Writing at TruthOut, William Rivers Pitt offers up his own metaphor for how best to describe the ascendance of Donald Trump and his takeover of the Republican Party.
Pitt makes the following brilliant and so damn sharp observation:
When I was a boy, we had a small cocker spaniel. Though she was dumber than a can of paint -- she would run headlong into walls on a regular basis -- the pup had moves like Barry Sanders coming out of the backfield. At the sound of a door to the outside being opened she'd come charging, claws raking the hardwood floor. A feint to the left, a jink to the right, a hesitation followed by a surge and she was gone down the front steps and into the world like a blur. Stopping her was like trying to catch smoke.
Invariably, she would find herself in the company of Big Red, an enormous orange Labrador mongrel who roamed our neighborhood like a massive free-range chicken with rail spikes for teeth. Big Red stood chest-high to the average Buick and had a head the size of a beer keg, while our spaniel was no bigger than a minute, and yet the two of them always managed to figure out a way to copulate.
It did not go well, due to a phenomenon dog people call "The Mating Tie," in which the two creatures become locked together at the rear once the act is completed. Big Red would finish his business and lope off toward whatever adventures awaited him with our poor wee spaniel attached to his rump, dragging her through the dirt as she howled piteously, her little paws scrabbling for purchase. Big Red didn't even notice she was there.
I think of this, and I think of Donald Trump and the Republican Party.The conclusion is "beautiful ugly" as I like to say:
The giant orange Lab and the helpless spaniel. Trump and the Republican Party. It's a hell of a thing when humping dogs provide an accurate and appropriate metaphor for the reality of a presidential election, but here we are. "Farce," said screenwriter, author and dramatist John Mortimer, "is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute." Thanks to Mr. Trump, we're about at speed.I would like to be able to spin such wonderful prose when I grow up. Kudos to William Rivers Pitt for being so lethal with his language.
It is beautiful here in Chicago. I am going to go for my afternoon constitutional and perhaps a nap near the lake. Any news items to share, or matters of public or personal concern that you would like to offer up for consideration?
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