The End of Parody

If you’ve followed my bloggy offerings for any length of time, you know that I have feasted on our past and present president as a rich comedic source for the past nine years or so. For example, I considered how a Satan presidency would stack up against Trump’s (Satan comes out ahead in terms of experience and basic human decency); what a Trump State of the Union Address from a New York State prison might look like (in the “wishful thinking” category); and a revelation that the sensational “Anonymous” source leaking White House insider info to the media was actually Trump himself, vainly trying to satisfy his bottomless need for attention.

Given current headlines, it looks like our Commander-in-Chief will remain a rich source of material for as long as he remains in office. But the fun part of making fun of his hjinks is gone, for two reasons.

Firstly, I have come to realize that I cannot outdo Trump himself in parodying Trump. Consider that a fundamental device in political humor is the “take-it-to-the-logical-extreme” approach. For example, Trump has loudly speculated about the United States’ right to annex Greenland, so I wrote a recent blog in which Trump threatens to nuke Stockholm, er, Copenhagen, and if that doesn’t work, to impose tariffs.

What of it? I am writing about a man who once gave a press conference in which he suggested trying bleach injections and sunlamps as a cure for the COVID virus. A man who quite recently proposed forcibly and permanently evacuating the two million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip so that he could transform it into a luxury resort. A convicted felon who referred to the convicted thugs who violently assaulted the U.S. Capitol building in 2021 as “hostages” and gave each one a pardon or commutation. How can I out-ridicule a man who is already a walking parody of decency, statesmanship, and public service? I’m a pretty cynical guy, ready to think the worst about the present administration. Yet it never occurred to me to call those monsters “hostages.” Well done, Mr. President!

The second problem is more serious. Political humor these days has started to feel pointless, self-indulgent, even counter-productive. When I watch the master Jon Stewart doing his show before a studio audience that hoots and howls in approval, I have a sinking feeling that we’re just indulging in emotional self-gratification that makes no real difference to anyone. And it’s not even that gratifying anymore.

Meanwhile, there is real blood on the carpet. Trump is outlining proposals for the disposition of the Gaza Strip that would have been too appalling for even Benjamin Netanyahu to propose in public. Human beings guilty of nothing more than lacking proper paperwork are being rounded up and sent on flying prison buses out of the country. Guantanamo Bay is being converted to a concentration camp. Government officers in charge of financial and judicial integrity are being fired or forced to resign. Programs to encourage the development of wind and solar power are being pointlessly scrapped—pointlessly, unless you’re an oil company stockholder. NATO….

But why go on? I can keep on making jokes about it, but it looks like the joke is on us, the American people, in fact, the entire human race.

Maybe one day soon, when cracking a joke or drawing a disrespectful cartoon can get you sent to prison or worse, then political satire will be a meaningful act again. Til then…maybe I’ll start posting recipes. “The One Wrong Thing Everyone Does With Bolognese Sauce!”

Dead Center (Nel segno, Luigi Pirandello, 1904)

If you know anything about Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), it’s probably because you’ve heard of his play, Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921), about a family of fictional characters pleading with a theater director to stage their story, after their author has abandoned them.

But Pirandello was the author of numerous important novels, plays, and more than 250 short stories. A handful of his stories were translated into English and have been included in world-literature anthologies for decades; many others have not been translated.

Two Pirandello scholars, Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, have been leading a project to solicit and publish translations of every one of his stories from various literary translators, and to make these translations freely available online. I am grateful to both of them for allowing me to contribute.

My translation of Pirandello’s story “Dead Center” (“Nel segno”) was recently posted on their “Stories for a Year” site, along with an excellent introduction by the editors, and you can read it here–as well as find links to many other Pirandello stories.

My thanks again to Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, as well as to the Pirandello scholar Daniela Bini, whose early encouragement and advice did much to set me on the literary translation path.

