Slime and Punishment

Hello. Did you know that one of the sentencing options for Donald Trump is “community service”?

I hadn’t until recently. I don’t really know how the nature of such service is determined, but I have some suggestions:

Working in a soup kitchen, where he might meet people who bought his Trump University get-rich-quick scheme.

Doing PSA’s for NPR — “Folks, don’t get caught bribing people and then lying about it, like I did.”

Picking up trash on the highway median — and he’s given the option of either wearing his business suit with Ferragamo shoes and the long red tie, or an orange jumpsuit with a ball and chain.

Working in a public library, reading to kids from such modern books as “In My Daddy's Belly: The story of a Transgender Dad giving Birth,” “Mommy, Mama, and Me,” “Annie’s Plaid Shirt,” and “The Pronoun Book.” (I predict the kids will not like his performance and will plead, “Can we have the drag queen back?”)

Please feel free to suggest your own at our standard Felonious Orange Button. Which takes other questions and observations as well.

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Have you seen the new online poll put out by Congressman Jim Jordan, part of a fundraising effort for his campaign? It is called the “Official Biden Approval Poll.” In a series of yes-no questions, readers are encouraged to opine as to whether Biden has succeeded or failed as a president. My initial thought was that this was mighty fair of Shirtsleeves Jim, putting this up to a vote, risking having his views challenged or repudiated.

Then I read the poll. It’s a hoot.

Here are a few of the questions:

Do you reject his embrace of the DEI agenda, putting America's future last and the needs of a few underqualified individuals first?

Do you reject his opening of the southern border and passing of policies that have made it impossible for border patrol and ICE to secure the border and deport dangerous illegals once they have been identified and arrested?

Do you reject his support of gun control initiatives drafted up by California liberals who want to take our guns, leaving us defenseless in the face of an epidemic of violent crime and illegal immigration?

Do you reject Biden's backward economic policy and expensive radical agenda that has caused inflation to skyrocket and is making it hard for Americans to afford everyday items they had no problem affording just a few years ago?

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Enough with politics, at least for a few seconds. Today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:

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Urgent message: I have received a communique from my brother, Don, saying that he has discovered, exclusively, that Benjamin Netanyahu’s hair is purple. I did some research, via looking at this photo, and have determined he is correct.

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Back to Trump. After the verdict, I went back to look at things I’d written about Trump over the years and found two oddly predictive moments, both based on what Trump said and did long before he became a political candidate. I am going to excerpt them here. They are illuminating.

The first: In January 2001, a somewhat more innocent time, I attended a 10-hour seminar by Tony Robbins, the famous motivational speaker fraud. The auditorium was filled with thousands of strivers who had paid a great deal of money to be there, and was also peppered with ringers — well-dressed young people Robbins had hired to be crowd-hoochers, putting their hands in the air, stomping their feet and yelling “Yeah!” and “Tell it!” and thus such.

From the story:

From this seminar, I have learned the value of perseverance -- namely, that no matter how bored one is by an endlessly stupid, fist-pumping greedfest for an arena full of self-besotted mercenary wienerheads, one should resist the urge to leave early, because Donald Trump might just show up as the last speaker and, talking solemnly from the bottom of his heart, make you nearly wet your pants.

Trump shuffled on stage, shoulders hunched, and explained his presence thus: "Tony pays me a lot of money. I don't ask questions. I come, I do it."

Financial downturns in the early 1990s taught him humility, he said. He used to be a boor: "I was following fashion shows. The designers didn't like it 'cause they knew I wasn't after their dresses, I was after what was in the dresses."

Then Trump confessed that he likes to hang around with people who are suffering financially -- "frickin' losers," he called them -- because they're depressed, and keep their mouths shut at dinner, and don't hog the conversation.

Trump appeared to be serious. He was refreshingly blunt. Think of the bluntest object you can, blunter than a torpedo -- let's say, a cow. Well, Trump's words hit the audience like a cow dropped from a helicopter. People didn't seem to know what to make of it. I think part of them wanted to cringe, and part -- remember, these were 9,000 acquisitive and ambitious business people -- wanted to cheer.

