The Madness of King Trump
In the broader public consciousness, when he is remembered at all, King Canute is remembered badly. He’s remembered as “the king who ordered the tide to stop rising” and is often held out as an admonition against arrogance and royal self-regard. But in mytho-historical truth, that’s not his story at all.
Rather, in Canute’s court, the royal hangers-on had gone mad in their praising of the crown. They each argued against the other about the scope of Canute’s command, all of them saying it was limitless. Some even held forth that he had the power of God in his hand.
Canute knew this was madness, so the King ordered all to follow him to the water’s edge. Then he stood on the shore, ordering the ocean not to touch the bottom hem of his robe. But the seas continued to rise. Then he ordered the waters to stop before they reached his knees. But soon his legs disappeared beneath the surf. Looking back at his courtiers, he commanded that not one drop of the ocean would touch his waist! But these words, too, were disregarded by the tide. Satisfied that he had made his point, he walked back to the assemblage of nobles in the sand and removed his crown. Then he hung it on a crucifix, where it would remain for the rest of his reign. The explicit message to all being that man’s power was limited, no matter how regal his office. Nature and God are ultimately in charge.
I’ve been put very much in mind of that oft-misremembered history these past days, as President Trump marches the nation to the sea. There, not troubled by the crazy, irrational drone of the MAGA-chamber, but emboldened by it, he plans — like a Fool’s Canute — to command the coronavirus to leave our blessed shores, oblivious to the fact that viruses just don’t read his powerful, magnificent Tweets. And when he does, when he declares that all of this will be over by his command, his Cabinet of Lackeys and Fools — in the White House, on Fox News, and across our benighted land — will cheer!
And they will celebrate his wisdom and power, even as they begin to fall like flies in a frost.
“Our King Can Command the Untameable Seas!”
“Our Lord Will Protect Us!
“Our Presnahdint Noes Everythang!”
— — -
It’s remarkable, truly. After some 40 years of constant hammering, the MAGAbominations are finally willing to just walk off the cliff in service to their faith in irrationality.
“Libruls hate America, and want to kill it because it is finally great again! But WE KNOW THE TRUTH! And that Truth says that Chinese Viruses might kill those fags and monkeys in Jew York City, but out here in Kansas-ichigan-hio, we’ll be just fine. Trump said so!”
I honestly don’t know what to wish for here. Obviously, I don’t revel in seeing dimwitted, frightened, foolish, coddled, poorly educated people suffer. But I also know that if they want it — just like the courtiers back in the days of King Canute — the information to prove them wrong is available, literally all around them. They could, very easily, not be dumb and hateful. They could, with a simple press of the TV remote, learn to make better decisions. Ones that won’t cost them their own lives, or those of their loved ones. And, for that matter, mine. But if they’re not going to, if there must be deaths from this damn virus, I’d prefer to thin that herd than our own.
No matter what King Trump says, people: Stay inside.
And wash those hands.
Liberally.
— — -
I write about the United States a lot. It is “my country” after all. I am a citizen of that once glorious Republic, and I honor that for which it stands. But I live in Guatemala. I make Central America my home, and I have done so for fifteen years. And it’s here that I decided to weather this storm, and you know what?
Though I don’t want to tempt fate, I think I made the right choice.
I honestly never thought I’d live to see this — or to say this — but in the middle of a global pandemic, I feel a LOT safer down here than I would in back up North.
Things sure as hell aren’t perfect, but here the President is a doctor, and a rational thinker. He has led a governmental response that has been guided by the science, not by polls or magical thinking. And in response, by and large, the Guatemalan people are following the rules. We have curfews that aren’t often broken. We must wear masks in public, and if we don’t, there are heavy fines. Our malls and schools and bars are closed down and will remain so until it is safe to reopen them. There has been no panic buying of toilet paper. The food supply seems, so far, to be surviving the shock. Business are suffering greatly, and there might be a point at which this all falls apart, but so far there has been great social cohesion and order. No one is clamoring at the local mayor’s office, maskless and shouting. No one is saying that reality isn’t real or that we’re somehow “exceptional” and not impacted by the very laws of nature.
There’s none of that down here. That is the province de los gringos locos, exclusivamente.
— — -
Tragic as it is to say this, it is tough to see a future for the United States, given what the coronavirus has revealed.
Certainly not as a global leader in the way we have known it for most of our lifetimes. Even if Joe Biden sweeps into office in November — which I’m confident he will — the idiots will still make up a third to half of the damn country. There are literally hundreds of millions of them, and once out of power, they will be free to do what silly, irrational people prefer to do: Bitch, cry, moan and scream that the libruls are just too queer, or cowardly, or European, or Mexican, or brown, or politically correct to do what needs to be done. And what needs to be done, according to their precepts, is that we must deny reality, while singing the praises of a dying, archaic, brittle, and soon-to-be-forgotten land known in their hearts as Mythical Whitelandia.
Bah.
These assholes, had they been alive in the 10th century, would have held Olde Canute’s head under the water and drown him on the spot, then they would have picked one of their own, and claimed he could fly, before marching as one over to the Cliffs of Dover for a lesson.
They are beyond reason. They are dangerous, hateful fools. And they are legion. If Canute could speak from the grave, I wonder what he’d tell us to do?
Maybe cry.
Maybe pray.
Maybe just dive under the waves and swim until we hit a distant shore.
Sigh.
I’m tired of these dim sons and daughters of ignorance. May a rising tide wash them all away.
