone) Sorry, let me call you back, somebody is interrupting.  (hangs up) Mike, what?

VPP – Sorry to interrupt Mr. President, but you haven’t screamed my name looking for me since before you left on your trip.  I was wondering if anything was wrong.

PT – You know Pence, it’s not always all about you, you know.  Maybe sometimes I call other people up when I need something.  That is possible isn’t it?

VPP – Well, sure, I guess.  But I have grown accustomed to your early morning summons, so you know, I was just kind of surprised by the quiet.

PT – Yeah, well, don’t worry I’ll make sure and let you know when I need you.  Now go ahead and get your first morning nap before you get cranky.

VPP – Alright Mr. President, goodbye. (as he goes to close the door on his way out he sees that President Trump is once again talking on the phone)

PT – Yeah, I got rid of him.  Honestly, I don’t know why I hired him but mistakes can be corrected.

Scene 2:  Outside the First Lady’s Office in the White House later that day.  In front of the door Vice President Pence and Secretary Mattis meet up.

JM – Hello Mike.

VPP – Hi Jim.  Were you called here too?

JM – Yeah, what’s it all about?

VPP – Well, the way things have been going around here only a fortune teller could know. (he knocks on the door)

MT – (calling through the door),  Come in Mike and Mad Dog. (they enter and close the door behind).

VPP – Hello Melania.  Good to see you again.

JM – Good afternoon First Lady.

MT – Hello Vice Mike and Mad Dog, please sit down.  The reason I have summoned you is because Schmoopey is acting very strange.

JM – And by “Schmoopey” ma’am you mean?

MT – Ah, forgive me.  Schmoopey is the pet name that Donald and I use for each other.  It is a Seinfeld reference, is it not?

JM – I wouldn’t know ma’am.  Jerry Seinfeld is some kind of hippie, I believe, so I’ve never seen him on the television.

VPP – Melania, could you be a little more specific about the President’s behavior.  Opinions may differ on very strange.

MT – He is obsessed with Kim.  That is all he thinks about all day.

VPP – Melania you must be wrong.  When Kim Kardashian came to the White House that was just a public relations event.  She means nothing to the President.

MT – No Vice Mike.  I mean that fat little psychopath Kim Jong Un.  They talk all day and night, laughing and joking.  And the more he talks to Kim the scarier he gets.

JM – Ma’am, what do they talk about?

MT – They talk about making their enemies disappear.  Someone must stop this.

VPP – Melania, I’m sure the President is just pretending to be Kim’s friend to get his cooperation.

MT – I do not think this is so.  Schmoopey has been very angry with the Fake News.  I think he is looking to get the revenge.

JM – Ma’am, what can we do?

MT – You must break the evil spell that holds him captive.

VPP – Melania, we’ll help the President.  Don’t fret.

MT – Thank you gentlemen.  Now I must get back to my memoirs.  Goodbye.

Scene 3:  That night; White House Teleconferencing Center, President Trump sitting in front of a teleprompter with Kim Jong Un’s image projected in front of him, Mattis and Pence entering from behind him.

PT – So did you really boil the entire Nork Press Corp in honey and feed them to bears?

KJU – You bet you I do!  And then I feed bears to sharks.  Very, very funny.

PT – Well, my short fat friend, you certainly have your own style.  But I’ll settle for results.  Did I tell you how I eliminated sixteen rinos without firing a shot?

KJU – Ouuuh, rhino horn good for the rub rub.

PT – Maybe, but these rinos had already had their horns and their genitals removed before the event.

VPP – Mr. President, may we have a word with you?

KJU – Donald, these dogs are interrupting us.  Have them fed to sharks!

PT – No Jung Un the sharks are already full, besides I still need these servants for a little longer.

KJU – I bored.  I go. (screen goes blank)

PT – Jim, Mike what do you want?

VPP – Mr. President, we’ve heard some disturbing reports about your behavior.

PT – Schmoopey ratted me out!

