Wednesday With Moron

(Photos via Getty Images)

Urgent clarifying caption: That’s Presley on the left, and Trump on the right.

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Something bizarre is happening right before our eyes that has become so normalized and institutionalized — by the media, mostly, striving for “fairness” and “balance” — that we don’t even realize quite how bizarre it is. It’s so evident that we no longer really notice it.

The former president of the United States, the presumptive Republican nominee for 2024, has been speaking and acting so erratically that it is clear he is a babbling unhinged goofball, yet Republicans look right past this as though it didn’t matter. This week he said that “many people” have been telling him he looks just like Elvis Presley, and even posted a mashup of their faces. As you you can see from the photos above, it’s pretty much incontestable.

Seth Meyers immediately joked that the only physical similarity between the two men is that they both look “like they died on the toilet.” Stephen Colbert said the two would look alike if you dug Elvis up now. This is all pretty harsh, but it rolled right off Trump’s Fat Elvis back, and those of his supporters. Nothing seems to stick. He is not the Teflon president so much as the lard president, a substance that also resists sticking.

Ninety-one felony charges. Mainlining bleach to ward off Covid. Quoting Hitler. Fathering Donald Trump Jr. Being infantile. Having fulminating public tantrums. Misspelling things. He most recently contended that he alone is responsible for the fine state of today’s economy because investors are excited that he is going to wipe the floor with Joe Biden, and are betting on the stock market. Even his interviewer, the hard-right, Trump-obsequious Maria Bartiromo, seemed agog at that answer.

None of it matters. His support remains strong. The only thing that I think could actually derail this guy is an actual train derailment. Like, if he was a passenger on a train that derailed, like Richard Kimball, The Fugitive. But even then, the GOP would support him while he furtively took it on the lam and had adventures while looking for the Real Killer, the mysterious one-armed man, and stalking his other perceived enemies.

The gigantic largely unreported fact is that the single biggest asshole in the United States also happened to be the president of the United States. And might be, again.

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Now for today’s Gene Pool Gene Polls, suggested by a reader. The first poll is for women only. The second is for men only. I will fill you in on the results in a bit because you can only look at the results for your gender.

Okay, good. Before we proceed to the real-time questions and observations portion of The Gene Pool. I have an urgent question: Why would anyone buy a can of tuna in water, as opposed to tuna in olive oil, which tastes vastly better? Getting tuna in water is like ordering a Scotch and water. Only dweebs do that.

New poll:

Please send in questions and observations here, by clicking on this orange blobby thing:

On to the questions and observations section. If you are reading this in real time, please keep refreshing your screen so you can see new stuff. Many of the entries today are in response to my request for you to share your hypocrisies. And my call for nominees of people in history worse than Trump.

Q: My basic hypocrisy is actually hip-hop-risy. I pretend to like rap, and discuss it with others in order to seem hip and not racially insensitive. I listen to it a little but only so I can discuss it a bit, but I really can’t stand it. Seems juvenile.

A: Have you ever seen “Hamilton”? Hip-hop is vastly diverse, and some of it is brilliant, with inventive wordplay and insistent beat, and, my favorite, interior rhyme. Ignore the juvenile. Embrace the great.

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Q: Regarding your prior question about who in history might be worse than Trump, January 28, 2024 was the anniversary of the death of another arrogant, misogynistic, narcissistic sociopath, Henry VIII. Is he worse than Trump? Let’s take a look.

1. Henry was an authoritarian, a dictator, made his own rules, even his own church, when it suited him. Trump only aspired to, and has yet to achieve, such heights. He seems perfectly happy with his Church of the Two Corinthians whom he believes are named Sammy The Nose and Sonny. Henry takes this.

2. Henry was fat, fuzzy-haired, and liked ostentatious surroundings including a golden throne. Pretty much a tie.

3. Henry also went through more wives than Trump, and at a faster pace by far. Trump has only buried one, and it may be the only thing for which he won’t stand trial. Henry!

4. Henry ran through a number of advisers, like Trump went through White House Staff. The numbers here might favor a win for TFG.  The staffers, however, were not put to death, definitely showing Trump to be a weakling in the area of HR. The King takes another.

5. Henry had no imagination. Whereas he likely bonked as many women as Trump, he pretty much stuck to those named Anne or Catherine.  Trump lives in an alternate reality, of course, which takes a bit of imagination. Although all his wives names end in "a," negating any win in this category. A push.

6. Trump does have a boilerplate pre-nup that avoids the necessity for “wet” divorces, which is pretty lame. Taking a guillotine into account, Henry wins this one.

7. Henry started unnecessary brutal wars with other countries. Trump merely caused a riot in his own country. Well, so far. Henry for the blood factor again.