Next, Trump enumerated his principles for success. Points one and two were to think big and stay focused. Then came: "Be paranoid."

"People are vicious. They're always looking to screw you," he said. "Even your best friend wants to steal your wife and take your money."

Point six or seven was: "When someone is looking to screw you, get even with the bastard. Go after him as viciously and violently as you can. I once said this in front of 20 priests, and one said that wasn't nice, and I said, 'Father, you'll get to Heaven but not me, and in the meantime I have to go by my principles.' "

Trump's final rule for success was, so help me: "Always have a prenuptial agreement." (He acknowledged it's hard to broach the subject when you're telling a woman you love her: "It's murder getting these suckers signed.")

Back at the office, I found I needed some spiritual counseling. Seeing as how Trump is now a motivational speaker, I phoned him and told him my problem: I want to make fun of this event (and his friend and benefactor Tony Robbins) and do it as viciously and violently as possible. It's richly deserved, I said. But I feel guilty about being mean. What do I do?

"Jesus. Interesting question."

Pause.

"Go for it," he said.

I love a man of principles.

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Here is the second excerpt. It is more serious. It is from a magazine story I wrote in late 2020, on the eve of the Biden-Trump election. Whatever the results of the election, I asked, could we as a country ever heal from this toxic, polarized, hyper-partisan mess?

From the story:

Janet Vincent is an Episcopal priest from suburban New York City — and previously the rector at St. Columba’s Episcopal Church in Washington.

I asked: Could you forgive Trump for his sins?

“That’s a hard one,” she said. It turned out she has met Trump. Had dinner with him once, in the early 2000s.

She was the rector of a congregation in White Plains, N.Y. He was licensing his name to a tower there, and Vincent’s church ran a nearby shelter for women in crisis: victims of domestic abuse, survivors of substance abuse, women recently out of prison, homeless women desperately needing a place to stay. Trump wanted the shelter moved so that it was nowhere near his building. Vincent refused.

There was a dinner meeting, arranged by a sympathetic real estate developer, to show her that Trump wasn’t such a bad guy. And there was a phone call afterward. At one point, she recalls, Trump was apparently unaware he was on speakerphone and told someone else on the call that he didn’t want “those pussies anywhere near my building.” He discovered he’d been overheard when Vincent chimed in indignantly.

My final question to the Rev. Vincent: Given everything, is forgiveness really possible?

“I want to forgive him. To some extent I can see a hurt, desperate human being behind all that bluster. So, yes.”

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(I phoned Rev. Vincent yesterday, and asked whether her views had changed. Referring to our poll on Saturday, asking whether people had any sympathy for Trump — a poll in which 90 percent of the readers said “none” — she said she might be able to muster as much as 50 percent sympathy, far more than anyone else who answered. But, she emphasized, it does not entail forgiving his actions, which have been a contemptible attempt to dismantle the country in service of himself, but because of his overwhelming loneliness and his wounded psyche. She referenced his recent babbling: “You don’t like to see any human being lose their mind, especially in such a public way.” She added, however, she is “delighted” he was convicted. No gloating, just a sense of justice. “You have to forgive, but it doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be repercussions.”)

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We are now entering the real-time segment of the Gene Pool, where I take your questions and observations, and respond to them in real time. Please remember to keep refreshing the screen to get the latest stuff. Today’s Q’s and O’s focus largely on my call for people’s funny / interesting / exasperating experiences with Trump supporters, and for questions to ask Trump at a debate. But it covers a lot more, such as:

Q:  Gene, would you care to comment on the recent sudden leadership upheaval at the Post? I’m assuming that you can say what you think since your are not on the Post payroll anymore. From my viewpoint it looks like the plan is to take the paper in a more rightward direction, under the guidance of a group of white guy buddies from the WSJ and the Telegraph. Not a good look. — Anne

A: The Sunday Night Massacre!