JM – Mr. President, that little psychopath Kim can’t be trusted.  You said so yourself last month.

VPP – That’s true Mr. President.  I remember you were afraid he’d try to poison you.

PT – Yes, but that was before we became friends.  Now he’s shown me how to deal with the Fake News, Crooked Hillary and the Deep State all at the same time.

JM – But we’re Americans, we’re the good guys we don’t murder other Americans just because of political differences.

PT – Are you telling me Hillary Clinton, Peter Strzok and Jim Acosta are loyal Americans.

JM – Hmmm, I get your point.

VPP – But Mr. President, that’s besides the point.  If you stoop to their level, they win.

PT – If you do blah, blah, blah they win?  Who do you think I am, W?  Mike, you and Mad Dog convene the Cabinet for a special meeting.  I want to get the whole team’s ideas on some of Jong Un’s “special techniques.”

VPP – Mr. President, why don’t we start with just the three of us?  I’m not sure Jeff Sessions would survive it.

PT – Yeah that may not be a problem for much longer.  Okay, let’s get down to brass tacks.  Sessions isn’t going to do anything about the mess in the DOJ or Mueller.  My friend Jong Un sent me plans for his built-in shark tank.  I have it installed under the floor in the White House basement and whenever I want a problem to go away I invite the “problem” for a heart to heart chat and a stroll around the basement and before you know it the problem is a just a greasy residue to be filtered out of the tank water.

VPP – Mr. President, that’s monstrous!

PT – Would that count for Joe Biden?

JM – Hold on Mike, maybe we should hear him out.

VPP – No!  Not even for Creepy Uncle Joe.  Look you are just allowing yourself to get swept up in the whole Caligula thing that Kim Jong Un has going on.  Remember how that worked out for Caligula himself.  Or Nero, or Hitler or any of those other psychos.

PT – Well Stalin did alright.

VPP – But this is America, it’s not the Soviet Union yet.  Look at it realistically.  If all your enemies start mysteriously disappearing, like they do around the Clintons then you’ll be treated the same way they are.  Everyone will fear and hate you.  You’ll never get re-elected and after you die your corpse will be desecrated.

JM – They might call you Crooked Donald.

PT – Never thought of that.  That would be bad for the Trump brand.  Alright, you’ve convinced me, no shark tank.  But I have to say, you guys are nowhere near as much fun as Jong Un.

VPP – And I have some more bad news for you.  You’re gonna have to break off your bromance with the short fat maniac.

PT – No way, he’s fun and he’s got a great head of hair.

VPP – Yes, way.  Melania is very upset with you and if you don’t straighten up she’ll bolt.

PT – Schmoopey?  I can’t have that.  Okay, you win, I’ll break up with Jong Un.  But you guys are gonna have to raise your game.  If I get too bored I’ll have to reconsider the shark tank.

JM – How about a pinochle game on Thursday nights?

VPP – Charades?

PT – (under his breath) Shark tank.

 

Morning Shmoe vs the Doggie Gaegogi

Trump vs Kim Jong Un and the Shanghai Noon

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I went through the “Trump vs” spoof posts and picked the one I liked best.  I’ll post one section a day but if you want to read ahead I have the link at the bottom of each post to the next installment.  This one began back in March 2018.

 

Dramatis Personae: President Trump (PT), Melania Trump (MT), Secretary Mattis (SM)

Scene 1 (White House West Wing, Presidential Living Quarters, 1:30 am Friday 9MAR2018.

PT – Schmoopy, Schmoopy.

MT – What do you need Schmoopy?

PT – Where did you put my Deadpool costume?  I’m meeting with that tiny maniac from North Korea and I’ll need every advantage I can get to avoid being assassinated and to get the best deal.

MT – I promised Mike Pence I would hide it from you until February 2021.

PT – That Pence is so short-sighted.  He doesn’t see the big picture.  When you go up against a maniacal narcissist you need to scare him and throw him off balance.  Seeing me in my Deadpool costume will make him think I may have super powers and also be unkillable.  That means he’s much less likely to try and kill me.

MT – Schmoopy, I am not sure that costume will fit you well.

PT – Did you shrink it washing it?

MT – I think maybe you did some unshrinking of your own.

PT – Well, it’s lycra spandex.  It should just stretch.

MT – There are the limits for even the miracle fabrics we love so much.

PT – Well, please find it for me anyway.  I’ve booked a meeting with Mad Dog at 6 am and I need it to give me the mobility for the martial arts moves I’ll need to make.  I could get a Black Panther suit but then there’s that whole racist thing.

MT – Oh, Bog nam pomagaj!  Okay, okay Schmoopy I will find the Deadpool suit.  But please listen to your wise men.  This idea may still have the rough edges.

PT – Don’t worry Schmoopy, I’ve got it covered.

MT – Yes but will it stay covered?  Okay, okay, I will go now and get the suit.  (exits the room).

PT – (yelling after her) And Schmoopy, can you get me a Double Reuben for lunch, thanks.

Scene 2 – White House, Oval Office, Secretary Mattis entering door with President Trump in his extremely form fitting Deadpool costume balanced in a martial arts stance.

SM – Great Detonating Balls of Trinitrotoluene!  Mr. President for mercy’s sake put on a bathrobe or something.  What if a CNN drone gets a picture of this?

PT – Relax Mad Dog.  I’ve got the whole White House on lock down.  Even that snoop Mueller couldn’t get a camera in here if he tried.  So, what do you think of my suit?

SM – No offense Mr. President, but your Deadpool suit wearing days are now officially behind you.  And if you want to know why look behind you.

PT – (looking behind himself) I guess I see your point.  But in that case, I’m going to need martial arts ninja stuff more than ever.  I called that little maniac short and he’ll do anything he can to get me for that.

SM – Then why are you meeting with him?

PT – Because I can’t back down now.  The wily oriental mind has no respect for cowards.  If I show fear he will attack relentlessly like a shark that smells blood.  He will flood our country with stunted, malnourished assassins who will surround the White house five hundred deep like some kind of zombie mob endlessly testing the perimeter fence for a weak spot just waiting for me to emerge.  Marine One will have to be equipped with belly armor to survive missile attacks and will have to have those cool buzz-saw attachments to repel the ninjas that get launched at it by their insane comrades.

SM – Oh good grief.

PT – Exactly.  The only way to prevent that scenario is to meet Kim Jong Un face-to-wily-face and stare him and his assassins down.  I need all of our top ninjas in here to train me.  Get me Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal and Jackie Chan.  On second thought forget Jackie.  It’s not a racist thing but you can never be too careful.

SM – Mr. President, I don’t think there’s time for you to become a martial arts expert.

PT – I’m a really quick learner.  You saw what I did with the tax bill.

SM – Nevertheless.

PT – Then what do we do?  You can’t let me be killed.  Pence will probably replace you with a chaplain.

SM – Mr. President, we will have a special forces team covering every contingency of this assignment.  SEAL Team 6 will be in charge of refreshments and lavatory security, Delta Force is in charge of the podium, microphones and all other electronics including your tweeting and 24th Special Tactics Squadron will provide applause and laugh track whenever you make a very funny joke.

PT –  That’s all very good but what about the Mission Impossible stuff?  Who’s gonna be suspended overhead on that cable like Tom Cruise and hover over Kim Jong Un, ready to pounce on him if he tenses his cat like body ready to leap on me across the dais.  Who will be that man?  Should we get Cruise?  Is he available?  Has he gotten too old?  Does he have a successor?  Maybe Jason Statham?

SM – Mr. President, Jason Statham is fifty years old!  (under his breath, “Oh what’s the use!”) Yes, Mr. President, Jason Statham will be suspended above Kim Jong Un’s head on a piece of steel cable but to avoid detection he will be cloaked using the stealth technology we learned from the Predator species that your friend Arnold Schwarzenegger faced back in the 1980s.

