Trump: Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie.

Hey, he says what we all feel!


I get Trump, the Yin to Hillary Clinton's Yang, and I can do nicely with out him.: " A name to all succeeding ages curst./For close designs, and crooked counsels fit."

Voter anger is real.  Anger untempered by thought, based upon shared truth is rage and rage only works in Jerry Bruckheimer movie epics, or Mad Max reconfigurations.

Trump reminds me historical persons like Earl of Shaftesbury in King Charles II's court, the odious Thomas Boleyn who pimped out his children for merry old King Henry VIII and an Italian school teacher turned journalist after the First World War.

Mostly, I am reminded of John Dryden's portrayal of Shaftsbury from his 17th Century mock epic Absalom and Achitophel. The poem is splendid example of quality hack work and was no doubt commissioned by King Charles, when his enemies introduced the Exclusion Bill, " which would keep the Catholic James from the throne, using Charles’s illegitimate son, the duke of Monmouth, a puppet of Shaftesbury, as a possible claimant to the throne. Although the bill passed in the Commons, it was rejected by the Lords because of the king’s strong opposition."

Shaftsbury, like Trump, was a skilled political hater.

Some had in courts been great, and thrown from thence,
Like fiends, were harden'd in impenitence.
Some by their monarch's fatal mercy grown,
From pardon'd rebels, kinsmen to the throne;
Were rais'd in pow'r and public office high;
Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie. 

    Of these the false Achitophel was first:
A name to all succeeding ages curst.
For close designs, and crooked counsels fit;
Sagacious, bold and turbulent of wit:
Restless, unfixt in principles and place;
In pow'r unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace.
A fiery soul, which working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy-body to decay:
And o'er inform'd the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity;
Pleas'd with the danger, when the waves went high
He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near alli'd;
And thin partitions do their bounds divide:
Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave, what with his toil he won
To that unfeather'd, two-legg'd thing, a son:
Got, while his soul did huddled notions try;
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
In friendship false, implacable in hate:
Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state.   John Dryden

I was saddened to read about Trump Mask anti-Mexican nonsense between Gary Andrean Catholic High School and Bishop Noll Institute.    Giving the media any ammo to pick at scabs, or trump-up divisive rage is bad enough, but giving a black eye to two very fine Catholic schools is galling - all over the misplaced notion that Trump will do anything for anyone.

Really good people tell me that America needs Trump.

These same people shouted at me that America needed Obama.

America needs to read something besides Talking Points Memo, the New York Times and listening NPR who are as much responsible for Trump, as they are for Hillary Clinton.

. . . . In friendship false, implacable in hate:
Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state.

Dialogue - Obama and Everyone Else from Dryden's" The Conquest of Granada"

John Dryden is rarely read by high school students.  Dryden was a 17th Century poet and he was the master of the 'closed couplet.' AKA the heroic couplet.

He wrote a play The Conquest of Granada using closed couplets.  I never taught this particular piece, but i really liked it.

The story is about the defeat of the Muslim Moors by the Spanish with the conquest of the city of Granada.

The main characters are mostly Moors and members of two factions violently opposed* to one another - think Sunni and Shia, or Democrat and Republican.  The Spanish Christians are united.

The hero of the play is the undefeated warrior Almanzor who is madly in love with his king's lady, Almahide/  She too loves Almanzor, but refuses to give in to 'what the heart wants' for the larger good of loyalty to one's word and lord.

There is a bit of dialog that reminds me of President Obama, the most closed minded and ineffective President since James Buchanan.

Boabdelin, the king of Granada, knows of the divided agendas (  Abencerrages v.Zegrys) and could care less; divided subjects give a king more power - keep 'em guessing: " The People their own tyrants are."

Almanzor, who has 57 Campaigns against the united Christians of Spain under his belt, knows that each of victories were Pyrric and further strengthened Christian resolve. Boabdelin, like 'I won both' Obama cares less.

Boab. I do not want your counsel to direct
Or aid to help me punish or protect.

Almanz. Thou want'st them both, or better thou would'st know,
Than to let factions in thy kingdom grow.
Divided interests, while thou think'st to sway,
Draw, like two brooks, thy middle stream away:
For though they band and jar, yet both combine
To make their greatness by the fall of thine.
Thus, like a buckler, thou art held in sight,
While they behind thee with each other fight.

Boab. Away, and execute him instantly! 

At least an IRS audit, Mr. President.

* "The story is told that one of the Abencerrages, having fallen in love with a lady of the royal family, was caught in the act of climbing up to her window. The king, enraged, shut up the whole family in one of the halls of the Alhambra, and ordered the Zegris to kill them all. The apartment where this is said to have taken place is one of the most beautiful courts of the Alhambra, and is still called the Hall of the Abencerrages."