Effective Immediately: Some Executive Orders We’d Like to See

Trump Keeps Up Breakneck Pace of Executive Orders: New York Times, 1/29/25

Effective Immediately: All McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. will be renamed “McKamala’s.”

Effective Immediately: All illegal immigrants currently residing in the U.S. will receive a cute little sack containing a packet of Gummi Bears, a Starbucks gift card, U.S. citizenship, and a brochure entitled, “What is a Payroll Tax?”

Effective Immediately: All January 6th rioters will be required to display a prominent scarlet “A” on their tactical camouflage vests. It does not stand for “American.” Or “Adulterer.”

Effective Immediately: Federal funds will be released to enable authors of impertinent little blogs like this one to lead a life of creative ease.

Effective Immediately: The Justice Department is instructed to launch an investigation into why we have to sit through a zillion obnoxious ads before listening to or watching anything the least bit interesting.

Effective Immediately: Nothing is effective immediately. Sometime next week is fine.

ICE STATION ZEBRA II: FROSTED DANISH

Trump Alarms Denmark in an Icy Exchange Over Greenland—Headline, The New York Times, Jan. 26 2025

SCENE: White House, the Oval Office

KRISTI NOEM, Dept. of Homeland Security: It’s Denmark, sir. They appear to be moving forces towards Greenland.

POTUS: Those backstabbing Danians! I told you they were going to invade!

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: Technically, sir, it’s not an invasion, since Denmark is actually responsible for the defense of Greenland, which is….

POTUS: No way! Shut up!

RUBIO: I’m totally serious!

POTUS: So am I! Shut up!

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: Should I arrest him now, sir?

POTUS: Not yet, just take away his Secret Services.

PATEL: I would, but the Secret Service actually belongs to Treasury, not….

POTUS: Shut up!

PATEL: Yes sir! Should I arrest myself now, sir?

POTUS: I never cared for those Denmarkians. Who wants their stupid pastries anyway! We can make danishes right here in America, and make them ten times better!

RUBIO: Umm…

POTUS: Umm, what?

RUBIO: Nothing, sir. Brilliant insight, sir.

POTUS: Kristi, we need the Secretary of Defense on this. Go wake up Pete Hegseth!

NOEM: He’s right over there on the couch, sir, next to the empty bottles.

POTUS: So wake him up! [Kristi Noem gives Pete Hegseth a good shake]

PETER HEGSETH, U.S. Secretary of Defense: What th’, where am I? [sees Noem] Oh hello, darlin’! How about you grab your .22 and we’ll jump in the old pickup truck and go looking for some misbehavin’ Malamoots!

POTUS: It’s the Danishes we need to focus on now, Pete! What kind of military are we up against?

HEGSETH: Well let’s see now, they got almost a hundred warfighters. I like to say ‘warfighters’ instead of ‘soldiers’ cause it sounds sexier! And some of them are actually female, which is totally wrong but kind of hot! Just thinkin’ about them Danish girl warfighters, I start to get…

POTUS: What about their navy?

HEGSETH: Well sir, our intelligence indicates they recently took an old herring boat and mounted a blunderbuss on the fo’c’sle. [Cue ominous music] We have drones operating in the area now to help us determine what a blunderbuss is. And also a fo’c’sle.

POTUS: Armor?

HEGSETH: We believe they are equipped with at least two tanks. One is on permanent display outside a museum in Vestervig. The other one is…currently unaccounted for. [Cue ominous music]

POTUS: [Squinting fiercely] My God, Pete…that tank could be on the herring boat right now…headed for the Gulf of America!

TULSI GABBARD, NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR: Mr. President, we just received information that China is launching an invasion of Taiwan. I told them OK but please let us know next time.

POTUS: So sad. China would never have invaded if I were president of Taiwan! Now about those Denmarkers…We’re going to nuke the hell out of Stockholm!

RUBIO: Copenhagen.

POTUS: And also Copenhagen! And if that doesn’t work, they can expect 20% tariffs!

Quick Answers To Your Complicated Health Questions!

