Life of Wry

Oh my aching eye-rolls. Here we go again.. our petulant, man-child of a president who just can’t seem to control himself and must lash out — oh so predictably — at a woman reporter whose simple question challenged his fragile ego.

He called her piggy. Told her to be quiet.

Rick Wilson’s column on this today was long, a bit redundant and sometimes over the top, but, as usual was a very satisfying read. Here are some choice snips of a pot calling the kettle black:

Donald Trump’s jowly countenance, greased in tawdry orange makeup and shining with the light of a thousand McDonald’s deep fryers, has in his declining years taken on a squinty, grainy aspect, a man who exists somehow in our plane of reality and in some cartoon dimension simultaneously. 

As he’s grown older, meaner, and fatter, his cruelty has expanded to meet the decline.

There is a special circle of hell for men who look like Donald Trump and still think they are qualified to grade anyone else’s body, but he most certainly does and will always. That infernal neighborhood smells like the greasetrap of a cold McDonald’s deep-fryer, burnt steak, and flop sweat, and it sounds like a wheezing old man yelling at the TV in all caps.

On Air Force One, which is far below the standards of his upcoming gilded Qatari bribe jet, Trump pointed his finger at Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey and snapped, “Quiet. Quiet, Piggy,” because she committed the unpardonable sin of asking about the Epstein files and what he knew.

Not “Catherine.” Not “Ms. Lucey.” Not “you.” Not even the usual “fake news.” He went for “Piggy.” Again.

This is not a one-off, not a bad day, not Grandpa getting cranky before his Adderall kicks in. It is the purest expression of who he has always been, and it is especially grotesque coming from a man whose own body is a monument to sedentary malaise, seething resentment, and deep-fried denial.

[removed a bunch of paragraphs about his obesity, diet and his perfect medical reports]

Trump’s relationship with food is not that of a gourmet or some Epicurean enthusiast. 

It is grotesque.

It is defensive, compulsive, and entirely on brand. Fast food is his safe space. It is predictable, wrapped, processed, and served in a cardboard box that never asks him hard questions about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. His doctor can proclaim him “fully fit” until the end of time, but we all know the truth: he looks like a man who lost a fight with a Golden Corral buffet and then blamed the salad bar.

[..]

The sin is that Trump weaponizes other people’s weight and appearance to shut them up and shut them down. He does it to women, constantly, and he does it from inside a body that would, by his own crude standards, be the jiggling, roundboy punchline.

[..]

It is always the same move: find a woman who will not yield, will not sleep with him, who will not flatter him, who will not pretend his lies are truth, and then hit her in the place he believes will hurt the most. Her body. Her face. Her sexuality. Her “value” in the cheap, cruel market inside his head, where women are either decorative whores, usable political tools, or enemies.

[..]

The hypocrisy is not subtle. A man who lives on a diet that would make a cardiologist faint, any objective medical reports would consider him as obese or overweight, who waddles on and off golf carts like a seal being coaxed back into the ocean, is out here assigning barnyard nicknames to women. 

But here is the deeper, darker truth: it is not just about hypocrisy. 

Trump’s body insults are part of his dominance game. He is telling that reporter, and every woman watching, that the price of challenging him is public humiliation. He is sending a message to every young woman in journalism who watched that clip: ask a hard question, and the President of the United States might turn you into a meme, a punchline, a target for his howling online mob.

[..]

So when he says “Quiet, Piggy,” it is not just a personal insult. It is a signal to the Hate Machine that the next phase of this is not argument, not persuasion, not debate. It is humiliation and degradation as political weapons, focused on women who do their jobs too well.

[..]

George Washington understood that the new presidency would teach Americans what power looked like, so he wrapped it in dignity on purpose. In one letter to John Adams, he wrote that a president must “demean himself in his public character, in such a manner as to maintain the dignity of Office, without subjecting himself to the imputation of superciliousness or unnecessary reserve.” 

It was a choice, a conscious tension between majesty and republican modesty. 

He rejected monarchical titles like “His Highness” in favor of the simple “Mr. President,” yet carried himself with formality, restraint, and a careful sense of decorum, knowing every gesture would set precedent for those who followed. 

[..]

For Washington, the dignity of the presidency wasn’t ego; it was a civic responsibility, a shield for the republic against the drift toward either the royal abuses they’d fought to end or the shabby demagoguery to which we’ve succumbed today.

If there is a polar opposite of Washington’s dedication to country, service and dignity, it is Donald John Trump, President of MAGA.

So, no, Donald Trump does not get to call anyone “piggy.” Not morally, not aesthetically, not on any plane of existence where the physics of mirrors operate. He is a walking case study in what happens when you feed resentment, ego, and fried food into the same human being for fifty years and then give him nuclear codes.

Catherine Lucey did her job. She asked the right question. He reached for his favorite slur and said the quiet part loud: women who challenge him will be punished, mocked, and reduced to meat.

No man who lives on a diet of corruption, cruelty, Big Macs, Filet O’Fish, KFC, and burnt steaks and spite gets to call anyone “Piggy” ever. 

Remember this?

Here’s today’s version…. when a guy, present in the Oval Office during a press conference, fainted:

What the bloody hell is wrong with these people?

Once a month, the Disappeared in America visibility brigade (a group of local Indivisibles) shows up on a busy street corner somewhere in Yolo County to raise awareness for those who have been unfairly apprehended by the trump regime and for those who have died in ICE custody.

Today, after an exhausting year working to shine a light on the abuses of the cruel and reckless trump administration, and after yesterday’s AMAZING election that resulted in inspiring, definitive wins all over the country, this brigade of caring citizens did NOT take a day off. Instead, they showed up, in the rain, to hold signs and make sure people don’t forget what’s going on in the United States of America.

They also created an ofrenda in honor of those killed, unjustly detained, separated from their families, sent out of the country to god-knows-where….

My hat’s off to them.

Chris asked if I’d come over (they were at 5th and B, just around the corner) and take pictures. I was reluctant to leave my spot by the fireplace, luxuriating in post-election reports and commentary (all so incredibly, deliciously wonderful). But I said yes, and of course was glad I did. It was an inspiring display of compassionate resisters.

Here’re some shots: