Chumps for Trump

What’s on my mind? 

“This year will mark the 73rd year of the pardoning, and whether Trump finally admits it, it will indeed be the last of this presidency.” - CNN Politics Online, Nov 18th, on the annual Presidential “pardon” of the Thanksgiving turkey.

Really? The last pardon of Donald Trump’s presidency? Doubt it. Watch for Trump to try to pardon one more turkey - himself - before he leaves office.

The recent election and its run-up cost $14 billion. Last  August - August! - Trump said: “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.” Three months out and he was already declaring fraud if he lost. 

He lost. And hoodwinked his supporters. They just don’t know it, yet. Fraud? When you’re a cheater, you assume everyone else cheats, too.

He’s blocking Biden’s transition into the White House (I beg your pardon. I never promised you the Rose Garden ...). We’ve all been relegated to the audience of the Daily Donald Show: How mean and petty will this thug and bully get? How loud will his tantrums and outrage be this time? When will riots break out? How much has he spent so far on doomed, baseless lawsuits and recounts? 

In my opinion, those suits are little more than a distraction - one of those “bright, shiny objects” the media’s always talking about.

The real object? Peeling a few dollars from the mesmerized chumps in his thrall; playing the pea-and-shell game with debt; arranging pardons for his family; giving democracy and soon-to-be President Joe Biden the finger; and giving the Courts the slip. 

No matter what, the chumps for Trump will stand by their man. He needs them to validate his importance; they need him to validate theirs. 

Long after he’s gone, when the gawking, paying chumplet in all of us tours the “former” Trump tower and the “former” Mar-a-Lago and the “former” Trump golf courses, I’m guessing it’ll be the gold toilets we stare at longest, pondering all the crap this amoral charlatan flushed down.

That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

© Nicole Parton, 2020  

The Crazed, the Crisis, and the Cult of Donald Trump

What’s on my mind? 

If Donald Trump were to fall on his head (clunk!); pardon himself for all past and future crimes; wheedle that he wants to play with “that big red button;” and start signing blank proclamations with “Forever, The Don;” his Republican enablers might roll their eyes with one of those “Oh, you kidder!” looks. 

But if Trump began singing “We Are the World;” conceded the best man won the election and “I ain’t it;” recanted every conspiracy theory he’d ever absorbed, retold, and retweeted; embraced fair-minded media outlets; told Rosie O’Donnell he respected her; told Melania he loved her; told Putin, Kim, Xi, and other dictators the bromance was over; apologized to every person, corporation, and agency he’d ever hurt, lied, cheated, unfairly fired, or otherwise trashed …  

If he did that and restored every international treaty from which he’d precipitously withdrawn; every diplomatic relationship he’d ended in a fit of pique; admitted he’s not the brightest bulb in the chandelier; trusted reason, science, and the wisdom of daily briefings; and (oh-h-h-h, yes-s-s-s!) admitted Don Jr.’s an angry jerk, Rudy’s a nutter, Dr. Scott Atlas is out of his depth, and he (the 45th President of the United States) has been an incompetent loon since Day One as well as being a danger to the free world ...

Well ... If Trump did this and more, those same Republican enablers might shake in their shoes, knowing the jig is up. 

Say bye-bye, Donald. Time to put on your big boy pants and stop being such a cry-baby.

Bula! Bula!

What’s on my mind? 

They say everyone has a first time. You’re sure you’ll look “different” - and that every stranger in the street will know you’ve performed “the act.” Guilt sets in. You confide in a friend, later thinking: “What if she tells someone? I don’t want everyone else to know!”

But they will know.  When I colored my hair last month, everyone knew. That’s because a scar like a train track winds around my head. My naturally brown hair normally hides this scar, but the track turned Roadkill-Red two seconds after I applied a color billed as having (1) “light reddish tones” and being (2) “PERMANENT.”   

“ACK! ACK!” I thought, washing and scrubbing with a fervor I haven’t felt since Mike Goepel planted one on my lips in Grade 7.

Grabbing Himself’s 30-year-old bula towel (his beloved memory of Fiji) to dry my hair, I noticed large swaths of the towel had turned purple. 

“It’ll come out in the wash!” I nervously reassured myself. The word “PERMANENT” again coming to mind, it didn’t. Skilfully folding the purple parts, I hid the towel under a suitcase. 

Himself loves this towel the way he loves me - unconditionally, despite its age and frayed edges. It didn’t take long before he asked: “Where’s my bula towel?” I would have casually taken my leave at that point, but “bula” means “hi” in Fijian. 

“Dunno … Haven’t seen it!” Which, while this wasn’t exactly true, it wasn’t exactly a lie, the towel being outa-sight-outa-mind, under the suitcase. 

Himself probably sniffed the lingering odor of argan and wheat germ oils the package promised in either or all the developer cream, colorant cream, and color care conditioner in the product, because he started hunting.

Who reads package fronts (or side or backs, for that matter)? Not me. But I was reading them no-o-w … The words on the package that stuck with me were those very oils. 

With no idea what argan and wheat germ oils were, I looked them up. 

“Does wheat germ make you poop?” someone asked Google. I’m not sure the question or its reply were relevant, but here goes: 

“Along with endosperm (endo- wha-a-a?), germ and bran make up a whole grain, providing the fiber necessary for a healthy intestinal bacteria balance that turns your digestive tract into a pooping powerhouse.”

I definitely did not want to become a “pooping powerhouse.”

Argan oil? “Four wheat germ oil alternatives … purchased from a local supermarket in Hawaii, were added to a fruit fly liquid larval diet as a replacement for wheat germ oil in the rearing of fruit fly larvae.” 

Fruit flies? Endosperm? A pooping powerhouse? I don’t … want … to know.

At that very moment, I heard Himself scream: “My bula towel! My bula towel!” It was the sound of rage fueled by grief. He must have looked under the suitcase.

© Nicole Parton, 2020

Propaganda and the Presidency

What’s on my mind?

“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country …” - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States (in an essay originally published in Metropolitan Magazine, May 1918). 

“Operation Warp Speed, launched in May, is a massive scientific, industrial, + logistical endeavor unlike anything seen since the Manhattan Project …” - @IvankaTrump, Nov. 9, 2020 tweet 

The mid- July, 1945 Manhattan Project was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon - Wikipedia 

“70 million pissed off republicans and not one city burned to the ground.” - @DonaldJTrumpJr, Nov. 7, 2020 pinned tweet

Numerous retweets about “voter suppression, irregularities, and fraud” as well as a website and phone number to “Tell us what you are seeing … Report a case.” - @EricTrump - Nov. 10 retweet

“It’s all starting to crumble” - @EricTrump - Nov. 10 tweet 

“URGENT: We Will Not Win in Georgia Unless YOU Get Involved, Call the Governor NOW” - @seanhannity, Fox News journalist, Nov. 10 tweet

And this, on the Twitter account of Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States, Nov. 10, with a cautionary note from Twitter: 

Trump has tweeted versions of this over and over. It’s the old story: When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you're a cheater, everyone looks like a cheater.

And also this, from a Republican friend in Washington state.

“I knew a 28-year-old who got COVID and died on the 15th day. I knew a woman who was perfectly healthy and died in less than a week. The virus is real and it’s dangerous.”

Her brother and sister-in-law believe masks, social distancing and COVID are fake. Hardline Trump supporters, they also believe the election was stolen.

© Nicole Parton, 2020