AS WE’VE NOTED BEFORE, the mainstream media has an annoying habit of printing headlines with intriguing questions, but instead of just, like, giving you the answer right away, they make you read a whole article with nuances and tradeoffs and science and stuff, and when you do finally get to the end, the conclusion is…inconclusive!  So, to save you time and stress, we take some recent “Wellness” questions posed in the New York Times and give simple, straightforward answers that anyone can understand…even our readers!

Do I Need to Worry About Microplastics in Tea Bags?  Nah, something else will get you first.

I’m Lactose-Intolerant. Can I Eat Dairy Anyway? Fine with me!

How Long Do Leftovers Last? Why do you think God gave you a nose?

What if You Just Don’t Like Breakfast? That’s cool!…but if you really don’t want that piece of bacon…

Is Bone Broth Really Brimming With Health Benefits? Yes, except for whoever’s bone that was.

Is It Better to Eat Before a Workout or After? Both. And skip the workout.

Is It Safe to Dermaplane My Face? Only one way to find out!

Why Can’t I Get This Song Out of My Head? Because it’s impossible.

Is Decaffeinated Coffee Bad for You? Yes, especially if you need to pay attention at an 8 o’clock Zoom.

How Do I Get Rid of the ‘Chicken Skin’ on My Arms and Legs? Slow down and eat over the plate like a civilized person!

Was Vittorio De Sica, director of The Bicycle Thief, a second Oskar Schindler?

Still from La porta del cielo, from: Di Gierre – Breve storia del cinema italiano, image in the public domain

You’ve probably seen Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film, based on Thomas Keneally’s book about a German industrialist who uses his factory in Poland as a cover for saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust. What could be better than a film based on a true story about a heroic Gentile saving Jewish lives?

Well…how about an actual film that saved Jewish lives?

A couple of day ago, idly following links related to late-Fascist and early-postwar film stars and directors in Italy, I came across the following notes in the Wikipedia article about the film The Gate of Heaven (La porta del cielo), produced in Rome in 1944 and released in 1945, and directed by Vittorio De Sica, known in the U.S. for his later, groundbreaking film, The Bicycle Thief:

Vittorio De Sica hired approximately 300 extras, who were Jewish or simply being persecuted by the Nazi regime, because of their physical oddity. To avoid their deportation and later execution, he prolonged the shooting of the film as long as he could, awaiting the arrival of the allied armies.

These two sentences are stunning, mystifying, and lots of other -ings. Could this story really be true? If so, why had I never heard or read about it?

And what did it mean that De Sica was hiring Jews “because of their physical oddity?” Was he making Nazi propaganda? This turns out to be a simple matter of grammatical misdirection; move up the comma after “regime” to after “Jewish,” and the intended meaning is clear.

And what exactly did “as long as he could” mean? Was he able to hold out until the American army liberated Rome, or did the Jews in his cast in fact get rounded up and deported to death camps?

Following the links cited in the Wikipedia article were no help. But I did find an excellent online article by Jeff Mathews from 2012, “Gate of Heaven.” He cites as his sources De Sica’s own memoirs, those of his son Christian, and a 2001 article by the film journalist Carlo Celli. His findings? Well…inconclusive.

Some background: The movie was shot in German-occupied Rome in the first half of 1944, while the Allied armies were slowly fighting their way towards the city. In September 1943, Allied armies had landed in Salerno in southern Italy, and the Italian government switched sides and joined the Allies.  Germany still had control of northern Italy, and began rounding up and deporting Jewish Italians. Meanwhile, the organs of Nazi and Italian fascist propaganda were coercing Italian film talent to leave Rome, the center of the Italian film industry, for places farther away from the front lines and more firmly under the control of the Italian Fascist puppet state.