I agree with you, but don’t have much of value to add, except that the optics suck, and that is seldom a good sign.   Despite deliberate ambiguities in the way this was presented, it looks like Buzbee was fired unceremoniously, and I’m told that her successor had moved into her office by midmorning the next day.  The paper in the nation’s capital will now be run by three white guys from elsewhere, two of whom are Brits.  None has any history with The Post.  They want to create a new service-type newsroom that seems (to me) to be for dolts who don’t want to read.  It all stinks. I hope I am wrong. I still love this paper.

I have no valuable inside information, except for one minor fact, the source of which I cannot share, that confirms that this was an ouster and not a resignation, and it took Buzbee entirely by surprise.

The meeting between the publisher and the staff yesterday was, by semi-official accounts, “contentious,” and by blunter, not-for-attributon accounts, unnervingly confrontational and acrimonious. The staff was deeply concerned that the new leadership would try to bring the Brit tabloid ethos to the paper — sleazy stuff such as paying sources for news. The publisher seemed tin-eared and patronizing, at one point reportedly telling the staff that he was going to “take the penultimate question,” and then defining “penultimate” to a roomful of some of the best writers in the country.

Very bad optics. Good employers don’t treat people like that. I fear that across the industry, the era of the Grahams is gone.

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Question for Trump at a debate:  Did you grab any women by the privates while president, and by virtue of being president at the time, does that mean, by droit de seigneur, they’re now yours?

A: Excellent!

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Q: I have now lived in Southern Mississippi for 23 years.  Lots of Trumpers here.  I am not one.  However, I named my dog Trumpy.  Trumpy is half Yorkie and half Chinese Crested.  As you may know, the Chinese Crested dogs have no fur on their bodies from their shoulders to their tail.  Trumpy has the face and coloring of a Yorkie and the rest is bald Chinese Crested.  So when a conservative asks me for his name, I say Trumpy because he has orange hair.  And they laugh.  When a Liberal asks me for his name, I say Trumpy because he has orange hair, no body hair, small paws, no balls (neutered), fuzzy ass and a small wiener.  And they laugh harder.  – Dave Ferry

A: Also excellent. Here’s Dave and Trumpy:

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TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this on an email: JUST CLICK ON THE HEADLINE IN THE EMAIL AND IT WILL DELIVER YOU TO THE FULL COLUMN ONLINE. Keep refreshing the screen to see the new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post.

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This is the point in The Gene Pool where I have to implore people to become subscribers, and if they are already subscribers, to upgrade from “free” to “paid.” It is a task I dislike, and I never know how to do it well, but please be aware that if you do neither of these things, I will have no alternative but to drown Lexi, my four year old hound.

Lexi.

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Q: You asked for a perfect joke.  Here is one. It’s a cartoon I once saw, depicting Giacomo (a clown) in a hospital bed, thermometer hanging from his mouth, looking concerned, and thinking “I hope it’s nothing serious.” 

A: Elegant.  Takes a moment, which is good. 

Q: Experiences with Trumpers: In 2016, I pulled up to an air pump at gas station to put air in a tire. A man who pulled up about the same time assumed I was trying to get ahead of him. He jumped out and shouted at me “move the f*#% out of the way you F-ing c-word. Go put on your pantsuit and vote for Hillary.”

A: I like the last line.  It shows some brio.  The next post is of a similar vein:

Q: During Covid, I ran into Trump fans at the grocery store all the time, while I was trying to procure toilet paper.  

One old guy in a Lidl store yelled for several minutes that Trump said Covid was just the flu.  When I said "People die from the flu.  My grandfather died from the flu."  He started threatening me, calling me terrible names, and getting way too close to me for my taste.  Security finally came over and made him leave when he started pulling down his mask and coughing on everyone around him, yelling "Now you all have herd immunity.  You're welcome."  He was hauled away in cuffs, all the while screaming that Trump would make us all pay; for what, I have no idea.

