Everybody rushed in after the fact to be first with the goods on how Trump pulled off the biggest electoral upset in modern presidential history. I was already ahead of them though. I had been covering the political briar patch with a steady diary approach for four presidential election cycles, both terms of W, the meteoric rise and weird re-election of Barack Obama, and of course the first flutterings of the Republican country club riot over replacing him. I had three blogs to draw from over that time, and a couple+ books out of it, including one demonstrating that I had Obama figured out long before even his fiercest beltway critics caught on.

I recognized the unique potential of Trump to win the whole thing early, in June of 2014. I could prove it. Why has it taken me this long to do my own book about the most spectacular politician of all our lifetimes? Two reasons. I didn’t realize I had produced so much material about Trump, the blog in which I did most of it having been essentially shut down by technical problems(?) in early 2017. Out of sight, out of mind.

There’s also the matter of my 24-48 Rule regarding Trump himself. It was hilarious but odd to me during the campaign and afterwards that so many smart observers raced to react instantly to whatever Trump did or said and then explain to us with great confidence what it all meant. They were always wrong. The ground is now littered with the careers of those who were smarter than Trump, better persons than Trump, and insider shrewd in every area where he was a bumbling loudmouth newcomer. I learned quickly not to offer explanations right away but give even the most provocative Trump events a full day (24 hrs) or two (48 hrs)) to marinate and start exhibiting their unfailingly Machiavellian consequences. Contrary to Facebook conventions, I know, but patience has served well there since the inauguration in particular.

Some things, like the big picture of Trump and what he was doing with the arc of his political life, required more than 24-48 hours of course. So I gave them 24 months from when he started running in earnest. Now I’ve concluded that the blog diaries represent a revealing slice of what the hell was going on in 2016 and 2017. They’re very different from all those other books, which are full of a lot of writing and quotes and bullet points and blaring headlines. Maybe right about a lot of things but very much after the fact. In Rē Trump is an account from when it was all actually going down.

My book is full of pictures and rock videos (not all Stones, either) and prizefights and partially dressed women and jokes at everyone’s expense, including my own AND Trump’s. There’s actual writing too, as well as reference to things you might not expect, like the antikythera device, the works of P.G. Wodehouse, bad words, the nature of reality, Ted Knight’s greatest role, the Inland Taipan, the Brutalist School of modern architecture, and a big chunk of horselaugh observations about the politics of Y2000.

Availability and price? Right now and for free. There’s no way to get this into print or even to Kindle with so much electronic content. It is absolutely an Internet book and an Internet experience. So I give it away with no regrets in hopes some of you might enjoy it. Here’s how you access it.

Personally , I would not begin with Part 6 but Part 1. Consider it an impressionistic prelude to what would come. A contextual explanation of what Trump tied into that created a new breed of voter. We have always been a people who have a romance of themselves, no matter what slings and arrows are hurled at us. Movies, music, heroic stories, ideas of freedom, have always been intrinsic to that sense of romance. We have always understood, regardless of what the elites say, that violence in the movies and music have always been figurative, symbolic, cathartic, and necessary. What did Trump connect to? A concatenation of government-imposed force and sufferings. He became in his gold-tinted life an apotheosis of what one man could do if he wasn’t Harvard and Harvard Law but a free spirit turned loose.

[It worked. All these years later, he turned out to be an astonishingly successful President. The romantic sense was not wrong. Doomed maybe to constant persecution, but he turned out to be as brave as his supporters had hoped.]

IN RĒ TRUMP

Part 6 — The Trump Term in Office

From Instapunk Rules:

Part 5 (Jan 27, 2016 <– > Feb 16, 2015)

Part 4 (May 6, 2016 <– > Jan 27, 2016)

Part 3 (Nov 12, 2016 <– > May 13, 2016)

Part 2 (Mar 17, 2016 <– > Dec 31, 2016)

Part 1 (Dec 13, 2016 <– > Mar 24, 2016)

REMEMBER TO USE THE “SMALL BACK BUTTON” TO TOGGLE BETWEEN THE BLOG ENTRY AND THE LINKED POSTS.

I’ll be adding this to my other Internet book offerings at my writing website Laird Ink very shortly. Plenty there to look at besides this.

I was doing my nightly bedtime reading of the Vatican 2 documents, which I find soothing and conducive to harmonious alpha waves, when I stumbled across this strikingly poetic passage that just begged to be read aloud. I therefore had Maria read it to me after she finished the dishes and put my kids down for the night. She has a lovely voice and a lilting Latin rhythm to her reading. I didn’t even hear her leave to go home to her own family. The last I did hear was this beautiful passage:

“It is in accordance with their dignity as persons-that is, beings endowed with reason and free will and therefore privileged to bear personal responsibility-that all men should be at once impelled by nature and also bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth, once it is known, and to order their whole lives in accord with the demands of truth. However, men cannot discharge these obligations in a manner in keeping with their own nature unless they enjoy immunity from external coercion as well as psychological freedom. Therefore the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature. In consequence, the right to this immunity continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it and the exercise of this right is not to be impeded, provided that just public order be observed.”

