Donald Trump In Hell

Donald Trump began insidiously developing certain tracts of land in Hell. He had his usual b.s. eminent domain arguments pre-loaded for litigation. He had a number of contacts (eternally damned friends and business associates) already on the inside, and they had greased the palms of some of the lesser demons with baksheesh. You’d be shocked at the sorts of things they crave down there, copies of Dancing with the Stars and Pepperoni Bites, crap like that. Pretty much the same stuff as North Korea, really.

But the Devil eventually found out that someone was building on his property. He only uncovered this when he found paperwork from the Infernal Zoning Board (DING!: there is no “Infernal Zoning Board”) purporting to approve the Don’s latest monstrosity. This was a sprawling titanium-facaded hotel designed to resemble his coif, or rather anti-coif. It was designed by Frank Gehry, no less. It looks like a giant Trump toupee sitting there amid the countless grease fires of hell. It does feel weirdly appropriate. Except it’s shiny and it lights up like a merry-go-round at night. And it’s very, very large. Because the suites inside are also very large, designed to pull in celebrity demons and their so-called families, the rates are astronomical. Working class demons simply can’t afford this putrid pile of putatively-pedigreed poshness.

And what does this hotel have to offer amidst the (admittedly boring reruns of) eternal torment of human wrongdoers?

Donald Trump has the answer: “Fresh hell!”

Yes, he’s many other things, so why wouldn’t he be a plagiarist too? It’s emblazoned on the towels, and even embroidered in minuscule flowing script of black thread on the heavy Le Jacquard Français napkins: “What Fresh Hell is This?” And the bastard even had the nerve to add a little TM there at the end. It’s also used in the commercials for the resort, you know the ones with the dancing she-devils really letting down their cat-o-nine-tails and exploring their sensuous side. It’s typical sexist Trump fare. The she-devils were plied with alcohol and fake telephone numbers of demon celebrity bad boys to make sure they really let loose in those ad spots. Even in hell, the bad taste goes on, coeternal with the Trump name.

Soon thereafter, the Devil showed up at Trump Tower with his Dream Team, a cadre of the some of the best, fast-talking, long-dead attorneys ever to walk the planet and end up in perdition. The cease and desist’s were duly delivered. And then a few thousand pages of impending litigation were dumped on the desk of T., who was, of course, too busy watching reruns of The Apprentice (fast-forwarding always to his lines) to give a shit.

The Devil spun Trump around in his chair without touching him or the chair.

“The Trump Do? Seriously? That’s the name you give that piece of shit-welded-to-gimcrack you call a hotel that you’ve placed on poached ground in my demesne?”

“That name tested very well in several rounds of live trials. The info-metrics are good on that. See, people like my hair, it’s part of my brand, unlike whatever that shit is you’ve got scribbled up there on your red noggin. What is that? Brillo?”

(Here Trump’s lackeys, and aren’t they all, pretended to enjoy the enjoined laughter that must follow what palely passes for wit around those parts.)

“Mr. Trump, you do realize we have a future assignation in my nation, where the only Red State is eternal fire for slippery pollywogs of evil such as yourself. We both know your pro forma, external piety is not fooling the Old Guy Upstairs. I heard he’s actually thinking about adding a few new commandments based on your tenure as presidency alone.”

“What a lovely piece of work he is, up there. He created tarsiers. Tarsiers! Have you ever seen those goddamn things? Who in their right mind would create a tarsier? What a lovely piece of work you are, too. You’re a Nasty Worm, Man. You two both mismanaged your affairs. If I was running Heaven, there never would have been a Fall from Grace. And if I was running Hell, the Guy Upstairs would find himself in the same place I put Merv Griffin.”

“Merv is in Hell,” the Devil said, shocked at Trump’s effrontery.

“Exactly!” Trump said and laughed. Of course, all his lackeys did the mandatory chuckle. A woman brazenly fake-snorted.

“Listen, I got a little deal I want to discuss with you. You pay those demons decently down there and then they go and spend their money on the most ridiculous, cheap-ass, 7–11 type stuff. You ever step inside the homes of that peonage? I have. It’s unbelievable. They have these animals they call pets. They give up a significant share of their capital to a creature that’s lunch over in Asia. And your low-class demons are like that. You could be turning all their salaries right back into Hell to build the infrastructure. What do the wives of demons want? They want to have a story they can tell their neighbors, the other wives who they hate. Give them a little visit to a Trump resort and they have all the ammunition they need. Walk with me a little bit and let me explain. “

So, after waving a quick personal hi to Kellyanne, one of Satan’s favorites, the leader of Hell went with Trump for a stroll and a summit, tailed by Secret Service bodyguards who were all collectively considering leaving T’s employs to become a team of male strippers known as the “D.C. Acey-Deuces.” Don’t ask, it’s complicated.

Hours later, the Contract was inked and the Bearer of Light put down the oldest existing signature in the universe right next to Trump’s scrawled signature, which, appropriately enough, resembles the jagged lightning of electrocardiograph paper indicating a heart attack.

The Devil went back down to Hell (didn’t even stop off in Georgia for nostalgia’s sake, as he had planned) and the further he descended, the more he realized he had just been shafted by a man whose only raison d’etre is shafting, and his tail began to slink between his legs. Tears fell on his cloven hooves.

When he got back to his offices, his Unholy of Unholies, he noticed the way all the other demons looked at him now. They had that knowing look of scorn dipped in the au jus of ridicule. Everyone knew he had been taken and that the Glass Ceiling in Hell had just been shattered for humans by something very closely resembling a human.

When Trump got back into the Oval Office, he had to tell Kellyanne to get out of his chair and take her shoes off his desk. but she did that thing she always does to him with her killer clown eyes, stared him down, unmoving, and he decided he would go and eat an egg salad and pepperoni sandwich instead. He would see if Melania felt sorry enough for him to go and lie and tell Kellyanne that Putin wanted to continue that game of “Truth or Dare” they had been playing on Snapchat which almost resulted in the nuclear annihilation of Montenegro, just for shits and giggles, last week. Because then he could get his chair back without losing face. And that was sort of important.

Der Spiegel Cover Says It All

Future Headlines: "Gas Leak in the Supreme Court"

Trump is delivering the news of the tragedy in the most solemn voice he can manage, but the barely disguised smile threatens to collapse into full, joyous laughter.

Trump: "It pains me more than you will ever know to announce the grievous loss of several members of the United States Supreme Court today. Justices Ruth Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, John Roberts and Samuel Alito were gathered together in a room in their place of work and enjoying an "MLK cake" (an absolutely wonderful cake in the shape of Martin Luther King's head which I had personally sent to them) when an insidious gas leak took their lives. They will be greatly missed. R.I.P. and my condolences to all family members. Announcement of their replacements will be made at 8 p.m. tomorrow. All candidates are already in Washington and prepared to take up their posts following swift confirmation. Thank you, God Bless, and may I say the First Amendment is highly overrated. HIGHLY overrated. Along with many other Amendments. But more about that tomorrow."

I Wonder

I wonder if there are people who intend to vote for Trump who don't realize that if he gets elected the National Guard will be in so many major cities at once, until it is overtaxed and overwhelmed and the barricades all fall. Many of these cities will be shut down for long periods of time.

People who look at these Trump rallies and are not disturbed that it is only a sea of white faces (and mostly old white faces) and that so many of our neighbors and fellow Americans are not represented there at all, are sad cases. They are really not good countrymen, not good Americans. They don't believe in unification. These are the believers in an American caste system.

You don't have to worry about Trump's finger on The Button. You have to worry about Trump's ability to abuse power and the police state which he will attempt to institute. He will fail, but it will be after so much bloodshed. If you think life is difficult now, take 1968 and multiply it by a hundred.

I know we should be reassured that he's down in virtually all the polls. But I have this horrible, sinking feeling that his brand of demagoguery might work on the uneducated and those who will accept a Pyrrhic victory if it means their racism can be reflected down upon America from the White House.

It's just unfathomable that so many poor and middle class people are cutting their own economic throats by voting for a man who has made it abundantly clear he intends to defend the interests of the one percent and corporate America. He is repulsed by the people who adore him most.

(make everything great again)

Photographyby "nothingofinterest" on lomography.com: https://www.lomography.com/photos/21285532

Dan P. McAdams Assays Donald Trump's Personality at The Atlantic

Dan P. McAdams, a professor and chair of the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University, is the author of numerous books, including a widely-read biography of President George Bush, fils.

He did his best this month to dissect the personality of Donald Trump in a really readworthy article at The Atlantic.

I was impressed that McAdams astutely focused on Andrew Jackson as the American president most like Donald Trump in temperament. I agree in certain senses, the irascibility, the ability to hold grudges and so on. But let's not forget that Jackson lived a military man's life. He understood what a life of service was. I think Trump has always had the luxury of never having to know what "a life of service" is. Trump's life has been infinitely more self-serving than the life of Andrew Jackson (his clear faults notwithstanding) ever was. Jackson felt himself the victim of a great snobbery and he was probably justified in those feelings. His wife suffered horribly from that snobbery and his genuine and abiding love for her meant this pain and pique was felt vicariously (and keenly) by Jackson. Not that men could trade in their wives for trophy wives in those days, but even if they could have, Andrew Jackson was not the sort of man who would do something like that. There's another big difference between Trump and Jackson. Trump's core loyalty seems to be only to himself and perhaps his children. Not even wives are in that select loyalty club. This is almost certainly attributable to his sexual rapacity, which is doubtless attributable to his narcissism. I would argue that this is emotional immaturity, but I have no doubt Trump himself would tell us that we don't understand how winners are all about that "piece of ass" (to use one of his favorite, mediagenic phrases). Also sprach Zarathustra. I'm guessing Trump might speak lovingly of this painting and that he might see it art fit to decorate one of his gaudy casinos.

Another minor quibble I would have with McAdams' otherwise fine article (and vivisection) would target that moment where, in discussing the five core personality traits, he asserts that people who rank "high" in the neuroticism category are predisposed to mental illness. ("By contrast, higher scores on neuroticism are always bad, having proved to be a risk factor for unhappiness, dysfunctional relationships, and mental-health problems.")  Isn't that putting the cart before the horse? Isn't that "post hoc ergo propter hoc?" At best, it's a tautology.  I think the display of neuroticism we see in (some) individuals is precisely the result of mental illness. If you want to examine that quality in light of how it functions in the constellation of those five personality traits, yes, let's do that. But to assert that it's some a priori quality which can cause mental illness in an individual seems a really fanciful fiction to me. I realize it's a common practice in many forms of psychoanalysis to postulate "governing abstractions" (for example, Freud's trinity of id, ego and superego) and then begin to reason from there, as if these qualities have an objective, verifiable existence. It's a bit quixotic.  I think the neurochemistry and the cognitive wiring come first. I think many people were "born that way" or socialized to be that way so early that they might as well be considered "ab ovo neurotics." But even the concept of neuroticism seems a somewhat passe, twentieth-century notion. Can't we be more scientifically precise at this point? We don't call women hysterics anymore. Should we still be calling people who suffer from a wide array of psychic disturbances with many degrees of differing particularity neurotics?