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Panegyrics and Motes
If I have learned one thing during the past sordid, disturbing, pathetic, obscene and absurd years of the pseudo-administration of Donald “Bone Spurs, I’ll Take the Country Down With Me” Trump, it is the definition of the word “panegyric.”
So my vocabulary has been expanded and there is something good that has come out of the Trump nightmare. “Panegyric,” for those illiterates among you, is defined as “a public speech or published text in praise of someone or something.”
I read it recently in a N.Y. Times column that referred to Trump and all the “sycophantic panegyrics.” You gotta love it.
“Consider the mote in our own eye” was another revelation for me as I read it in respect to Democrats not seeing their own failings because they are too busy counting Trump’s. The phrase is taken from the American Standard Version of the New Testament, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”
While we’re on the path of discovering just how much we have learned in so short a time, another cardinal fact is that the awful film “Sharknado 3” will go down in history as pivotal to the fall of the United States. That is because in 2015, then-citizen Donald Trump, turned down the role of the President in the latest chapter of the worst film ever made. Trump couldn’t decide if he wanted to be an actor who guides the country through an aerial shark attack or to be the real President who leads the country into an aerial shark attack. Unfortunately for us, he didn’t get the movie role.
By the way, Sarah Palin also declined the role which eventually went to Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Of course, that pissed off Trump and guess what he did? He threatened to sue, though he never did follow through.
But I digress. On a more serious tone, it is extremely critical that the Democrats take the Senate. That is so that if Trump wins a second term, the House can begin new impeachment hearings on Jan. 21 and the Democrat-majority Senate will convict no later than Jan. 22.
But you say, how would that solve anything because Vice President Mike “I can’t be alone in a room with a woman” Pence would become president and in that case, impeach, convict and Nancy Pelosi, the next in line of succession, is our first woman president. Oh the joy of it all.
Hopefully, we can avoid all the drama and Uncle Joe will be elected.
If on the eve of election day, you are sitting in a bar nursing a beer, something that Bone Spurs and Uncle Joe say they have never done, referring to nursing a beer or imbibing any other alcoholic beverage for that matter. And suddenly there is a mighty explosion that rattles your teeth and your beer mug and then there is an unintelligible scream of the scope, volume and type that has never been heard, ever, and you realize that Trump has lost and begun a temper tantrum the likes of nothing ever seen. His roar is felt in the heavens as he bellows out, “fake votes, fake election.”
However, if Trump is re-elected, a pox on my house for even saying that, then you ain’t seen nothing yet. In his first action of the new term, he will nominate Jared Kushner as Secretary of State; Ivanka Trump as FBI Director; and meet the new Defense Secretary, Donald trump Jr.
The border wall will rise before you can say “open sesame;” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) law will be dead and buried and millions of undocumented immigrants, regardless of age, will say Saynora to the U.S.; Obamacare and insurance for 54 million Americans with pre-existing illnesses, kaput; abortions will be illegal for anyone at any time; and welcome back coal and off-shore oil drilling and bye bye to any faint hope to face the climate crisis, the most existential threat to the planet.
In the name of “America First,” you will see a final chapter of canceling any international coalitions; NATO will be only a distant, quaint memory; we will hear a reprise of the famous tune, “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran;” human rights protections, not a chance; endangered animal protection, don’t make me laugh; LGBTQ people can kiss off any hopes of serving in the military, for health care or for the ability to use a bathroom of choice.
Want more?
The role of science and support for scientific research will go the way of the yo yo; support for dictators will be entrenched and not even questioned anymore; manners and diplomacy will be further relegated to the dustbin of irrelevancy; and finally, you will see Trump hotels and golf courses sprouting like poison mushrooms in every corner of the globe.
Is this really what anyone wants? God save us if the answer is yes.