PT – Good, now you’re talking sense.  You can’t be too careful you know.  Okay, so that covers the defensive stuff but I think I should have some offensive weapons in case he gets off a zinger that makes me look bad.  How about a laser hidden in my ball point pen?  And can we put some itching powder on his podium?  That will definitely make him look bad if keeps scratching all over the place.

SM – Yes, laser pen, itching powder, check and check.  Would you like us to put some ex-lax in his breakfast snack?

PT – Please Matthis, let’s not be ridiculous.

 

Trump vs Kim Jung Un and the Bad Example

 

[socialpoll id=”2489142″]

The Great Revolt – by Salena Zito and Brad Todd – A Book Review – Part 1

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The full title of this book is “The Great Revolt, Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics.”  When I was told I needed to read this I was a little resentful.  I don’t enjoy reading about politics for the most part.  This may be because lately political books are typically candidates telling us their inspirational biographies and why they are uniquely qualified to save the United States and by extension the whole free world.  Obama, Hillary, McCain, blah, blah, blah.  But I dutifully bought it two months ago and put it into the stack.

So, I started it.  It’s a combination of election analysis identifying the categories of voters who flipped the election to Donald Trump and then interviews with people in those categories.  The analysis is interesting but the interviews are riveting.  As someone who understands the anger over being categorized as a deplorable or being dismissed as unimportant or openly mocked as a defeated yesterday man with no future I was fascinated.  The stories being told by people from small towns and dying cities in the Rust Belt resonated like a tuning fork with what I felt.  Now here I am, an Italian American from Brooklyn living in New England and an engineer working in a 21st century industry and yet I feel more kinship with these unemployed factory workers and small business people than with any of the people I work with every day who don’t believe in any of the things I do.

They voted for Trump for a variety of reasons depending on the type of person or their specific circumstances but as a whole they were voting for the idea that they still counted and couldn’t be just discounted because they weren’t the coalition of tomorrow.  Their grievances weren’t progressive enough and they were too white.  They were old news.  And the interesting thing so far is that all of them that voted in 2008 and 2012 voted for Obama.  I’ve still got a bunch to read and I have to digest the analytical stuff to see what it means to my understanding of national politics but I can already see that the personal stories are the bigger news.  This proves to me that the Trump rallies were very significant.  A lot of these people voted because it was personal.  Trump reached them with his message.  It spoke to them.  These marginalized people in depressed areas of what used to be the industrial heartland resonated to a message from a billionaire New York City reality show cartoon character.  I think this means both parties have abandoned a very large swathe of Americans and if Trump can address what they want he actually could ignite a Populist Revolt.  If most people figure out that they’ve been used by both parties we could have a real awakening and some big things can get done.

I’ll get into more detail when I finish this, but I’ve already learned more about the 2016 election from reading the personal accounts than by all the political analyses that came out in the last almost two years.  I’ve met the people that made Trump president.  Zito and Todd have written an important book.

On–Line Article Review – TheZMan – The Managerial Clique

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http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=15101

Whether you agree with all, some or none of what TheZMan writes, I don’t think you can doubt his analytical ability.  In this article he paints a pretty convincing case for the current American power structure being basically a bunch of interlocking old boy networks stretching across industry, academia, media and the government bureaucracies.  Now that’s hardly an original concept but what he stresses is that the pettiness and parochial nature of the mindset allows us to understand how for instance, the Swamp’s attack on Trump works.  It’s Frasier at the FBI meeting up on the Vineyard with his old prep school buddy Chad at the New York Times to plant a story about Russian collusion by this gauche upstart Trump.  It’s Everett at the EPA calling up fellow Yalie, Chaz at MIT’s Climate Institute to schedule a symposium announcing the latest “Climate Change Doomsday Milestone” and by the way, “let’s get together for a last weekend in the Hamptons.”  Looking at it in that context, allows us to see how the bureaucracy can thrive whether the President is W or Obama.  As long as you play ball with them and allow them their prerogatives they’ll play ball with you and even work to destroy your enemies, well, as long as they’re the wrong kind of people, of course.

