Dramatis Personae
By DeWitt Cheng
Marching to Sinai
In November the American people escaped (for the second time) the yoke of liberal wokeism, with its treasonous version of history and its welcoming of outsiders ranging from invading caravans to transsexuals. Will we march in the desert for forty years before once more reaching the Promised Land? (Will the Gazans, fleeing Israeli fire and fury?) The eggshells link Breughel’s strange symbols of sterility and vacuity with the hysterically inflated MAGA fears over the price of groceries. “To all that fortune, death and danger dare, even for an eggshell.”
Greatness Regained 2017-2025
Art and life in the first and second Trump administrations. 2017 saw a raucous, Jacksonian-style inauguration with populist celebrities (and all-time record-breaking crowds for those who can recall then Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s remarks to the press). This second inauguration will undoubtedly be more subdued, with friends and family subjected to tighter security measures after two assassination attempts. “Tanned, rested, and ready” was the 1968 description of Nixon’s Second Coming. We wish everyone, no matter how benighted, a safe and sane second Trump administration journey with his new cast of characters.
Worst Day of My Life
The image of Trump knocking the brains out of a J.D. Vance surrogate in “Donald’s World” by Mark Fredrickson for the late, lamented MAD Magazine naturally changed the rural scene to a golf course, but kept the pose from Andrew Wyeth’s “Christina’s World” original. I did a little tweaking and eventually the idea came to combine it with Dick Cheney’s 2006 accidental shooting of his friend, Harry Whittington in a Texas quail-hunting accident, with Trump’s well-documented golf cheating. He buried his children’s mother Ivana at his Bedminster National Golf Club, in New Jersey, for tax benefits. Only losers pass up free money.
The Sandmen
Among the strangest bedfellows gathering under the mutant MAGA tent are millenarian evangelical Christians, who hope to rapturously end world history with a mystical bang as they welcome the second coming of Christ (along with JFK, Jr.) back to earth, and the utopian tech bros of Silicon Valley, for whom nothing inhuman is alien. Trump may well try to ride out, if not end history, but he is unlikely to usher in an era of peace and plenty no matter how many non-Scandinavians he deports to appease his bloodthirsty sore winners. Sandmen, as readers of John LeCarré may know, are ruthless ideologues adept at putting their adversaries into The Big Sleep.
Trust God's Plan SecDef Hegseth
Pete Hegseth, the former Marine and current Fox News host, who has been nominated to be Secretary of Defense, has some sex (symbolized by the dangling doglegs) and money skeletons in his closet. But who are we to throw the first stone? (We all must remember the exemplary stoicism of Republicans in response to Bill Clinton’s peccadillos. . . .) Secretary Pete is also one of those evangelical Christians awaiting the rapture. Having decorated himself with white supremacist tattoos, he makes no secret of his vision for America. A SecDef with holy wars on his mind? Just the guy to whom the conduct of our wars should be delegated. To quote Laughing Ron, kidding around with his press entourage, “We bomb in five minutes!”
Gaetzgate
Considering Trump’s many nutty cabinet choices, it is natural to conjecture that a lot of people aside from Vladimir Putin have serious dirt on the Donald. The doomed Matt Goetz nomination for Attorney General is one among many that deserve Senate rejection, and the first to collapse. His manifest unfitness for duty in juggling sex, drugs, and money has provoked the ire of remaining mainstream Republicans who still retain a dim memory of the ethical standards once proudly upheld by the country-club demographic. Gaetz’s head is on the block as the battle between the truly crazy and merely corrupt wings of the party clash. “Look how they fight for me!” were Trump’s fighting words as he watched the January 6th insurrectionists storming the Capitol. It’s a spectacle that he relishes.
Potentate of the Year
What if POTUS grew up and went chrome-dome, ending all the ridiculous umbrella theater of his sprayed combover? There are role models ranging from Yul Brynner to Lex Luthor. I’ve imagined the coming term as a fresh start for 47: an absolute ruler absolutely sure of himself … the inevitable Achilles heel of all potentates … quickly growing stale, if not deadly.