It was fresh in my mind when I woke the next morning. It had stirred some memory of poesy in me, of the soul immersing variety. I had a particular quote in mind, a lost stanza, as it were, I needed before proceeding with my prosaic diurnal duties.

I called a Monsignor with whom I have been close friends for many years. He recommended contacting his own son, a bright artistic lad we had both come to know soon after the revelatory paternity test. “Well, Tom, he’s what I’d call a Scholar of the Life Lived,” said my friend cryptically. So I took his advice and rang J__ up on the phone.

I read parts of the inspiring document and he chuckled, “I’ve got the poem you’re looking for.” And he did. Here it is:

“In me you see a man alone. Held by the habit of being on his own. A man who listens to the trembling of the trees. With sentimental ease. In me you see a man alone. Behind the wall he’s learned to call his home. A man who still goes walking in the rain. Expecting love again. A man not lonely. Except when the dark comes on. A man learning to live with, memories of midnights, that fell apart at dawn. In me you see a man alone. Drinking up Sundays and spending them alone. A man who knows love is seldom what it seems. Just other people’s dreams…”

From Frank Sinatra’s gorgeous, deep, and extremely devotional album of the same name.

I hummed the melody through my long public transit commute to the office. Even beatboxed it a bit to myself, the silent solo of my life’s own unique drumbeat. People ask me how I remain on such an even keel, never losing my temper or, seemingly, my way, despite the temptations of disagreements at work or in politics. I can be alone, unruffled by the petty maelstroms of others, quite unresponsive to them on any secular level, because that is MY freedom of religion and Vatican 2 tells me so. With a little boost from the Chairman of the Board himself, now in his own appointed place in God’s kingdom. And so I give my thanks for the me I’m free to be:

“Deus, cuius misericordiae non est numerus, et bonitatis infinitus est thesaurus: piissimae majestati tuae pro collatis donis gratias agimus, tuam semper clementiam exorantes…”

Amen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTCFd_coas8

All of the recent upheavals in matters sexual and gender-related have enabled the most progressive of social justice engineers (SJEs, new term, look it up) to devise new federal legislation that will be passed within days of the Democrats resuming the Majority in the United States Senate. Various anonymous spokespersons are consistent and adamant about describing this as principally a health measure.

They are understandably defensive about the sobriquet the measure has already acquired among House aides and interns, “Stop and Peek.” But it’s not unlikely that monicker will stick, although the speed of intended passage of the bill, officially called The Smith-Harris Initiative for Targeted Epilations, will render the humor moot.

ITE, as sponsors Tina Smith(D-MN) and Kamala Harris(D-CA) refer to it, represents a response to the epidemic of crab lice which has unfortunately accompanied the influx of stateless impoverished refugees from our neighbor states south of the border.

“You can’t even get to know a friendly stranger without having an unpleasant dermatological surprise a day or so later,” Senator Harris explained. “It‘s past time for our party to step up and protect the American people, to make a safe place for our safe places, so to speak. You know what I’m saying?”

To this end, the bill will federally mandate regularly scheduled epilations of both pubic and head hair throughout the population, excluding only those hundred or so minority genders who have disqualifyingly complex dysmorphic symptoms. To counterbalance the enormous energy cost of the program, the bill also expressly prohibits the shaving or chemical epilation of hair on the face, chest, back, and legs. The CDC has determined these kinds of hair are not a crab lice risk if the targeted epilation regions of the body are kept free from hair.

Regardless of motivation, ITE seems destined to wreak a profound alteration the American sexual landscape. The changes in everyone’s appearance (exceptions excepted, of course) will be striking:

You will have noticed that two pictures feature women with head hair. That’s as good a basis as any to describe the explicit exclusions and exemptions in the Smith-Harris bill. Women who earn a living predominantly from their appearance, like television hosts, movie star political activists, and certain female U.S. Senators are expressly excluded from the boll’s jurisdiction as a simple practical matter.

The otherwise universal changes in appearance may not be the most controversial aspect of the legislation. The core of the bill’s language, admittedly far too long to read before it comes to a vote, concerns the creation of a “sister” agency of the Transportation Agency (TSA), which employs highly trained personnel and advanced technology to check passengers and baggage for concealed weapons. The Pure Underwear Targeting Agency will be similarly empowered and equipped. Their personnel will be the ones charged with carrying out the bi-weekly epilation procedures required of all post-pubescent U.S. citizens, as well as the good looking ones a bit younger. The procedures performed will be brief, friendly, and strictly professional, much like passing through a TSA checkpoint at the airport.

