Poor Donny. The stadium wasn’t quite full, not even one-third full, actually, for his self-congratulatory weekend rally in Tulsa. Because The Donald doesn’t believe in reading, he had to go by visuals and even he could see that 6,200 in attendance is a few less than the million red hats predicted to attend. Heads will be rolling in the corridors of the White House as soon as the golf balls are done rolling at Mar-a-Lago.
The excuses for the poor turnout quickly poured out of the administration: Low attendance was due to overrated virus fears, protestors blocking people from entering the stadium, rampaging packs of rabid dingoes, ad infinitum. Imagine the feelings of disappointment of the MAGA-hat wearing minions who camped out for days hoping to get inside, or the large television screens and fences outside the stadium for the overflow crowds that never materialized. The unintended result of the less-than-spectacular showing will appear in a couple of weeks when corona virus infection rates will spike in Tulsa and back home wherever the rest of the non-mask-wearing Trumpies originated. Attendees’ temperatures were checked before the fans could enter the stadium. Too bad it wasn’t I.Q.s. Another result, more encouraging, is that it looks as if some of the members of Trump’s adoring, starry-eyed base have begun to wise up and realize that The Donald is not all he was cracked up to be…in his own mind, anyway. Just cracked.
A second reality hit came in the form of John Bolton’s book. In it he states that Trump’s only concern in governing and foreign policy decisions was getting reelected no matter the cost. That’s no surprise to many of us who realized that from the beginning. It is still hard for me to imagine that so many American human-types were fooled into thinking he actually cared about what happens to them. I still remember the words of Penn Gillette who was a guest on Trump’s Apprentice in one of the final seasons. In 2016 Penn said, “No matter how bad you think Trump is, he’s worse.” According to Trump, Bolton’s a whacko, nut job, just like all the other former members of his administration he fired that were dumb as rocks and useless. Remember when he said he would hire the best people to drain the swamp? I’d hate to have Donny as a personnel manager at my company. The production department would look like a ward from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
In case you haven’t guessed it by my picture at the top of this column or by my past writings, I came of age in the 1960s, and remember most of it except for maybe 1967 through 1969 (military), but that’s a story for another time. What I do recollect from those decade-ending years is that young people began to realize that our government leaders, even the president, would lie to us. It was the days of the Vietnam War and our successes in routing the commies were greatly exaggerated by LBJ and his cohorts to keep up support for the war. There was one incident I read about in some supposedly true military writing (not my novel in which every word is true), where an enemy engagement only amounted to seven confirmed North Vietnamese kills, but where we’d lost more than 20 soldiers. The commander told his subordinate to up the number of enemy dead to more than the number of Americans killed. The subordinate reported the enemies neutralized at 400.
It’s been hard for me to come up with much humorous about Trump because of the serious situations we’re facing now. I long for the days when I could pick on our do-nothing Congress or Texas. But Donald spews enough humor every time he opens his mouth and it’s taken the fun out of making fun of him.
I’m sorry if it seems like I’m picking on Donald. I am. I’m sorry if it only seems like I am.