I’m calling it for Henry 5-0-2. — Lynne Larkin

A: Sold, I guess. But Trump is much more petulant and infantile and emotionally needy. And The two men are equally convinced of their entitlement.

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Q: My best wingman Guy was driving his dad’s ‘66 Chevelle, I was riding shotgun. Joe and Craig in the backseat. We were cruising Littlewood, a subdivision maybe one-half notch up the suburban, socio-economic spectrum from our home turf a few miles away. Same high school feeder area though, so the Littlewood girls were, theoretically, in play. We wished.

The lithe figure ahead was clearly a female bicyclist, and by our hormone dripped collective  estimation , a high school aged cutie, probably a classmate. A great Beach Boys lyric is “ …and your shorts, mmm, they sure fit you fine.” Brian Wilson must have  had this sweet , bike saddle vision in his head when he scribbled that horn dog line.

As we geared down to stalker speed and approached our bicycling angel, I lowered my window and started pounding on the car door. As we drifted past, I hollered “ great pooper” and growled a growl Roy Orbison would envy. And leered straight into the contemptuous  glare of my younger sister, Laura. We hurried away like the total little shits we were.

A: A fine story. I can actually top it, I think. I once was emerging from a Metro station, maybe 20 years ago, and found myself noticing a pretty young woman walking in front of me, maybe 18 or 19. I didn’t DO anything or SAY anything, but I was noticing and appreciating contours, gait, etc. Just from afar. Impressed, I was. It was all internal and I maintained a respectful distance. Then I realized it was … my daughter.

TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this right now, on an email: Click here to get to my webpage, then click on the top headline (In this case, “Wednesday, with… ”) for the full column, and comments, and real-time questions and answers. And you can refresh and see new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post.

Also, speaking of hypocrisy, it is entirely a private matter between yourself and your conscience and your mortal soul as to whether you upgrade your subscription to “paid.”

Q: I am a middle-aged woman. I preach the gospel of body positivity in public. But I think only slim women are attractive. By slim, I mean maybe 5-10 pounds underweight. It’s bad but there you are. A person is entitled to their own aesthetics in their own head. I wouldn’t speak this aloud.

A: I share something similar, and also keep it private but it also arguably reprehensible.  I find myself thinking unpleasant thoughts about significantly overweight people.  It’s because they take up so much room.   It seems rude.  I can’t justify this.  Of course I also detest oversize cars.  

Q:  My hypocrisy is that I enjoy engaging in cringeworthy wordplay but cannot tolerate anyone else doing so especially when somebody beats me to the pun.

A: Thank you.   I see what you did there.

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Q: Re intergenerational incomprehension: I gave the literate, readerly 20-something daughter of a friend a cotton scarf with a pattern featuring Edgar Allan Poe's face. She didn't immediately know who he was, but was delighted when told and proceeded to wear the scarf every day for a while. She reported to me the various hypotheses about whose face it was, most of them: Adolf Hitler. I'm not very surprised her friends didn't recognize Poe, but I was flabbergasted to learn they thought she might be wearing a Hitler scarf.

A: This did make me laugh. 

Q: There are various tales about why the marriage of Ernest Borgnine and Ethel Merman lasted one week, but one is that he pulled a "Dutch oven" -- farting in bed She was so horrified that she filed for divorce almost immediately.

A:  Thank you.  This was important information that somehow I missed over the years.  I didn’t actually believe you, but I did Google it, and there certainly is Dutch Oven evidence.

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Q:  Some think everything Trump does is strategic. He has lived under a Chauncey Gardener- like bubble as far as judgment of his actions. I don’t see strategy with the actions that led to the $83MM award. No one would have advised him to so amplify the eventual award. The press says “trying the political case.” He has won the voters he is going to win, and they don’t look down on him for rape or indictments, already. So what else? I don’t think his need for misogyny is great enough. I think he lost control of his actions over narcissistic inferiority, that anyone would stand up to his PR beatdowns and still challenge him, and he unraveled, nervously, and still does daily.

A: Good points, all. 

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Q:  Clearly your substack isn’t being read enough.https://www.npr.org/2026/01/01/1198916105/mens-health-masturbation-abstinence

A: These guys seem nuts.   I remember reading an old Boy Scout manual (vintage 1950 or so)  when I was about 11, and of course looking up masturbation, and there was a page devoted to it, and it gave all the predictable advice – cold showers, etc. – but also said that you were not really sinning if you did it, but you were mentally ill and deviant if you did it while thinking lascivious thoughts.   The book called this “mental masturbation.”  It advised counseling or maybe even institutionalization.  We were a very uptight society.

Q: I am an atheist. I have no truck with any invisible, magic guy in the sky. It’s all twaddle.That so many folks who claim to be science based but faithfully believe that some Supreme Maestro is up there, tapping a baton , is astounding to me. And don’t even get me started on organized religions. They are all, at their core, silly fan clubs. 

