In the Summer of 1970, I was driving around a rural area in Spain and stopped in a small, peasant village called Menasalbas. I went into the one public space in the village, which was a small taberna, and ordered a beer. The bartender immediately knew I was from somewhere else, and after pouring me a draft, asked me if I wanted to see what the village considered to be their most valued site.
Of course, I answered. Why not?
Whereupon he took me by the arm, led me out of his taberna and down the block to the little town square with the parish church on one side and the ayuntamiento, the town hall, on the other.
And there sitting in front of the parish church, smiling and waving at me, was a dwarf-like man of indeterminate age who was also totally and completely dumb. If you believe I’m being politically incorrect, I should add that my tour guide proudly referred to him as the ‘idiota del pueblo’ (read: the village idiot.)
I thought about this incident yesterday when I happened to see a story about what Trump posted about the Queen’s funeral on his bullshit Truth Social and the seating of the Bidens in the fourteenth row: “This is what’s happened to America in just two short years. No respect! However, a good time for our President to get to know the leaders of certain Third World countries. If I were president, they wouldn’t have sat me back there—and our Country would be much different than it is right now!”
If Trump weren’t so stupid, he would have known that at the funeral of British royalty, the seats closest to the coffin are reserved for members of the British royal family and other royalty from countries which still have kings and queens. If you want to get a good perspective on this issue, take a look at the opening chapter of Barbara Tuchman’s brilliant book, The Guns of August, where Tuchman describes how President Teddy Roosevelt was similarly placed at the back of the funeral procession for Edward VII even though he was representing the country that was already the world’s leading economic and military power.
The point of Tuchman’s narrative, of course, was to set the context in which she could show how World War I would sweep away all the vestiges of pre-modern political authority, except when it came to deciding where people should sit during a funeral of state.
Did Trump ever read Tuchman’s book? Of course not. Did it ever occur to him that his self-promoting dig at the Bidens simply showed how petty and stupid he has become? Probably not.
When Trump first started sounding off like a dumb jerk back in 2015, I was embarrassed to say the least. When he made the comment about ‘good people on both sides’ it made me mad.
Now I’m beginning to think, however, that when Trump says something as stupid as what he said about where Joe and Jill sat during the funeral, it’s basically another version of the village idiot I met in Spain. And rather than getting pissed off because we elected a President who is so friggin’ dumb, maybe what Trump really represents is the proof of what my mother used to tell me, which was that America is the greatest country in the world because anyone can get elected President.
The problem we’ll have, however, is getting the average person to feel a sense of pride whenever Trump opens his mouth and says something, anything about the current political scene. The Fake News continues to paint him as some kind of serious threat to the democratic way of life, and how do you feel good about someone who might end up being so bad?
Earlier this week one of the alt-left news sites posted a reporter’s comment who talked about how Trump still doesn’t believe that he lost the election fair and square. At the same time, he’s worried about getting indicted. So, what’s he going to do? Quote from the story: “Trump still has an army.”
Is this reporter serious? If he is, exactly what army is he talking about? Maybe back on January 6th there was another large, armed force hiding somewhere around the Ellipse just waiting for the first wave to breach the building so the real MAGA troops could make a move.
Trump’s been out of office now for nearly two years. Isn’t it time we stopped taking him so seriously and just enjoy whatever stupid words pop out of his mouth?
It could have been much worse. Trump could have actually done something while he was sitting at the Resolute desk.
Think about that.
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