Reading this makes it a little easier to understand how it all works but is the play forcing them to play ball with us while slowly draining the swamp or just nuking the swamp.  I’m not sure what it would be like to have two million unemployed WASPs whose only job skills are manipulating bureaucratic power for fun and profit but I think I’m starting to warm to the idea.  Everyone who works in the cold-blooded world of modern-day mid-level corporate life knows that every day you will be challenged with proving to the company that they actually need your services.  Can you imagine if Muffy or Chad were suddenly looking for work on their own merits?  Of course, their cousins heading up the Fortune 500 companies they’ll be applying to would like to help them out but it’s just that without the clout of their former positions in government there really isn’t a quid pro quo there.  And with so many of these swamp dwellers cut loose all at once there just aren’t enough feather-bedding opportunities to go around.  My gosh they might have to start out in the stock room.  Oh, but wait there is no stock room anymore it’s been outsourced to Amazon and Fedex.  Sorry.

Seriously, none of this stuff is surprising.  It’s as old as the priestly class in Sumer.  People form hierarchies and use them to feather their own nests.  But at a certain point the parasitic load overwhelms the vitality of the host and either a vermifuge is administered or the host dies.  Draining the swamp is another way of saying worming the United States.  It can be done.  But it takes a courageous mean bastard to do it right.  I think Trump could be that.

Where Do I Stand in the Political Spectrum

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For the newer readers of Orion’s Cold Fire this article I wrote for American Greatness sums up my position in the Great Revolt

https://amgreatness.com/2017/11/25/defining-the-space-between-nevertrump-and-the-alt-right/

I consider myself fully aware of the tremendous obstacles to preserving what’s left of the remarkable experiment that is the United States of America but I can’t quite give up on it yet.

 

 

I Can Never Be A Supreme Court Justice

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The recent allegations against Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh has forced me to accept a very bitter pill.  I could never withstand the vetting process to be a Supreme Court Justice.  Now you might retort, “But photog,you don’t want to be a Supreme Court Justice and  you’re not a judge, in fact you’re not a lawyer, and to be brutally honest, you’re a completely unqualified vindictive jerk.”  So who asked you to be brutally honest?  But anyway let’s suppose for the sake of argument that President Trump selected me for this great honor.  It would be only a matter of time before Camera Girl would be harassed by Mueller until she finally flipped and accused me of some kind of sexual mopery-dopery.  After reading the description of what Kavanaugh’s harpy is accusing him of I realized that what I was up to at that age was ten times worse.  Now granted, at the time I somehow brainwashed Camera Girl into thinking that she was complicit in this patriarchal mating ritual but without a doubt I would be flung into the outer darkness with much wailing and gnashing of teeth if those records were uncovered.  But in my defense it was the 1970s and Animal House had recently come out and we were both seventeen and you know what I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Seriously, reading what was alleged to have gone on sounds like every make out party that ever happened since Adam first played doctor with Eve.  I’m assuming if this gal ever managed to get married she was blind-sided on her wedding night to discover that her new husband was expecting her to engage in sex with him.  She probably called 911 and demanded a SWAT team to extract her from the bridal suite.  I guess from now on every time the Democrats want to up-end a Republican Supreme Court nominee they will find some strident feminist shrew that went to school with the nominee and she will channel her inner victim and morph some attempt at a clumsy pass into an encounter with Jack the Ripper.

It should be interesting to see if the republicans have the smarts to move through this quickly and get the vote in during the time table that they’ve laid out.  What should be interesting is if some facts emerge to make it clear that the accuser is a partisan hack that was selected because of her willingness to fabricate a story that will be extremely hard to prove or disprove and thereby raise doubts in the minds of spineless Republican Senators.

