We always find common ground, my friend and I.
Baffled. That was my text to her after I watched the spectacle of Trump clinching the Republican nomination.
Barfing, she replied.
Barfled pretty much summed it up. Even my dog was puking, the enticing new bone I had tossed his way apparently a bit hard to swallow. He held onto it, though. So good going down. Coming up, not so much, by the look on his face, but he cannot make the connection. He looked longingly at the mess as I cleaned it up.
I was happy for the distraction. As barfled as I was, I had been transfixed by the spectacle on my television screen, of Trump's greenish yellow cotton candy hair, his row of impossibly white bottom teeth, the backdrop of plump red lips, smooth, botoxed cheeks, and ample breasts. I entertained myself with a little game of Name that Adjective, guessing which one would be next as Trump recounted poll numbers and crowd estimates and even wondered aloud whether Ted Cruz liked him. Incredible. Terrific. Amazing. He cycled through his happy words, as if he had not, that very morning, managed to penetrate the preternatural calm of his unctuous rival and provoke him into a venomous rage.
The victory speech was as predictable as always, as lacking in substance as it was filled with the three adjectives in Trump's lexicon. What really almost made me lose my cheesecake, though, was the commentary afterward. The exclamations, by some, that the speech was good, that the speaker was really giving "presidential" the old college try. Trump has managed to set the bar so low that he is deemed "presidential" when, for twenty minutes, he manages to not hurl a single insult or shout out a vile nickname. He was passing out love like hundred dollar bills, love for Hispanics (the ones who can make it over the wall?), women (as long as they're hot?), coal miners (a new and convenient cause celebre), the National Enquirer (okay, that one may have been unspoken). And for the once "Lying Ted," the camel whose back had been broken, the oozy orator who had finally decompensated and become, well, Trumpish. Which, apparently, only works for Trump.
I'm moving to Mexico, I texted my friend as I tried desperately not to throw my plate at the television. It's relatively new, and the cheesecake was kind of expensive. It didn't occur to me to power off, or, for that matter, to stop eating, despite the churning in my gut. It's not that I didn't make the connection; it's just that I couldn't seem to stop myself.
Trump will be back today, I am sure, in full buffoon mode, peppering his recitation of poll numbers and crowd estimates with derogatory jabs and other overt behavior not befitting a commander in chief. His supporters will eat it up, and the news anchors will wonder for hours on end what happened to the other Trump, the one who was presidential for an opportune moment.
I will text my friend, and we will connect in our barflement. I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, a Trump presidency isn't the worst tragedy. Nowhere near what my friend has suffered this year, what a whole bunch of us have endured, personally. Maybe the Trump phenomenon is a much needed distraction as we trudge up our own narrow path to recovery.
Come to think of it, it's been a barfling kind of year. With any luck (and maybe some good therapy and good political strategists), we -- all of us -- will see the light and come out better and stronger on the other side. Back to reality for us, back to reality TV for Trump. Incredible. Terrific. Amazing.
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