The story of La porta del cielo differs according to the teller. On the “most heroic” end of the scale, the film itself was a complete fabrication, cooked up by De Sica and a certain young priest, the future Pope Paul VI, and produced on Vatican property in Rome (the Church Of St. Paul Beyond the Walls), with the express purpose of saving as many Jewish and partisan lives as possible. De Sica’s production ended up saving as many as 3,000 lives, through the hiring of cast, crew, and extras, and using the church both as a hiding place and a nominally protected space.

On the “least heroic” end of the scale, De Sica himself made the film up out of thin air when he was on the point of being forced to leave Rome for Venice to work on state propaganda, claiming that he was already committed to completing a project for the Vatican. De Sica then scrambled to create an actual project to match his alibi. Being a decent guy, he intentionally included some Jews and partisans in his cast and crew of 300 in order to keep them safe.

All the accounts agree that De Sica was able to keep shooting, or to pretend to keep shooting, until the Americans reached Rome on June 5, 1944, with his original cast and crew nearly intact.  There is no serious dispute that an actual film was produced, at least partly on Vatican property, with the Vatican’s consent if not actual sponsorship, and (in 1945) released.

The most serious problem with these accounts, especially towards the “most heroic” end of the scale, is that Mathews tried and was unable to find any mention by Jewish survivors of De Sica’s role in saving them.

Mathews’ conclusion? “To me, in spite of the different accounts of the details, the substance still rings true to me —Vittorio De Sica risked his own life to save many others, and I am happy to believe that that is true.” I guess that’s good enough for me.

UPDATE (8/27/25) Since this post was first published in December, 2024, we’ve made an interesting discovery: an interview with De Sica in the New York Times on the occasion of the American release of his film The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. It includes a wide-ranging discussion in which De Sica is at pains to distance himself from Mussolini and Fascism, and defends Italians in general against the charge of anti-Semitism. He discusses the making of The Gate of Heaven at some length, but makes no mention of using the film as a cover for saving any Jewish lives. Instead he claims that he hid “four adults and five children” in an apartment he had in Rome. The fact that De Sica seems eager to display his anti-Fascist credentials, yet doesn’t mention the Heaven episode here, makes me believe that the figure of hundreds of Jewish lives saved is apocryphal.

On Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year’s, and this Thing…Called 2025

The stretch of winter between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day will always have pleasurable childhood associations for me. I wasn’t raised in a religious household, but our family observed a lot of the fun and exciting (for children, anyway) holiday rituals: a Christmas tree and/or a menorah, exchanging gifts either on Christmas Day or following the eight days of Hanukkah. Adult shows on TV, so dull that comedies required a laugh-track to tell the audience when they were being funny, were largely usurped by the much more inventive and joyful animated “specials” (the stars of which were, and still are, Charlie Brown, and The Grinch), and in cold or rainy weather there was less of the annoying parental imperative to “go do something outside.” The colored lights and decorations in the stores, the dressed-up houses. Above all, freedom from the drudgery of that intellectual and bodily prison called “school.”

But of course paradise was short-lived. It seemed that Christmas morning had barely ended when neighbors were out in the cold sunlight taking down the lights. The days sped headlong towards New Year’s Eve, an odd, contrived celebration of a number on a calendar, that seemed designed for and by adults only. New Year’s Day was marked by stupefyingly dull TV fare: bowl games, which meant nothing to me, and, even worse, parades. Parades could be barely tolerable in person, but how could anyone stand to watch a parade on TV? Oh look, there’s a balloon that looks like Snoopy!

But mainly New Year’s Day meant the end of the holiday season, the end of cozy, colorful December, and the start of cold, businesslike January, and with it, the return to school. If you replace “school” with “work,” I had much of the same emotions as an adult.

Now I am blessedly and blissfully retired, and the prospect of January hasn’t carried the same feelings of dread as in the past. Until this year.