A: It’s one of the secrets behind Trump’s popularity, according to a new book, Stolen Pride, by sociologist Arlie Hochschild.  Hochschild interviewed hundreds of Trump voters in Eastern Kentucky.  Trump has convinced people he is their avenger for whatever social injustices they feel they are heir to.

Q:  Regarding your call for woo-woo experiences, and your evident disregard for such things:   Everything hinges on that "known laws of science." We seem to assume things beyond it are occult, God, paranormal.  Woo-woo.

We always have.  Even pigeons try to assign some reason to random happenings. (B.F. Skinner/ superstitious pigeons)

But someone from 500 years ago would think pressing the wall at midnight to instantly illuminate the room was magic.

Surely the ability to apply AED and bring back a "dead" body must be a stroke of God?

No, just science that wasn't known yet.

So much seemingly "paranormal" such as mind-reading, shared dreams, sensing strong emotion in someone you're attached to, even at great physical distance, surely isn't so surprising when we already know brain waves are electrical and can be detected.  Why is it such a stretch to think some minds are more capable of receiving and translating, or nearly translating, those waves? 

Just as electricity existed before we knew how to harness Ac/dc currents, the brain is blasting out energy that might carry information to other brains... or maybe even move coins.

A:  A reasonable point that others have made.

A scientist would respond, I suspect, thus:  We have advanced scientifically far enough to know with a high degree of certitude that although there is much we do not yet know, and much to learn, we DO know that the world operates under certain immutable laws of physics.  You know?  And that much may be possible, but only under those immutable laws. 

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Q: Regarding your near death experience in Lansing, Michigan: I had a rather wretched relative, now deceased.  The details about who he was and why I detested him don’t matter.  He did not keep himself in good health, and had several bad scares over the years before finally succumbing.  After each, he would be a changed man, and try to be better and treat those in his life better, and showed humility – for about a month or two, then he would revert to mean and resume being a nasty piece of work.  The fleetingness of that realization of one’s own mortality, and more importantly, one’s present vitality in the moment, seems universal and inevitable.  For the record, I’m glad the mean you returned to is very different from his, and you should be too.

A: I think this goes to the very nature of how we negotiate life …. We live through denial, so we can cope with our existential fears by ignoring them.   But we NEED that denial.  It is hardwired.  In the case of your relative, his denial state is, alas, one of cussedness and anger. 

Q: Are you aware that orange is one of the few shades that healthy humans don’t come in?

A: It is a funny observation, but you forget green, blue,  indigo and violet.  More than half the spectrum. Smurfs and Avatar people don’t count.   People afflicted with cyanosis are purple, but they’re pretty sick and don’t count , either. 

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Several excellent questions for Trump: 

Question for Trump:  Three traveling salesmen get a room at a hotel; the clerk tells them it’s $30 and they each pay $10.  A little later the clerk calls one of them down, explains that he was in error and the room was only $25 and hands the salesman $5.  On his way back up the salesman figures he’ll give each of the other two guys $1 and pocket the rest.  How burnt should they demand their steaks be at dinner that night?

Question for Trump:  If you serve as president from prison, will you met with foreign leaders through those plastic-glass barriers with telephones? 

Trump Question - Who is your favorite emperor of the Byzantine Empire, and why?

Question for Trump: You’re said, against all evidence, to view the human body as a battery, with only a finite amount of energy to expend throughout life.    What kind of battery are you: Lithium ion, alkaline, carbon-zinc, nickel metal hydride,  or other?  And why?

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Q: I had a bike accident from a teacher taking a right turn right in front of me in the bike lane, and I went over her quarter panel and hood onto the berm. I was in shock more than hurt. But 6 months later, to my shock I was told that the report assigned blame to me, and my auto insurance had to pay for her damages. I appealed, and re-enacted the accident with an adjuster and the insurance company. In the give and take of subrogated appeals, they declined to change the designation. I consulted the police chief in my small town of 20,000. He found it uncanny. The best we could speculate was that the officer was enamored of the driver-teacher, did this, then resigned from the force. Bike treatment by cars is bad enough.

