Thursday, February 13, 2020

The Cowboy or The Gangster?

Americans have elected a number of cowboy presidents: Andrew Jackson, who fought duels defending his wife's honor and retained bullets in his chest, Teddy Roosevelt, who charged up San Juan Hill with his rough riders and had "a bully fight,"  Dwight D. Eisenhower, with his ten gallon hat, his Zane Grey mysteries, and his five-star general status, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Texan Supreme, whom Jacqueline Kennedy allegedly referred to as "Colonel Corn Pone," and the George Bushes.
We've never had a gangster president before, and I'm hoping Trump is an aberration, not the beginning of a trend. If Roger Stone gets off scot free, then nothing's new. The kind of person who would do business with Roger Stone is the kind of person I'd prefer never to meet in a dark alley. Gangsters never disclose their income tax returns and never pay taxes. Gangsters get away with saying they can shoot someone on Fifth avenue and no one will care. Gangsters grab women wherever they want, and say things like, "if she weren't my daughter I'd date her," the way Trump does. Gangsters bully foreign leaders into doing their dirty work. Gangsters rig elections. If the cowboy was a trend, is the gangster the new one? Will it spread like the corona virus? Or end like this?


2 comments:

  1. It's the ending we can't see yet. At least the opposition is still robust, so the fight is far from over!

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  2. Will there be an end? I'm asking myself if Donald Trump has cut some Faustian deal that allows him to live forever . . . or at least for a very long time. The good die young. The bad--oh, will he maunder on for decades? Brrrrr.

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