I feel like we are all on temporary leave from a horrible reality that will return with full force in January 2025. I don’t know what all it will mean, but I am certain it won’t be good. What will be left of the democratic republic of Ukraine in a year? How terribly hot will this summer be, and what will happen to our efforts to keep our planet from drying out and burning up? Will the men, women and children in Gaza finally be shown some real, meaningful mercy? What will happen to the basic institutions of our government, such as the Justice Department, or the agencies that at least try to assure us that our water and air aren’t carelessly poisoned by the engines of commerce? What will happen to the millions of poor, hardworking people in this country who lack the proper paperwork to be here, but have nowhere else to go?  What will happen to democracy itself?

Beats me. I wish I had consoling words for you, and for myself, but it’s hard to see how this all ends well, or close to it.

There will be a backlash against Donald Trump, against his gang of self-serving so-called ‘disruptors,’ against the angry people with the funny red hats. But who knows if it will happen in two years, or four years, or ten, or a generation from now, and how much irreversible damage will have been inflicted. Some of us won’t live long enough to find out.

To paraphrase Woody Allen, the country wants what it wants. And right now, for reasons I am somewhat afraid to understand, it really does want a ruthless mean-spirited vulgar huckster named Donald John Trump.

In the meantime…I think I’ll fix myself some nice pasta, open a bottle of wine, and see what’s on the movie channel. And complain once in a while. It’s all I can do.

Meditations on the New American Nightmare

It’s the Democrats’ fault for not nudging Biden aside sooner and allowing other contenders to be sifted through the primary process. It’s Kamala Harris’ fault for speaking in nebulous platitudes instead of outlining concrete policies. It’s the fault of “the elites” for not taking the concerns of plain old honest working families seriously.

These are the grim (or gleeful) explanations of the center-right pundits like Russ Douthat and Bret Stephens for the nightmare we now find ourselves in. And they contain grains of truth.

But there’s something missing in these arguments. No one forced any voter to pull the lever for the loutish vengeful convicted felon of doubtful mental stability over the bright empathetic woman with a lifetime record of public service. No one forced any voter to stay within the boundaries of Fox News, Truth Social, and Joe Rogan’s podcast, in considering what might be true or false. No one forced any voter to pick the party that looked the other way on January 6, that has vowed to pluck out the Affordable Care Act “root and branch” (in Mitch McConnell’s memorable words), that has treated global warming as a joke for the past thirty years, that has voiced only support for the proposal of “mass deportations.”

The Americans who voted for Trump saw the same man that I did, a man who (just to give some recent examples) publicly called former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi a “bitch,” promised to “protect” women “whether they like it or not,” and amused the audience at one of his final rallies by fellating a malfunctioning microphone.

And what was so awful about Kamala Harris, again?

But blaming the loser for the loss is a lot more comfortable than confronting the possibility that a majority of Americans are gullible, willfully ill-informed, insecure, and/or mean-spirited.

Trump believes that he escaped death in Butler, Pennsylvania because God wants him to be president. The possibility that God engineered the whole thing as a reminder to Trump of his mortality, and to give him a second chance to use his power to act charitably and with empathy towards the less fortunate, seems to have slipped his mind entirely.

But I don’t have insight into the divine. Maybe Trump has it right.  

What To Give That Someone Who Has Everything

Once again, we’re here to alleviate your gift-giving anxiety! Treat yourself to a great read and when you’re done, you have an awesome ready-made gift for that special friend, relative or colleague…you know, the smart, thoughtful one who likes to talk about interesting stuff! And support your local made-in-America writer or translator at the same time! Do it now, don’t even think about it!

From left to right: Gaetano Savatteri’s historical crime drama set in wartime Sicily, A Conspiracy of Talkers, translated by Steve Eaton; A Good Man for an Outlaw, the gothic western by Denton, Texas native son Jonathan Eaton, and its sequel, Outlaws and Worse. Also by J. Eaton, the steampunk sci-fi western The Prairie Martian, and its sequel, Metal Man of the Prairie. Finally, Emilio De Marchi’s 1887 masterpiece, the grandaddy of Italian crime fiction, The Priest’s Hat, based on an actual murder of a priest by a wastrel aristocrat in 1881, and translated by Steve Eaton and Cinzia Russi. All available in shockingy inexpensive paperback or Kindle editions! Enjoy!

