The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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You may be like me, just want to wake up one morning and not read some new revelation about our Fearless Leader in the headlines of the lying media. The boy loves the spotlight, no doubt about it, and I suppose to him all press is good press. Although, lately, I suspect even he might like to hide in the shrubs like Spicer. Good time maybe to take a sabbatical to some quiet retreat like Saudi or Israel.

Today the fun headline was a report that the Republicans, in a closed door meeting, had stated that Putin was probably paying Trump. This from Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and followed by Paul Ryan who said Mum’s the Word, no leaks from the Team. Now that it has been leaked, the spin is that it was all a joke. Keeping a lid on it was to prevent the public from realizing the GOP had such highly evolved senses of humor, no doubt. The real humor, of course, comes from the stories changing at the speed of sound to fit the latest fast breaking facts. Truth has never been funnier. Or more slippery.

I know the Russians are laughing. And who can blame them? If they really are paying the Prez, the money is well spent. Saturday Night Live ought to be ponying up a share of the payoff too. Ditto Colbert and Samantha B plus half a dozen others. If Trump wasn’t really rich before, we can make him a wealthy man before he abandons ship. This is why those of us with intact funny bones should consider a KickStart for Donald, mostly to keep rubles out of our politics and still churn out the laughs. America, most hilarious country on the planet. Who needs a laughtrack when we have the NY Times?

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The Salmon River, where we’re staying this week, is one of the only large rivers in America not dammed. It’s also the largest river that starts and ends in one state, this one being Idaho. From our cabin in a bend of the river we can see about a mile of it as it churns through this canyon with its steep walls on one side and green hills on the other. There’s an island across from us and more upstream, all slowly submerging as the Salmon rises about one foot a day. I figure at this rate we need to leave in three days and hope the only road out of here is navigable.

We’re the only renters. Fishing’s no good in these rapid muddy currents and cabins nearby are vacant too. The guy who rents these bought them yesterday, cash on the barrelhead, lodge, cabins, shop, tools, furniture, the whole she-bang from the previous owner who has Stage 4 cancer and is now in Mayo receiving daily chemo and radiation. The new owner tells me it’s human papillomavirus, an STD, caused from ‘eating too much pussy’, pardon my Idaho French, Bob says. His face and neck are swollen and if it hasn’t spread lower, he might have a small chance of survival. If it has, Bob tells me matter of factly, ‘he’s fucked.’

If this river rises a few more feet, someone else is fucked. My boy put every dollar he’d made in his 69 years on this resort, his 5th entrepreneurial venture in the outdoor hospitality industry, from Ohio to Illinois, Missouri to Oregon and now here, campgrounds, cabins, lodges, some seasonal, some year round. I assume he’s no neophyte. Still, he must be noticing the No Vacancy sign isn’t going to be turned on any time soon and the season is short up here at 4000 feet elevation.

He tells me he doesn’t care and I believe him — although I haven’t heard what his wife thinks. If I had to choose a spot to go slowly bankrupt in, this is better than most. Either way, I figure he’ll die rich.

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They tell me we get the Leaders we deserve. This is cold gruel these dark and menacing days with the Boy King strutting on the International Stage, bragging one breath, bullying the next, calling everyone but himself and his Breirbartian inner circle, liars and purveyors of faux facts. No exaggeration is too excessive, no lies too egregious, no threat too outrageous.

To fact check his manic Tweets would take a Cray Super Computer, they arrive 24/7, the man a veritable teletype of epic petulance, no doubt driven to madness by greed and lust for Total Attention. He’s a five year old rich kid with attention deficit, a P.T. Barnum for the television addicted. Do we deserve this nasty buffoon?

Maybe so, maybe so…. In this news cycle of constant updates, peppered with tabloid-style salaciousness, gossip and cheap thrill entertainment, along comes a carnival barker full of piss and vinegar, spewing racist vitriol and promising to Make America Great Again. There’s a Meanness emanating from the Heartland, a foul fog of inchoate resentment and fear. Of immigrants. Of terrorists. Of a digital world that’s moved beyond their ability to comprehend. Oh sure, they can get and send e-mail and they can join Facebook, but the world that’s accelerating here in the 21st Century isn’t their world. They think Trump means he’ll Make America Go Back, Reverse Course, Revert to Ozzie and Harriet Values, Be White and Paternalistic, Be Great That Way Again.

