A Fable about Bewilderment

thehill.com

Every day the naked American emperor stalks us, hollering in the hallways, screeching from the screen, demanding attention, and who can avert their eyes from him, his enormous hairy hindquarters, his baggy pectorals and jowls, his tiny privates squiggled up under his protuberant belly, his bared teeth, the glare of his stare, the shouts of “Deranged!” and “Leftist!” and “Weaponization of Witches!” and how can other Republican candidates compete against this Enormity, this Never Before Seen, this Once in a Lifetime Solar Eclipse and Monsoon of a Man?

They can’t. They talk to six customers in a café in Grover’s Corners or address a couple dozen loafers in a Legion club or appear at a Pumpkin Fest in Plimptonville, meanwhile the World’s Greatest American commands millions of eyeballs every time he belches, his every twitch and tremor is discussed by a hundred columnists, he is in our dreams, every time we hit a bump or feel a lump or take a dump, we think of him.

I feel sorry for Nikki Haley. She has dignity, she often states facts (“Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber,” she said to the smarmy Ramaswamy), she has a fine up-from-the-basement life story, she is not under indictment anywhere in the land, but now she is being talked about as the Behemoth’s possible running mate. Think of it, the prospect of being hitched to this landslide of a man, listening to him snarkle and blather and chortle hour after hour, like taking a job as cleaning lady in the Elephant Pavilion.

Poor Ron DeSantis. He went to Yale, he turned Florida red, he took on Mickey and Minnie and Pluto, he made teachers not say Gay, and he was a serious contender but the media attached words like “lack of charisma” and “sinking” to him and once they color you gray, you’re gray for good. You can hire charisma consultants, appear with your happy children and vivacious wife, you can have your face brightened, but the word “loser” appears in a balloon over your head, meanwhile the Emperor comes through the curtains and flashbulbs pop and microphones hum.

Poor Mike Pence. For one brief shining moment back in January 2021, standing in marbled majesty, gavel in hand, he did the Right Thing and refused to turn the Republic into a Fiefdom, which caused a mob of knuckleheads to storm the Capitol and send Pence running to an undisclosed location, but he stood tall for Rectitude and Devotion to Duty, and now here he is on the campaign trail making small talk in a Dunkin’ Donut shop with a couple of truckers trying to decide between the Caramel Crème and the Pumpkin Peppermint.

Poor Chris Christie. Once the Emperor’s Boon Companion, now his lone accuser, the former governor does his spiel for a crowd of six Starbucks sales associates on their vaping break who haven’t the ghost of an idea who this porky guy is.

The Emperor skipped the second Republican debate because emperors do not debate, they proclaim. His nonappearance was pure genius on his part. Instead of appearing to be one of eight mortal beings behind eight identical lecterns, he became a gigantic illusion
like a dark cloud in the sky that appears to be a face with eyes and hair. Invisibility became the whole point of the evening; as the children bickered, everybody wondered where the bogeyman had gone to.

Poor liberals. They are addicted to whispering about the man and what can possibly be done and what if and what then and how can it be and what is to blame  — and you can’t go to a dinner party in Manhattan without hearing the clump clump clump of his feet and the thump thump thump of his finger in your chest.

It’s very simple, people. Stupidity is contagious, it makes us dumber, as Ambassador Haley pointed out. Back in the fourth grade, we were terribly bored, having learned addition and subtraction and the solar system, and so when it came time to elect a class president, and Mrs. Moehlenbrock selected three good kids as candidates, word went around the back of the room to write in “Poophead” and it struck us as a brilliant radical thing to do. Poophead won, narrowly. Mrs. Moehlenbrock put the ballots in the wastebasket, said nothing, and we went on presidentless to study the Civil War and memorize the Gettysburg Address. But we’re grown up now. Clorox doesn’t cure COVID. Up is that way, not down there. Let’s get back to business.

Garrison Keillor © 10.02.23