Bound To The Light We Possess

That title is a play on a Lincoln quote I came across recently, and which became the inspiration for this post. I wanna think Honest Abe might have chuckled when the news came over the wire that the United States government had filed for divorce from the Trump brand. And seeing as how Abe was a master of the timely anecdote, there’s little doubt he was doing his thing deep into the night with all those better angels. Maybe he would have opined on 45 with something to this effect . . .

“That man is no more patriotic than a grizzly in search of his next meal. Both are accorded voracious appetites, whose intent is not to do right by the populace, but rather, to consume them . . .”

After which Abe probably got to throwing down memories of all those grand dreams he once rolled up his sleeves for, dreams of a republic whose might was a matter of consensus rather than division. And to which his tall, lumbering frame gave chase until a bullet stole the extraordinary man away before history was done with him.

All I know is that, over the last four years I’ve mostly gone AWOL when it comes to writing about anything that rhymed with politics. Oh sure, I touched on it here and there, but my literary taste buds weren’t digging the flavor. Trump had effectively laid kryptonite inside my satirical wiring because the truth of the matter was . . how could I possibly parody a parody?

And it wasn’t the only thing I lost my taste for inside that time. You asking for a short list? Really? N’kay . . . .

• Visiting Washington D.C.. I was never crazy about driving around the place, seeing as how it’s the town of a million road signs. But the museums and eats and all that great, big history of us? Worth it, until . .
• State of the Union speeches. Thanks to YouTube, I worked backwards since 2017.
• Visiting New York City. You know what’s worse than rush hour traffic? Trump hour traffic.
• The color orange
• Chucky movies
• Hot air balloons
• Red hats
• Talking about most anything political, with anyone.
• The O’Jays. Well, not all their righteous works of course . . but one song in particular that I do love quite a lot.

So now we get seventy two days worth of Shakespeare by Trump apologists who will be white knuckling their resumes in search of the next unreality show now that their gigs with the soon to be former Boss of all bosses are coming to an end. They’ll condemn the very same extra inning affair many of them were applauding back in December of 2000. They’ll blame poll workers for counting legal votes and they’ll blame COVID and if all else fails, they’ll blame the Chicago Bears offense since that’s where all else goes to fail.

And none of it will matter as much as the seventy five million pink slips, and counting, who said “Thanks but nah” to another four years of recumbent hiking through the wilderness of 1956.

As for the Don, there’s no chance he goes quietly into that dark night, even after inauguration day seals his artful deal for once and for all. Never mind that he’s still never won a political race against someone not named Hilary. And never mind that he got boat raced by a Washington lifer in Joe Biden, whose lifetime achievement award speech is going to have a massive rewrite coming. This outcome is just a bad day at the batting cages for Trump, who has a promotional machine that will allow his bluster to keep doing bad things to our good senses with book deals and cable deals and rallies . . because, ‘Murica. He ain’t going away, he’s just moving to the other side of the wall now.

Lincoln called. He wants his hat back.