He’s selling Snake Oil, he’s selling the Past and folks are lining up to buy it. They love a rich guy, they love a playboy, they love Dirty Harry as President. We’ve made politics a game show and the president a carnival barker in a 6 ring circus. See the Bearded Lady, the two headed baby, the Man with No Clothes, step right up, step right up, no need to push, step right up for the miracle of miracles, for the panacea for all your woes. Double your money back, ladies and gents, if you’re not completely satisfied. You won’t be disappointed, you’ll be amazed. Step right up. Step right up. 100% satisfaction guaranteed. See the Wonder of the Ages! See the President of the United States walking upright! 100% guaranteed! Step right Up!!

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Well, the Big Top is coming down and the elephants and the clowns will have to find new homes. Ringling Bros/ Barnum and Bailey is throwing in the towel. It couldn’t find enough audience for its traveling extravaganza and so another piece of Americana bites the dust of the digital 21st Century. Maybe you’re too young to remember when the circus came to town, midgets and lion tamers and acrobats on the high trapeze, cotton candy and the smell of sawdust, but back when I was a little kid, it was a Big Deal.

Strange too. Weird people, the circus performers, living on the road, traveling by train, hauling elephants for godsake across the continent to every mid-size town they could set up the Big Tops. It was nostalgic then, an era out of its time but slogging on despite accusations of animal cruelty. Still, you have to admit, those elephants standing on the rumps of the ones in front of them were a sight to see for kids used to stupid chickens and funny looking goats. You don’t see cows trained for bovine acrobatics, that’s for sure.

The only 3 ring circus now is in the White House, maybe not the greatest show on earth, but a helluva carnival these days. The spokespeople for Trump, the Ringmaster, can hold their own with their aerial verbal gymnastics, flying with the greatest of ease, touching the ground rarely. And the jugglers and the clowns, well, you be the judge. If the elephants can find new homes when the tents come down, these folks will be fine too, probably 6 figure salaries as lobbyists soon.

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The Prezident is squealing and boo-hooing that he’s the most picked-on politician in American history. The bully pulpit, I guess, but now the bully is getting a dose of his own medicine and he doesn’t much like it. He sez the liberals and the lying press are on a Witch Hunt to bring him down. He sez it’s So Unfair. He wants them to leave him alone. This from the man who treated the press and the media the way you’d treat your worst enemy. Little wonder, eh, the worm has turned.

Being president, who knew it would be so complicated, so hard, so not fun??? Well, everybody but him, it looks like. It could make me believe in Karma watching the Birther Boy wiggle on his own petard. He’s not the only president I haven’t liked, but he’s the first one who deserves to be flagellated in public, whipped like a vicious dog and then put in a cage where he’s rendered harmless. Harsh, I know, but the man made the New Rules and he should accept the wisdom of the mob. After all, he whipped them into a frenzy.

Lock Her Up!? No, Don, Lock YOU Up!! The court of public opinion can turn on a dime, friend, but Real Wrath belongs not to the Lord but to the Deceived. They may be Dumb but all the worse when they realize you conned them with Snake Oil and rotten bile milked from their own despair. They’ll drop your sorry self into a coal mine and block the entrance to keep from hearing these pathetic whinings of yours. The Wilderness is coming, Rich Boy and it won’t have a gold TRUMP over the boulders at the shaft.

History belongs to the Winners, Donald, but it will be a cruel and implacable Judge when your return comes up, a lesson for the kids. We can tolerate a Nazi, we can accept nepotism, we can embrace outright greed, we can even stomach a Total Idiot. But a liar? You made Nixon look honest and Clinton seem moral, but you wouldn’t know the difference. Lock him up! Lock him up!

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