Between sessions PUTA employees will also be stationed at common points of human passage like airports, corporate and restaurant restrooms, and sometimes at random in casinos, hotels, the subway and bus stations. This aspect of the bill is what led to the “Stop and Peek” quip, though the transaction will not be designed to humiliate.

The Senate sponsors also offered a friendly and disarming tip, especially to the women of America. “Self-examination is something we’ve all been doing since puberty,” Kamala Harris said. “Now we can help ourselves by continuing the practice a little farther south.”

And if we really want it or need it, PUTA will always be there to lend a hand.

Thank you for that, Kamala. We never doubted you.

It’s not enough that they have the most offensive piece of tallish architecture in Philadelphia, some fauvist mockery of the Flatiron Building. It’s not enough that their press release announced the sad suicide of Hunter S. Tompson with two chilling sentences: “Hunter Tompson shot himself in the head. He died.” From there they went on to prove why eulogies are better short.

Now they’ve opened a controversial exhibit about the great Pennsylvania short story writer and novelist John O’Hare. It features a one minute movie with a voiceover narration drowned out by a dinning bit of Muzak. Hard copy of the narration is handed out hopefully with the tickets, seeming to promise more. Which isn’t there.

As a true American original, John O’Hare came to the sophisticated pages of the New Yorker from a hard scrabble town or city called, um, Pottsville, PA. It was a place with people, buildings, more buildings, a statue, and dreams. And stories. All of these were typically, uniquely American, and John O’Hare got famous telling his mundanely original stories about a place called Gibbsville, a town or city a lot like Reading, PA. O’Hare told his stories in a brand new American way, which was in about a thousand words give or take. Which is what led to all those very long novels that became movies and ended his writing career.  But he got rich, which still didn’t make up for not going to Yail.

And here’s the stale donut of a film tribute to the distinguished O’Hara:

[INSERTS TO COME]
As a true American original, John Upcreek came to the sophisticated pages of the New Yorker from a hard scrabble town or city called, um, Reading, PA. It was a place with people, buildings, more buildings, a statue, and dreams. And stories. All of these were typically, uniquely American, and John Upcreek got famous telling his mundanely original stories about a place called Brewer, a town or city a lot like Pottsville, PA. Upcreek told his stories in a brand new American way, which was in words specially chosen for you by a Harvurd summa cum laude. Which is what led to all those novels about that same guy from Gibbsville that should have become movies and ended his writing career.  But thanks to not many movies, his writing career kept going and he still got rich, which is why he was so smart to go to Harvurd instead of Yail.

Rabbit Is Senile

Chapter One

Here I go again, with another brilliant display of writing. It’s amazing, even to me, that I can write this well, so transparently that it seems the scenes are just unfolding themselves out of the ether, but then again with that additional turn or twist or tweak which make it inescapably clear that we’re in the hands of Upcreek the master. I started out with this much talent all the way back when I was a summa cum laude English major at Harvard, and I’ve never stopped producing. Every piece I do for The New Yorker, every smug review and essay, every one of these damn Rabbit novels—they’re all, always, brimming with talent. It’s just so fucking beautiful the way I use words that everyone, including me, is rapt, so that even though we’re still in the first paragraph of Rabbit is Senile, all my readers have already zoomed back to where Rabbit’s life was when we left off last time, and they can taste and feel and hear the tiniest incidentals of his experience, which at the moment have to do with the fact that his diaper has just been soiled and he is grappling in the depths of his bleached and porous memory for some identification of the experience of having a bowel movement.

Only I can get away with this kind of scrupulously unblinking description, because I do it so damn well, and it doesn’t matter a farthing that nobody out there, or in here, gives a shit about Rabbit—they come to me for the performance alone, the way they would go to see Luciano Pavorotti sing arias out of context.

And if, in this case, the aria is but a cheap rehash of characters that were never that interesting in the first place, it’s still okay, because prose this beautiful accomplishes the miracle of demonstrating that life itself cannot live up to the glory of my talent with words. And if it is a joke that I am, at this very instant, describing in meticulous compleatness the content of Rabbit’s Pamper, it is not a small joke or a venal one; it is rather part of the grand joke that I and my readers share about life—if only, we all sigh and chuckle and exclaim, if only life were as fine as the writing of John Upcreek. And as we sigh and chuckle together, I can begin my next tour de force by bringing this stinking Pamper to the brink of your very nostrils and holding it there for long minutes, while arma virumque cano Troiae qui primus ab oris Laviniamque venit. Multa ille terris iactatis et alto. Dux femina facta. Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.
Arma virumque cano Troiae qui primus ab oris Laviniamque venit. Multa ille terris iactatis et alto. Dux femina facta. Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. Arma virumque cano Troiae qui primus ab oris Laviniamque venit. Multa ille terris iactatis et alto. Dux femina facta. Forsan et haec olim mem-inisse iuvabit. Arma virumque cano Troiae qui primus ab oris Laviniamque venit. Multa ille terris iactatis et alto. Dux femina facta. Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.