So anyway I’m late for an appointment with a defense attorney who will help me trick Camera Girl into signing a pre-emptive waiver against any claims of sexual skullduggery from the beginning of time all the way up to the Final Trump.  We’re going to try and convince her that she’s won the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes and her signature will release all twenty five million dollars of prize money.  Wish me luck, oh my brothers.

Trump vs the Handmaid’s Tale – Part 3

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Trump vs the Handmaid’s Tale – Part 1

Beginning of story linked above

Dramatis Personae – Kasey – (KY); Stacey – (SY); Macey – (MY); TV Announcer – (TV); President Trump – (PT); Melania Trump – (MT);

Scene 1 – Living room of Kasey, Stacey and Macey, three mid-thirty something career women living the dream in a one room apartment in Manhattan and “loving every minute of it.”  Tuesday night 8pm

(Kasey, Stacey and Macey are binge watching the whole run of the series “Girls”, all three speak with about the same extremely exaggerated “valley girl” rising pitch interrogative speech pattern.)

KY – Oh, this is that great episode with Allison Williams and her butt?

SY – Oh, that is the best episode?

MY – Oh, I love this episode?  Hey, where did it go?

(point of view changes to face the tv screen and suddenly a test pattern interrupts the brilliant and tasteful representation of post millennial Sodom and Gomorrah)

TV – We interrupt this amateur proctological exam for a special message from the President of the United States.

KY – Oh, that’s so unfair?

SY – So totally unfair?

MY – This sucks?  And not in a good way?

(the image of President Trump appears on the screen in front of a huge double heart pierced through by an arrow)

PT – My fellow Americans and more specifically fertile unmarried Americans.  I come to you tonight to address a serious problem that is a threat to the future of this great nation.  Namely, that you young idiots are too stupid and selfish to figure out how to get married and have children.  If you were allowed to fail to reproduce it has the potential to cripple the future work force and devastate the society we live in.  So as much as it pains me to actually interact with you losers, I your president, will step in and save you from your own imbecility.

So tonight, I am rolling out a new program.  I am calling it Momma Melania’s Match Making Service and along with the tax and education benefits, I will sweeten the deal for the first million couples by throwing in a free obstetrics and pediatric plan along with a free box of Trump genuine imitation Cuban cigars for the doting new fathers.

(now Melania Trump walks into the center stage wearing a form fitting blue outfit adorned with red double hearts)

MT – That’s right, you women will no longer have to work at your horribly boring jobs, live in your teeny tiny apartments eating your ramen noodles and talking to your cats.  Schmoopey, I mean Mr. President Trump will find you beautiful men with strong muscular arms and big shoulders and piles of gold.  They will give you children by the sexy loving and you will raise these children and watch tv.

PT – Uhhh, sure.  And you so called men out there.  Here’s your one and only chance to escape from your parents’ basements and actually grow up.  If you follow through on this deal and not only get married but manage to somehow produce offspring, I can guarantee that we will keep you employed and help you raise a family the way your fathers did it, with a living wage job and a stay at home mom for your kids.  Now understand, nobody’s gonna be rich and nobody’s gonna marry Snow White.  But let’s face it, you’re not exactly Prince Charming.  If you were, you wouldn’t still be in the basement.  But you are a generation that got the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama economic/cultural shaft.  You bore the full brunt of industry off-shoring and industrial strength feminism, you poor bastards.

MT – Oh Schmoopey don’t be so mean to them, they will make very wonderful husbands for these women.  So, ladies, throw away your birth control pills and burn your power skirt and buy a cookbook and an apron.  Instead of being that sad, confused Lena Dunham you can be like me a happy, humble stay at home mom.