Paths of Gloria

U.S. Senator and Yale law school graduate J.D. Vance

“If you are a, you know, middle-class or upper-middle-class white parent, and the only thing that you care about is whether your child goes into Harvard or Yale, like, obviously, that pathway has become a lot harder for a lot of upper-middle-class kids. But the one way that those people can participate in the D.E.I. bureaucracy in this country is to be trans.”—Senator J.D. Vance, on the Joe Rogan Show, 10/31/24

SCENE: Career counselor’s office, Upper Lower Middlebury Preparatory School

CAREER COUNSELOR: Let’s see now…Captain, lacrosse team…check!

Charles Stanton Herringbone III (senior, ’25): Got my letter jacket on!

CC: Eagle Scout…check! B-ish GPA…check! Safely Protestant religious affiliation…check! Gender: reassuringly masculine! Race: We don’t care about race here at Upper Lower Middlebury Prep! But still, white!

CSHIII: Is that a crime now?

CC: Father: Harvard ’89, current mega-donor!

CSHIII: Pop’s a generous, civic-minded guy!

CC: [darkly] With a sterling record like that, you should be a shoo-in for, say…Florida State or Texas…

CSHIII: What? I can’t go to a public school! Can you imagine me, years from now at a cocktail party or the Supreme Court cloakroom, starting a conversation with, “years ago, when I was an undergrad at Wisconsin-Muskingum….”?

CC: Well, back when America was great, before about 1967, or between 2016 and 2020, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But now, with this damned DEI business…

CSHIII: What’s DEI?

CC: It’s where they admit applicants based on their overall promise, even if they went to a crappy K-12 system in a poor school district and couldn’t afford SAT coaches…

CSHIII: But that’s horrible! That’s…

CC: Yes, that’s how they do things in communist China and California. But your case isn’t hopeless. There is…a way. If you were to apply not as Charles Stanton Herringbone III, but as Charlene…

CSHIII: You mean, I’d have to change my name to a girl’s name?

CC: Well, er, not just your name, son…

CSHIII: You mean they’d cut off my….

CC: Yes, son, I’m afraid so. That’s the price of greatness these days.

CSHIII: And I’d have to wear a dress?

CC: Well, not necessarily…I think you could still wear jeans. I need to look that up….

CSHIII: Hey, could I go into the girl’s restroom any time I wanted?

CC: Well, yes, I think so, except in Texas and South Carolina….

CSHIII: And could I still assault women and then deny it and escape punishment by slandering the reputation of my victim?

CC: Well, not “assault” in the traditional patriarchy-approved sense of the word, exactly…

CSHIII:  Hmmm…well, could I at least be the first trans Supreme Court justice?

CC: Uhh…not if we Make America Great Again!

Final Thoughts on the (Possibly) Impending Cataclysm

What’s wrong with you, America? Have you gone mad? Is this just a terrible dream? Are you trying to scare me?

Mission accomplished!

What is it about Trump you love so much? His eloquent, insightful speeches? His command of facts and figures? His empathetic affection for humankind? His warm sense of humor? His life of selfless public service? His personal charm and good looks?

 I suppose it would be paranoia on my part to think that so many of my fellow Americans openly adore this repulsive convicted huckster just because they know it drives me crazy. But I can’t come up with any other explanation.

If Donald Trump wins, I may have to move. Not abroad–I wouldn’t desert my country in her hour of need. Just to a state where recreational pot is legal. How else am I supposed to get through the next four years?

It’s strange that Trump claims that immigrants are destroying this country, considering that all four of his grandparents were either immigrants or foreigners, not to mention his own mother, two-thirds of his brides, and his running mate’s in-laws. For goodness’ sake, four of his five children are the children of immigrants.

But maybe he’s on to something. It only took one wicked immigrant to ruin Twitter.