Except for when they are the driving agents of murderous rampage against non fan club or other fan club members. And they are all, all, misogynistic in the extreme. Why any woman voluntarily subscribes to any of the major religious organizations is a goddamn mystery to me. I was raised Catholic, and I place The Church somewhere between the Mafia and the Nazi Party along the spectrum of contemptible enterprises. A particularly galling aspect of religious hokum is proscribed prayers. The notion that The Big Dude is up there appreciatively considering scripted entreaties from little bags of protoplasm down here on this insignificant blue marble is, of course, ludicrous. 

But when I’m on a plane, as it starts down the runway, I begin silently chanting “ Hail Mary’s” and continue to do so till that 10,000 feet bell pings. Any turbulence, I am “ Hail Marying” my ass off, like Fredo fishing on a lake. As soon as I hear the landing gear lower, I “ Hail Mary” all the way to the terminal. All silently in my head, my outward countenance, to all the world, that of a poor man’s Christopher Hitchens. And here’s the thing…so far, those “ Hail Mary’s” have worked great. – Jon Ketzner

A: Noted, Jon.  You ARE a hypocrite.  Welcome to the club.

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Q:  I'm not quite as old as you, but I do remember people mocking the US News section "News You Can Use," which included gems such as "WINTER DRIVING. What type of car trouble are you most likely to have in the first severe cold of winter? Battery failure ...  the AAA suggests you include a battery checkup in getting your car ready for winter." Stuff like "How to Wash Your Hair" makes "News You Can Use" seem like Wittgenstein. (Full disclosure: I've read probably thousands of articles like "How to Wash Your Hair, but not a word of Wittgenstein.)

A: “Wittgenstein” has an important role in the 1983 movie “Max Dugan returns,” which, if you haven’t seen it, you must.   It stars Marsha Mason and Jason Robards.  A vastly underappreciated movie. 

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Q: Obviously, the toilet of historical human turdage contains many far smellier, grosser floaters than Trump ( pick any genocidal horror, for example). In Trump’s particular sub-specialty of malfeasant stewardship, I like Captain Francesco Schettino, the guy who ran the Costa Concordia aground in 2012 while showing off for his Moldovan dancer girlfriend., who was helping him pilot the liner. He then accidentally “fell” into the first lifeboat heading to shore, called his mama to assure her he was fine and refused to return to the liner to help the evacuation. Many folks died. He blamed everyone else and was convicted of manslaughter and abandoning his ship. – Jon Ketzner 

A: Thank you.  Good nominee.  I believe he’s still in prison. Unlike Trump, so far.

This is Gene. Just reporting in on the polls.

Both men and women favor one-night stands. But women are less enthusiastic about the “pining” alternative! By significant numbers.

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Q:  My heart tells me that Microsoft is an immoral gluttonous monopoly, but my head bought its stock anyway.

A: Noted.   Money has an interesting effect on hypocrisy. I believe strongly in paying taxes, as much as is owed, without complaint or attempts to chisel. But one year, many years ago, I had a fellowship at Harvard. It lasted 9 months. When it came tax time, an accountant advised all of us fellows about what to do, and the difference between paying straight up, or being “aggressive,” as he put it, involved several tens of thousands of dollars. So, um.

Q:  I suffer the exact same hypocrisy as you. I feel bad about eating animals, and have slowed my rate of consumption. But (a) recipes for meat are so standard and available, and (b) meat is so darned tasty. So I try to make a special occasion of my hypocrisy and only eat meat occasionally and doing my best to appreciate the tastiness. I figure that eventually I will drift into full vegetarianism, and perhaps continue down that road to eating vegan. But probably not, because: cheese.

A:  This reminds me.   Have you ever had vegan cheese?  Inedible.  Toe cheese, basically.

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Q:  My hypocrisy is plastic soda bottles. I consider myself an environmentalist. I believe in climate change and desperately hope that we, as a society, get our collective heads out of our asses and do something about it. However...I drink a lot of soda and am very particular about how it tastes and fizzes. Aluminum cans just cause the soda to go flat too fast. And if you knock them over (which I do with relative frequency) they spill everywhere. So, I drink out of individual 16.9 fl oz bottles of soda - sometimes 5 or 6 a day. I am a bad person. But I recycle them - do I get partial credit?

A: No, but you did remind me that I upended a half can of Heineken onto my computer keyboard last week.   The screen now shows a thick vertical line about a fifth of the way across the page; otherwise things seem to be relatively okay. 

This is Gene. I am declaring us down. Please keep sending in questions and observations to the orange blobby question and observation button. And we’ll be back tomorrow, for the Invitational Gene Pool.

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