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.