PT – So that’s what humble costs a month.   …….     Well, anyway you people will have to work out the details yourselves.  I’ve assembled a crack team of forensic psychiatrists to separate out any actual serial killers from the run of the mill psychopathic Americans so although we can’t guarantee Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart at least you’ll probably survive the courtship.  But this is a limited time deal so first come first served.  Call the number on your screen and join the real world, you losers.  Trump out.

(scene shifts back to the three girls watching tv in the living room)

KY – Oh, that Trump is such a jerk?  We love Lena Dunham?

SY – Oh, he is such a sexist?  Why would we want to have children, right Macey?

(Macey is reading the number off the tv and keying it in)

MY – Uh yeah, about that, I’ve been living here for ten years and if instead of living in this rat hole with the two of you, five cats and Lena Dunham, someone says I can have my own family then even if my new husband looks like Jo-Jo the Dog Faced Boy, I’m all in.

KY – Well, you will definitely be sorry?  Won’t she Stacey?

(Stacey has begun copying the number from Macey)

SY – Well, I don’t want to get stuck with the real losers after the good slackers are all taken.  Sorry Kasey.

KY – Hey, give me that number!  I don’t even like cats.

Trump vs the Handmaid’s Tale – Part 2

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Trump vs the Handmaid’s Tale – Part 1

 

Dramatis Personae – President Trump – (PT); Vice President Pence (VPP); Melania Trump – (MT);

Scene 1 – White House West Wing, Oval Office, 8am Wednesday

(President Trump seated behind the desk, with Vice President Pence in a chair facing him)

VPP – So let me see if I understand this Mr. President, you want me to advocate for today’s feminist, godless, sex-obsessed women to forsake their materialistic and anti-traditionalist ways and embrace modesty, chastity before marriage, motherhood and deference to their husbands.

PT – Well sure, if you say it like that it sounds like a snooze.  But if we put the Mad Men to work on this we can make it sexy as hell and they’ll be breakin’ down the doors to sign on.  Remember, young people are idiots.  Think of the incredibly stupid things they buy into.  You can convince them that a guy in a dress is a woman and that Obama is smart.  So if you give them something that actually works and just convince them that it’s edgy and original you could stampede them to the altar in a mob.

VPP – Don’t you think it’s dangerous to manipulate people about something as serious and vital as marriage?

PT – Look, we’re not trying to scam anyone, it’s your job to get the sequence and the motivation all straight.  Make sure they wake up from the millennial malaise they’ve been immersed in and commit to something that gives meaning to their muddled existences.  It’s up to me to make the sales pitch compelling and hook them.

VPP – Well I sort of see what you mean sir, but there are other considerations that could make all this moot.  For instance, nowadays it takes two incomes to survive and where does that leave our happy couple who want to raise a family?

PT – Way ahead of you.  That’s part of the bait I’m putting on the hook.  I’m going to propose that the federal government will rig the tax structure to provide married couples that want a stay at home mom to raise their kids with a matching credit to match the husband’s salary.  And this credit will continue until the kids are eighteen or even twenty-two if they take a useful college or vocational program.

VPP – But that will cost trillions!

PT – Yep.  But we’ll be couple it with the end of welfare.  No more single women raising children on welfare.  Any man who fathers a child will pay for it and unless he’s in prison he’s going to live with his family.  And with the women staying home with the kids men will be in demand again in the job market.  Salaries will rise and eventually we won’t even need to tilt the tax code very much.

VPP – You’ve thought this through I can see but I must confess I can’t imagine how you’ll make old fashioned marriage sound good to millennials.

PT – Actually, I’m gonna let Ivanka and Melania do most of the work on recruiting these young idiots.  And all you really have to do is convince the girls.  The boys will follow them like moths to a flame.  I was thinking of something along the lines of Momma Melania’s Match Making Service.

VPP – Have you spoken to the First Lady about this idea?

PT – Not yet, but how could she refuse to save her country from childless collapse.  In fact I’ll call her now.  (gets up from the desk, walks to and opens the door and starts shouting into the corridor)  Schmoopey, Schmoopey.  Schmoopeyyyyy!!!!

