Trump realized in a literary dream…or nightmare

Andrew Harnik/AP

By

Abigail Rathbone

One of the successful treatment aids to people suffering through chemo or radiation for cancer is Visualization in which the patient perceives the antagonistic cells as beings who can be vanquished and dismissed from the body. For those enduring the arrival of Trump as an onslaught on the U.S. Body Politic, here are visualization techniques to imagine Trump as an imaginary literary creation whose effect will end when the book is finished….

1) You can imagine Trump as Miss Havisham hanging onto her moldering wedding cake enraged that she’d been “dissed” or any perhaps the Beadle in Oliver Twist — a caricature of a character without any character.

2) As one of Faulkner’s venal Snopes, a tribe of schemers whose main characteristic was figuring out how to take advantage of poor people.

3) As Baron Scarpia in Tosca who used his high office to try to ensnare and corrupt a woman who loathed him.

4) As one of the predatory foxes or wolves in Aesop who used trickery and soothing lies to succeed.

5) As the ridiculous George IV as played by Peter Ustinov in “Beau Brummel” sensitive to slights about his figure and appearance and concerned only with the figure he cut.

6) As Sammy Glick–a portrait of pure opportunism in “What Makes Sammy Run”.

7) As the Karamazov father in The Brothers Karamazov who exploited everyone he knew–especially his sons.

8) As Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby symbol of the 1%’s arrogance and sense of entitlement.

 9) As The Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland. Just plain crazy; would have written Mad Tweets had Twitter been available in the 19th Century.

10) As the paranoid Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny who obsessed about the missing strawberries while his ship was going around in circles and in danger of sinking…

 and..

 11) As Wrong Way Corrigan of football fame (whoops–not fictional)–(and that’s the problem with Trump!)

Abigail Rathbone

Abigail Rathbone has been writing both short fiction and poetry “on and off” for 50+ years. A retired copywriter she now spends much of her time buying and selling old books, some of which she reads.