A sullen scowl creased the cantankerous countenance of the Great Trumpkin.
The Fourth of July was just a day or two away. He’d be expected to celebrate liberty and fawn over the frowning fathers and take part in all kinds of isn’t-freedom-fantastic folderol.
The Great Trumpkin liked to use holidays to wish ill on his enemies, as he had with his Christmas message, when had listed them all and concluded: “MAY THEY ROT IN HELL.”
“Liberty, biberty?” thought the Trumpkin, recalling a line he loved from his favorite TV ads. “How about: Liberty, schmiberty!”
The Trumpkin believed in authority. In being a dictator on day one. And in dungeons and the divine right of kings and real estate barons to throw their enemies into same. Which was one reason he needed another term, for as he’d lamented to Dr. Phil, “Revenge does take time.”
The Fourth, on the other hand, was all about freedom and breaking free of oppressive sovereigns. A shudder ran the length of the Trumpkin’s supposedly 6-foot-3-inch frame, from the tips of his toes deep in his elevator shoes to the top of his beautiful head of hair.
Dear Vladimir didn’t need to pretend to love liberty. No indeed. Puti could go to North Korea and pal around with popinjay potentate Kim Jong Un, who could drape pictures of the Russian czar along the streets of Ping-Pong, or whatever the capital of North Korea was called, and no one batted an eye. But when the Trumpkin had used $10,000 in nonprofit money to buy a 6-foot portrait of his own magnificent orangeness, New York authorities had had a hissy fit.
Hmm. Frowning fathers wasn’t right. Founding Farmers? He’d have to double-check that term. Otherwise, it could be like when he had tried to paint Joe Biden as gone soft in the head and then had gotten the name of his own doctor wrong. The late-night comics had had a field day with that one. Well, as the debate showed, he was right about Biden, anyway.
In Russia, one of Puti’s pals would visit those court jesters at home. Or simply put a little toxic nerve agent on their doorknobs.
Whereupon a brilliant concept flashed into the Trumpkin pumpkin: A TV show with him as king. Every week his retinue would gather to sing his praises, as he’d had his Cabinet do at its first full meeting, back in 2017. He’d keep an eagle eye out for the one who was the least fulsome, the way Jim Mattis had been when he praised the “men and women of the Department of Defense” but offered no accolades for the Trumpkin himself.
Then, when the public praise-fest was over, servants would bring in chalices of wine, one of which would be poisoned, and everyone would raise their glasses and proclaim in unison, “Long live the Great Trumpkin. Forever may he prosper!” Then he’d glare at the one who’d damned him with faint praise and proclaim: “You’re expired!” If he worked on his timing, his victim would collapse from the poison and topple to the floor at the very moment the Trumpkin finished his death sentence.
The “Avengist,” he’d call it. It would be even funnier than “Gutfeld!”
The Fourth … the Fourth … that damned declaration. The only thing worse was the US Constitution! Mike Pence had criticized him for putting himself above it on Jan. 6, 2021, as though that was a bad thing. Damned right he had. He, after all, was the Great Trumpkin of Trump Tower, and what was it but a yellowed old parchment signed by men who’d never built so much as a parking garage. So little regard did he have for the Constitution that he’d come right out and declared it should be suspended to restore him to power.
That was fine with the Little Trumpkins, God bless their head-nodding, hero-worshipping souls. But others had pointed out you couldn’t really be an American patriot and call for suspending its founding charter, even if you hugged the American flag at your rallies. You also had to embrace what the flag stood for, they said.
What it really should stand for was the divine right of the Trumpkin to do whatever he pleased, with absolute impunity. In their obeisant immunity ruling, his Supreme Courtiers had effective declared him The Even Greater Trumpkin, rendering him a king in every official action. So he really shouldn’t complain. And yet, some medieval kings had possessed among their powers the right of the first night, entitling them to have their royal way with every bride on her wedding day, no protest brooked or sexual assault civil suits allowed. Or so he had read somewhere. Why hadn’t his dunderheaded court extended the same power to him? Brett Kavanaugh, at least, should have thought of that!
The Fourth. If it weren’t an election year, he’d have his MAGA mob storm the national celebration, the way they had the Capitol. Whereupon another brilliant idea struck: He’d use the holiday to portray the Jan. 6 stormers as the true American heroes. He’d have the Jan. 6 defendants, whose jailhouse rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” he’d used at his rallies, do another song!
“My country tis of thee/Sweet land of Trumpery/Of He we sing!
Place of the Proud Boys Pride/Land to be MAGA-fied/Of thee we sing!”
Why, it practically wrote itself.
Now he just needed a TV Trumpswab to suggest it should be America’s new national anthem. The Great Trumpkin reached for his phone.
“Siri,” he said, “call Sean Hannity.”
Scot Lehigh is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at scot.lehigh@globe.com. Follow him @GlobeScotLehigh.