MT – (entering from the hallway)  Schmoopey stop shouting.  The picture of the Obama fell off the wall.

PT – I need your help.  We must save American womanhood from barren, childless loneliness.

MT – Oh no you do not.  You are staying right here.  No more Stormy the pornos for you or I will make you very, very sorry and the Secret Service will be too, too late to save some of you.

PT – No, no Schmoopey, I need you to teach the young women of America how to be good wives and mothers.

MT – Oh, this I can do Schmoopey.  I am full of the mother stuff.  I will teach them about make-up and shopping and finding a good maid.  I will need to freshen up my wardrobe to do this right.  Maybe three million dollars?

VPP – Just like Martha Washington.

To Be Continued …

 

Trump vs the Handmaid’s Tale – Part 3

What Could Fix the United States?

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According to our friends on the Dissident Right the answer is nothing.  Fate has marked our nation with the kiss of death.  We are already circling the drain and any moment the slightest hiccough will push us out of the death spiral and right into the maw of the Maelström.  I have to confess, every day it gets harder and harder to believe we aren’t in the situation they describe.  But for the sake of argument (and to fill out my daily allotment of blather) let’s speculate on how we could escape this death trap we find ourselves in.

And what is the greatest threat to our way of life?  I would say illegal immigration.  It combines an economic destabilization with the loss of national identity.  Inherent with the actual flow of illegal aliens is the cultural indoctrination that tells young people that it’s wrong to favor the real citizens of this country over the gate crashers.  This encourages the kind of lunacy you see in California where illegal aliens are provided all the same benefits as citizens and in some cases even greater advantage.  The state has even gone to the lengths of openly defying federal law by providing protection to illegal aliens from ICE agents.

Reversing the status quo would involve enforcing sanctions against employers who allow illegal aliens to get a paycheck.  It would mean deporting millions of illegals and putting in place barriers (a Wall) to keep them from returning.  And it would mean prosecuting those who break the law to protect illegal aliens.  This is a huge undertaking.  It would cost billions of dollars and would lead to violence and maybe deaths in the areas of the country heavily occupied by illegals.  But it would be very possible and the benefits would be immense.  The reductions in crime, government expenditures and chaos would more than compensate society for the disruptions and conflict that would be necessary.

The second most useful initiative and for me the most ethically justified is the cessation of reverse discrimination.  This includes the end of affirmative action for any and all quota-based classes of people.  This would put an end to the federal, state and local mandated interference in people’s lives.  It would mean that the words that Martin Luther King Jr. said about a man being judged by the content of his character rather than the color of his skin would now be in alignment with government actions.  No one would be suspected of incompetence because of quota based gerrymandering.  The best person would be hired for the job or given the spot in school because in most places talent is what counts.  In the few instances where that is not the case mediocrity is its own punishment.  But at least it will be a voluntary and free decision to be mediocre.  And I don’t have a problem with that, nor should the government.

And the final thing that would restore some measure of legitimacy to the concept of this being the United States is for the Supreme Court to strike down all the many State and Federal rulings that have weakened, and in some cases, nullified the Bill of Rights.  The first and second amendments are under constant attack by public and private enemies and for the most part the courts have been the worst offenders.  An active originalist Supreme Court could go an awful long way in restoring our rights and punishing corporations and even State governments that have been bullying and bankrupting individuals who attempt to exercise the very clearly stated rights that as Americans we supposedly enjoy.

So, these are the three initiatives that could bring America back to a semblance of the freedom and cohesion that it once enjoyed.  Could these things be done?  I would say definitely.  Will they?  In my opinion, only if President Trump gets a mandate from the American public in the mid-terms and then wins re-election with enough coat-tails to enact legislation comfortably in the House and Senate.  If he cannot legislate real change then it will never happen.  Then at that point I’ll have to agree with the Dissident Right and start building my cabin in the forest.  Time will tell.