But (you object) Trump is mainly referring to “illegal” immigrants. It’s not a distinction he always makes. But in any case, this country badly needs a lot more immigrants. We need them to build houses and harvest crops and care for our sick and elderly. We need their intellectual talent to enhance our teaching and research ranks, as Kamala Harris’ parents did. We need them to work and pay into our dwindling Social Security fund. We need them to start families and help our aging society to stay vital.

And all that requires a secure, efficient, humane immigration system. But a festering morass of politically astute resentment named Donald Trump put the kibosh on the bipartisan bill that would have done just that,

The New York Times’ poll watchers have recently floated the possibility of Donald Trump actually winning the popular vote. What would be more dispiriting: Trump playing the electoral map better than Harris and winning a second time in spite of losing the popular vote, or finding out that most Americans really do want him as their president?

In the debate between the vice-presidential candidates, journalist Margaret Brennan pointed out to Vance that not so long ago, he had described Trump as “America’s Hitler.” And Vance didn’t flinch. He didn’t deny the charge. He responded that he had been wrong, had been misled by “the media,” and had since changed his mind about Trump.

So Vance and I are in absolute agreement about one thing: since Vance likened Trump to Hitler, Trump hasn’t changed; Vance has.

Journalists love to ask Kamala Harris what she would do differently than Biden. Harris has been unable to answer the question adroitly. “Well, I’m obviously not Joe Biden” was funny the first time, but it’s not an answer.

Still, it’s a dumb question. Harris still has a day job, namely, vice president of the United States. That job consists first and foremost of enabling her boss to do his difficult and supremely important work. In what particular universe do you make your boss’ job more difficult by publicly nitpicking their performance? Unless your boss does something really awful, like trying to destroy our democracy….

We Surrender!

“I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the — and it should be very easily handled by — if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military.”—Donald John Trump, Republican candidate for president of the United States of America, Fox News interview, October 13 2024.

Dear once and possibly future Commander-In-Chief Donald Trump,

Don’t shoot! I surrender!

I am terrified that I might be included in your target demographic of “sick radical left lunatics.” Do you have to be all four to qualify, or just one? If you could please clarify!

I don’t consider myself sick, though I have had the sniffles lately.

Nor radical. Probably the most radical thing I ever did was vote for the independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson in 1980. Remember him? No? Anyway, not exactly a Marxist revolutionary.

I like to think I don’t belong in the lunatic category, but let’s be honest, that’s pretty subjective. I mean, injecting COVID patients with bleach? Only a lunatic would suggest something like that, ha ha! No, wait, don’t shoot!

But I could be fairly described as “left.” It doesn’t take much these days! For example, in my house we compost.

I don’t feel like an “enemy,” but the U.S. military isn’t too concerned with making fine distinctions within the other side once they get rolling. And you have been making me feeling uncomfortably “other” lately.

So let me proactively repeat: I surrender!

Because basically, I’m a coward. I mean, I can probably throw a punch about as well as the next Medicare-eligible U.S. citizen, but I don’t do so good against, like, shrapnel or machine-gun rounds. In the defensive weaponry category, I don’t own so much as a BB gun. And even if I had a military-grade assault rifle like so many of your lunatic, I mean patriotic, fans carry around, it would probably hurt more than help against your Abrams tanks, your Stryker armored vehicles, your mortars light, medium and heavy, your A10 Warthog fighter jets, your what-have-you. And beyond all that, I’m really not interested in opening fire against my fellow citizens, in uniform or out.  

So I’ll go peacefully. You can pick me up anytime and cart me off to Guantanamo. If possible I’d like to take along a few books, a package of Nutter Butters, and a bottle or two of Jameson’s.

If, on the other hand, the nice, sane, thoughtful, principled candidate wins, as I desperately pray that she does, then you can take your mean-spirited fascist threats and stick them up your fat felonius spray-tanned gold-plated [expletive] [expletive] sand-trap.

Sincerely, Garden of Eaton