Nobody does it better

“Nobody knows the Bible better than I do,” Prez Trump proclaimed back in pre-

His knowledge is yuge--yuge as his you-know-what 

Armaggedon days, when he was courting the evangelical bloc of voters. That statement’s only logical, given that Trump undoubtedly believes that he’s the one who wrote it.  

He quoted a verse from Second Corinthians, but cited “Two Corinthians,” to the amusement of the fun-loving crowd at Liberty University. He later blamed Tony Perkins—not the Psycho guy, but the president of the Family Research Council, who’d written out some crib notes for Trump. “Tony Perkins wrote that out for me,” Trump explained while throwing Perkins under the church bus. “He actually wrote out ‘2’, he wrote out the number ‘2’. I said, ‘Well, Tony has to know better than anyone.”   

That’s not necessarily a contradiction, giving someone else authority after you’d already claimed it, if you consider that many authors leave their books behind them once they’re written.

“Nobody respects women more than I do,” Trump has repeatedly trumpeted. That’s true, in a way. Trump has pledged to “love, honor and obey” a woman, not just once, but three times. You might liken his reverence for the female of the species to the line in the old Steve Martin routine: “I want to put women up on a pedestal,” Martin said. “The better to look up her dress.”

“Nobody knows more about taxes than I do, maybe in the history of the world,” our credulousness-taxing Commander-in-Chief” has said. And if you have such knowledge, why dilute it by giving it to others? Hold on to those tax returns, by all means.

“Nobody knows more about infrastructure than I do,” the Wigged One has boasted. More towers, resorts and golf courses are absolutely essential to a vibrant economy, of course, but Trump also realizes that new bridges, railroads, power plants and schools are important, not to mention excellent opportunities for slapping one’s name on something big. We’re looking forward most of all to Trump Dam.

“Nobody builds better walls than me,” Trump asserts, presumably not ironically referring to the walls he’s already put up as President. The Great Wall of Trump will be his piece de resistance, and not nearly as expensive as experts predict, if Trump succeeds in getting Mexicans to build it—and pay us.

“There’s nobody who understands the horror of nuclear better than me,” says Trump, whose skin does look somewhat irradiated. The horror he envisions, however, is probably the prospect of having no one around to praise him.

That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t pull the trigger, despite the warnings of the generals he knows so much more than. A nuclear holocaust, after all, would provide him the ultimate construction project: Trumpopolis.  

Dancing with the Devil

When I was in high school, we had a ceremony in the football stadium one spring to elect the Prom Queen and her court. The nominees had to walk out to the center of the football field to receive the acclamation of the crowd. One of the girls nominated (by some jokester) was the ugliest girl in the senior class—in the entire school, for that matter.

As the poor girl—I’ll call her Jane—trudged out onto the field, she was bowed down by the gales of sardonic laughter. When she was elected, by the volume of cheers, as Senior Attendant to the Queen, she began to weep.

It was funny, in a perverse sort of way—for ten seconds or so. Then we realized what we’d done.

Nobody in our school knew Jane very well, or at all. She was silent and withdrawn—not like those homely girls who made up for their looks with "personality." Her predominant—her only--facial expressions were a scowl and a glare, which she returned to anyone whose eyes even innocently or inadvertently fell on her. I’d never heard her utter a word.    

Jane, as it turned out, gamely showed up on Prom Night, and went through with the whole grim charade, with a scowl and a glare. Jane was Jane—an ugly duckling to the end.

There was an end, at least. Jane was royalty for a night, and then we were done with her.

Donald J. Trump is the Ugly Prom Queen from Hell.

Trump’s candidacy for President was a grotesque novelty, and his election the upshot of an obscene joke, one that was carried on to excruciating lengths. After Trump was swept into office by our collective bad taste, we held our breaths until Inauguration Day, hoping that our man would become more “Presidential” in the interim.

It was an untenable hope, and we knew it. We all knew what we were getting, to a point, with Trump: an ego-driven, ignorant, incurious, humorless, preening peacock--in short, a narcissistic slob. Then we watched and recoiled in horror as, over the next few months, the true extent of the man’s moral bankruptcy was revealed.  

As well as being a liar of monumental proportions, Trump is a hollow braggart and a poltroon. He dreams up baseless accusations and leaves it for others to sort them out. He takes credit for what others have accomplished, but shirks responsibility for his failures; if he even acknowledges them as failures, he makes sure there’s always a fall guy around. Without ever having read a book, he fancies himself the smartest person in any room. Being suspicious of “the arts,” he’d like to abolish them.  

Sometimes when I think about Trump I think of Jane (who also had orange hair and complexion, by the way). What would it be like to live for years with someone who was ugly inside and out? (Which is not to deny the possibility that Jane might have led a perfectly lovely inner life.)

I guess I’ll have to wait and find out.