Human Cheeto vows to unite America around theocracy, hypernationalism, interplanetary manifestdestiny
Is America in 2025 a caricature of itself? (Ahem, yes)
As I ate breakfast with coffee by myself this morning, I listened to hyperbole, lies and theocratic rhetoric from a giant orange man-child with dictatorial aspirations.
Happy Inauguration Day. The 45th and the 47th President of the United States is Donald Trump. It's bananas.
Since 2016, the first time around, "things-Trump-said" was a daily news reel that made comedy writing easier than it's been in history. Like so many things in our world right now, if you don't laugh you'll cry.
In between some of the nonsensical things he said this morning was various Catholic and Evangelical church leaders evoking their particular version of God over and over as if the United States was a theocracy. According to the Pew Research Centre, 20 per cent of Americans identify as Catholic. Other statistics say that about 24 per cent of Americans are Evangelical Christians.
The inauguration started with New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Catholic Archbishop of New York, delivering an invocation alongside the late Billy Graham's son Franklin Graham. It ended with retired priest Fr. Frank Mann from the Diocese of Brooklyn giving a closing benediction.
Some of the crap the most divisive president in U.S. history said while claiming to be "a peacemaker and a unifier""
• “I was saved by God to make America great again.”
No, you got lucky. That was a reference to the 20-year-old man who fired eight rounds from an AR-15-style rifle at a Trump rally in Bethel Park, Penn. on July 13, 2024, killing one audience member and critically injuring two others. Wannabe assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks was then shot and killed by the Secret Service. God had nothing to do with it. Did God decide the person who died deserved it?
• "We will pursue our manifestdestiny into the stars and plant the stars and stripes on the planet mars.”
Did you ever have the feeling there's a rocket in your pocket? Nice rhyming Donald Seuss. SpaceX founder Elon Musk gave this fantasy/waste of time a thumbs up.
• Trump said he will reinstate members of the military discharged for refusing the COVID vaccine “with full back pay.”
There's a great lesson for the kids. Stomp your feet. Whine about doing your job. Defy orders. Deny science. Trump's got your back.
How much is that going to cost?
• "What a beautiful name. And it's appropriate. It's appropriate," he said on changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. He also said he wanted to return the name of Alaska's Mount Denali to Mount McKinley.
On the Gulf of America: This is not even an original joke. Mississippi State Rep. Steve Holland, a democrat, joked about this in a bill in 2012 meant to mock other bills to crack down on illegal immigration. The bill managed to avoid saying the word “Mexico.” It referred to “the body of water located directly south of Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties,” saying it would be renamed as the Gulf of America for “official purposes within the state of Mississippi.” Since this was satire, the bill obviously never passed.
Mount McKinley: In 2015, then President Barack Obama approved a Department of the Interior order rename Mount McKinley in Alaska to Denali, a local First Nations name for the mountain that President McKinley never visited.
It has been pointed out that while it is possible that Trump could rename these geographic locations, it remains to be seen if any other country would go along with it.
• "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama," goes the famous palindrome
Trump said that the U.S. "foolishly" gave the Panama Canal to the Country of Panama. "We have been treated very badly for this foolish gift…. China is operating the Panama Canal and we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama and we are taking it back."
Um ,no, Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino essentially said upon hearing this.
“The canal is Panamanian and belongs to Panamanians," he told a press conference this morning. "There’s no possibility of opening any kind of conversation around this reality, which has cost the country blood, sweat and tears."
And a fact check: China is not operating the Panama Canal. A Hong Kong firm is the neutral manager of the canal.
• Up is down. Black is white. Sedition is loyalty.
After the inauguration, in a speech to supporters, Trump referred to the rioters criminally charged after the failed coup d'etat he encouraged during the January 6 conspiracy as the "J6 hostages." These are criminals he is considering pardoning.
Good luck 'Murica.
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Paul J. Henderson
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