Journey’s End.

©Philip Shucet Photography

It’s hard to think that anything good came from the presidency of Donald John Trump. But after six months of drinking more coffee than usual and drinking more whiskey than usual here’s what I have to say about the teachings of Donald John Trump.

Donald John Trump taught us how easy it is to stir up darkness. He taught us how easy it is to reach through every good thing we know and turn it into something awful. Donald John Trump taught us how to make good people afraid. How to tear apart families and friends. Donald John Trump showed us how to spit on anyone within spitting distance and after wiping spit from their faces spit on them again only to have them hang around for more spitting.

Donald John Trump showed us the worst of whatever it is you can think of even if you make it up.

We should thank Donald John Trump.

“What!” you are shouting out loud right now and if it’s nighttime you just woke up everybody in your house and maybe on your street.

It’s good to be reminded of just how terrible humanity can be. To be reminded that fear can be stronger than love when we fear our neighbors more  than we love them. To be reminded that people are not naturally good and that being good takes hard practice.

“No, that’s not true.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here,” Donald John Trump said. Donald John Trump taught us that immigration and immigrants are bad even though Donald John Trump and his wives and his kids are in America because of immigration and I guess you could say that proves his point or you could just say he’s flat out wrong and he is.

“You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides,” Donald John Trump told us and maybe it’s ok for very bad people to kill very bad people or for very fine people to kill very fine people or for bad people to kill good people or for good people to kill bad people as long as there are “very fine people on both sides.” I can’t vouch for what Donald John Trump said because I’ve never killed very bad or very fine people but it must be a lesson or I’m sure Donald John Trump wouldn’t have said it but he mostly said things that weren’t true so here’s another thing he said.

“When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” I guess Donald John Trump thinks looting and shooting are ok when they happen at the same time. I’m not sure because sometimes it’s hard to know what Donald John Trump meant because he didn’t finish many sentences unless someone wrote them out for him and he read them but I don’t believe Donald John Trump read much because he watched a lot of television.

Now here are some things that happened to me that maybe were worse than Donald John Trump being president:

When I was five years old my cousin pushed me off of a bridge into Mabscott Creek. This is not a lie. It happened and I cried and I screamed real loud and Chief Hutchins (Hutch we called him) heard me yelling and he pulled me out of the creek and shook his finger in my cousin’s face. Maybe being pushed in a creek by your cousin is not as bad as Donald John Trump being president because I did not drown or die because Hutch saved my life.

When I was seven we moved out of my Nonno’s and Nonna’s house. (Nonno and Nonna are Italian for grandfather and grandmother and yes they were immigrants and now maybe you think that immigration and immigrants are ok because I’m writing this or you think I’m a shithole and want me to stop writing but I’m not.) I cried a lot when we moved because I thought it was terrible to move away from Nonno and Nonna but we ate Sunday dinner every Sunday no matter what at Nonno’s and Nonna’s so maybe that wasn’t as bad as Donald John Trump being president. I guess not because I liked going there to eat.

My father died. That was bad. And then my mother died and that was really bad because now both my father and mother were dead. My father was 101 when he died and my mother was 100 and they were never really sick or bad off and they never had to wear a mask or had covid because they were already dead so maybe that’s not as bad as Donald John Trump being president. I guess it depends on how you feel about your father and mother and I don’t want to think about that.

I could keep writing about all the terrible things that happened to me and some of them might make you cry but I’m not sure any of them would be worse than Donald John Trump being president.

There is one more bad thing. I do not like clowns. When I was a kid I did not like Clarabell the Clown. I liked Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob but I wanted to push Clarabell into Mabscott Creek and hope that Hutch wouldn’t be around that day to save that damn clown from drowning.

I did not like Bozo the Clown. Not his big painted mouth and not his big stupid head with hair coming straight out of the side of it. Bozo came to my town once and my mother took me to see him and I would not go in because I do not like clowns. None of them.

Donald John Trump liked clowns. Trump clowns do not have big painted mouths just big mouths. One Trump clown had thin lips and no chin. Another Trump clown didn’t have a big head but he had bad hair and a mouth big enough to swallow up a ton of rocks and still keep talking. 

I guess when it comes to clowns Donald John Trump taught us that clowns will let you spit on them because Donald John Trump spit on the clown with thin lips and no chin and called that clown a “dumb son of a bitch” and a “stone cold loser.” That’s one time when I learned that even a nasty rotten no good president could make me laugh and I didn’t feel too bad about laughing even though I felt sorry for that “son of a bitch stone cold loser” clown with no chin. I know that makes me pretty lowdown I guess.

If you think this is a parody and that helps you digest your food or sleep better I’m glad I wrote it. And if this makes you sore and you want to push me in a creek or spit on me or send me to a shithole country I’m glad I wrote it and I don’t care what you think because I would write it again.

People say all things must end. That must be true because Donald John Trump being president finally came to an end.

And so have I.