Arma virumque cano Troiae qui primus ab oris Laviniamque venit. Multa ille terris iactatis et alto. Dux femina facta. Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. Arma virumque cano Troiae qui primus ab oris Laviniamque venit. Multa ille terris iactatis et alto. Dux femina facta. Forsan et haec olim mem-inisse iuvabit. Arma virumque cano Troiae qui primus ab oris Laviniamque venit. Multa ille terris iactatis et alto. Dux femina facta. Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. Arma virumque cano Troiae qui primus ab oris Laviniamque venit. Multa ille terris iactatis et alto. Dux femina facta.

We feel privileged to be witnesses to two of the greatest living athletes in that special realm known as individual sports. Two who are particularly noteworthy for their fierce competitiveness, truly extraordinary talents, record-setting accomplishments, and grace in both victory and defeat.

Tiger Woods had a huge and unexpected milestone yesterday, winning his 80th PGA tournament after well over five years of physical ailments that had left him scarcely able to stand or walk. His career book had been closed by the pundits. But he has opened that book again, after a fourth back operation and a long period of rehab culminating in a determined return to golf. He is a humbler and cagier golfer now, no longer outdriving his opponents but meticulously matching his body’s capabilities to the golf course to great effect. He was ranked twentieth on this year’s PGA list before yesterday’s victory. He is certain to rise higher now. What he does next will be his own decision, not that of his naysayers. Even his current total of fourteen major tournament wins will not necessarily stand.

Lewis Hamilton, still in his early(ish) thirties already owns the top spot in the critical category of pole positions won in Formula 1 Grand Prix racing. Like Tiger entering Day 4 with a lead, Hamilton excels at winning from the pole. His career record to date includes four world championships (leading in 2018 for a fifth), He also holds records for the all-time most career points (2,891), the most wins at different circuits (26), the all-time most pole positions (79) and the most grand slams in a season (3). (A grand slam is a race in which one driver wins the pole and the race and also registers the fastest lap in the race.) If he wins a fifth Formula 1 championship Hamilton will tie the legendary Juan Fangio (now second on the all time list), who won his fifth title in 1957. Hamilton presently has 69 Grand Prix wins, second on the all time list to Michael Schumacher (retired).

Hamilton’s next pole will be No. 80 and his next win will be No. 70. In his prime now, Hamilton has a very good chance to surpass Schumacher’s total of 91 wins and add more championships to his resume. Already, though, he is regarded by many as possibly the greatest F1 driver in history. His win last week in Singapore was, typically, presaged by an astounding drive for the pole that inspired race announcers to call his Mercedes and its driver, “The Silver Arrow with the Golden Touch.” Then came the race. (NOTE: F1 Management won’t share its videos outside YouTube. Even ESPN is under their Eurothumb. This is an energetic amateur vid, bootleg for sure.)

My wife follows both their careers like the hawk she is. They are magnetic to crowds as well as world records. Both are primary drivers (pun intended) of the television ratings for their sport. Tiger’s history in this regard is well known and was confirmed anew by the PGA Championship Tournament. Before the rise to dominance of Lewis Hamilton, Formula 1 was only an occasional blip on U.S. TV screens. Now, the ESPN complex of stations covers entire race weekends, including Practices 1, 2, and 3, Qualifying for the Pole Position, and the race itself. It’s a new age for a long-lived and incredibly dramatic sport. And it should be a new age as well for sports fans in America. Hamilton always has great things to say about us and our country.

All foreseen back when the Baby Boomers were just starting to take over.

What we’re up against now, a crisis long in the making. The roots are deep and old, the way forward hard. But reading these short books is easy. When you finish a page, just click Next in the upper righthand corner of the page.

The Book of Mawrites

The Book of Swarthmorons

The Book of Hallites

The Book of Annenburghers

The Book of Mallites

The Book of Centralians

That should leave the head spinning for a while. But if you really want to know the coherent source of all these Epistles, go here:

The Good Word According to Willie

This would not all be free and easily available on the Internet if it weren’t important to a lot of people. It took a boatload of volunteers long hours and real smarts to convert a print book of this size into an online book with live hyperlinks. Oh yes, those little numbers in the text and center column are all links to related text. The Table of Contents can show you places where the links connect.

TRANSLATION ASSISTANCE: The Book is set in Philadelphia and Epistle titles are drawn from real place names. Bryan Mawr College, Swarthmore College, City Hall, The Annenburgh School of Communications at U. Penn, and Central High School, Philly’s very old high school for its most gifted students, like many things no longer what it once was.

FINAL TIP: It’s okay to laugh. In fact, it’s encouraged. Have fun.