A:  Rachel was once in a very minor car accident that was her fault.  She rolled into the back of another car.  Both drivers exited.  There was no damage to either car, neither person was injured and though they exchanged ID’s, the other driver said no harm, no foul. Later, she sued for injuries sustained.   When Rachel was served with papers, they were clearly the result of some sort of personal-injury mill – filled with boilerplate language they’d forgotten to remove, citing extraneous names, a phantom child who was in the other car (there was no child, or any other passenger) etc.   Still, Rachel’s insurer decided to settle for several thousand dollars, rather than waste the time and money in contesting it.

This is not a great system.

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Q: Woo-woo: My husband and I were traveling through the countryside in Slovenia when we saw a WWII cemetery.  It was set inside a wrought iron fence, with a memorial stone/placard outside the gate.  I remember it as being clearly tended, but not manicured. It was May when we visited and the little plot was tucked into a forest filled with spring growth and bird song.

This was in the late 1990s, so we had a film camera, just the simple point and shoot style.

My husband began taking a few photos. He captured the little cemetery from far enough back to get the full effect of the quiet setting, he took a photo of the informational placard, then he stepped through the gate and tried to take photos of individual headstones, but the camera wouldn't function. He tried a few shots and got the same empty click without engaging. We walked around a few minutes. We left and began walking back to the car and saw a snail. We were a little upset with losing the ability to take photos, and hoping at least it would be something that could be fixed back at the hotel if we removed the film and futzed with the thing. We hoped we wouldn't need to buy another camera. So when he saw the snail, just as a "why not try?" he lined up a shot, and the camera functioned just like usual. So we walked back to the cemetery hoping to take the pictures he originally wanted. The camera just wouldn't function once we stepped through the little gate into the cemetery. 

We used that same camera for a few  more years until an unfortunate drop at the beach ruined it.  There were never any more issues of that kind.

A: Okay.  The cemetery part makes this spooky, I agree.

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Q: On Saturday, you polled us on whether we had any sympathy for Trump.   90 percent of us said none at all.   How would you have voted?   

A: I would have said five percent.  A tiny amount, but not nonexistent.   Both for the Rev. Vincent’s reason, and one other:  I don’t love this era of ugly hyper-partisanship in politics – with character assassination as sport. Wishing people dead.  Dancing on graves. Seeing people with whom you disagree as evil, not just wrong.  To me, this diminishes us all.    Gloating over Trump’s downfall – what appears to be his impending  emotional collapse – seems part of the whole thing.  So I recoil at that, just a little, even in Trump’s case.  

All that, in my  mind, translates to a smidgeon of sympathy, a dram, a droplet.  Five percent. 

I know most of you disagree. I respect that.

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Question for Trump:  Will you procure a new Rent-A-Child for photo opportunities now that Barron is too old to be considered cute?

Question for Trump: Is Melania as faithful to your marriage as you are?  – Howard Walderman

Question for Trump:  Is Netanyahu the Trump of Israel or are you the Netanyahu of the United States?

Question for Trump: When you are buried at your family cemetery in New Jersey, will you have a monument even biglier than the Vittoriano in Rome (monument to King Victor Emmanuel II)? 

This is Gene. I am calling us down, a little earlyy, because I want to give you an opportunity to read something that is not short. It is one of the scariest stories I have read in a while. It starts scary — essentially, about two college professors who want to be able to flunk students who miss class because of an abortion. But it gets even worse, paragraph by paragraph, and you should read to the end. It is about the natural, inevitable, completely predictable fallout from the Dobbs decision.

Here it is.

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Note to readers: PLEASE keep sending in questions and observations, about anything, including the story above. I will deal with them in detail on Thursday. Send ‘em here: