Carpe Diem: 2016.05.28 A Trumphole Walking By

Today,” presumptive Republican nominee” for President of the United States, Donald Trump, came to my city. He is speaking at the convention center, no doubt reiterating his promise to build an immigrant-deflecting wall just a few miles to the south. Earlier, at the café at which I am regular, I was in discussion with another habitué  who was holding fourth on the connections between Mr. Trump and Mr. Hitler. Others, of course, have made this connection, but in this case he was referring to what he called, in allusion to the Leni Riefenstahl classic, the “Trump of the Will”. The connection between the two evil geniuses, the Adolph and the Donald, was easy to make by just dropping two letters from the original title. It was another instance to confirm the insidious insurgency of Trump into our consciousness these days; he is as ubiquitous in our media as were swastikas at the Nazi Nuremberg rallies Riefenstahl filmed in the 1930s. Then, as if to place an exclamation point upon it there came brazenly walking by a “Trumphole” in full kit of red “Make America Great Again” hat and a Trump T-shirt. The above photo was taken surreptitiously with my iPhone, but the hat can be identified (although its owner, who looked suspiciously like John Boehner, I have obscured). It was a reminder of how much Trump has come to give voice and permission to the ugly, violent, racist underbelly of American society. Here he was walking by my notoriously liberal café, as arrogant as ten-foot high golden Trump letters on a casino. I stifled the urge to shove him into the gutter where he belongs; but that would be a Trumpian response.  I’ll get the bastard when I fill out my ballot.