Stating the Case as Simply as Possible

May is here and we only get one a year and a person needs to go outdoors and take a deep breath, walk away from the news, which rubs our faces in the angry arrogant pointless presidency of a bonehead, and walk in the park and observe the delight of kindergarteners leashed together like sled dogs, heading for a grassy lawn to be unleashed and go dashing around, yelling, laughing, New York apartment kids thrilled by freedom of movement, running in circles, playing tag, hiding behind trees. And the tulips are in full color and food trucks are grilling brats and street musicians are strumming and drumming and the world is joyful.

I grew up among solemn fundamentalist men and their dutiful wives, and though Scripture mentions joy they avoided it themselves, but we kids found it by chasing each other, skipping stones on the river, shooting baskets, skating, daredevil bicycling, and in May joy is hard to suppress, especially in the north, you walk down the street with a root beer float and smell new-mown grass and observe girls in summer dresses and hear “I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day” sung to a rhythm track and you realize that delight is a necessity, our sanity depends on it. Whatsoever things are lovely, think on those things, said the apostle Paul and so I put away the paper and go for a walk in the park and look for little kids and there it is. God did not put us here to be insulted and tormented, and live under malign corrupt leadership.

It happened to be the day the bonehead printed in his Truth Social a photoshopped pic of himself in a pope outfit and proposing himself as a candidate. This was a couple days after he returned from Pope Francis’s funeral in Rome where he scored a front-row seat and so the coffin of the saintly Francis, the “people’s pope” with the scuffed shoes who brought the Church to accept the blessing of gay couples, was upstaged by a convicted felon who is busy cutting billions and billions from medical research and humanitarian aid to desperate people.

His appearing in pope attire so soon after the funeral achieved a level of tastelessness beyond anything he had done before and late-night comics who’ve been feasting on him for years were confused by it — how to satirize a man who satirizes himself so expertly. Hitler took himself seriously — he thought his postage-stamp mustache and the upward flung salute were meaningful, but here’s this pathetic palooka maneuvering the U.S. Army into staging a big parade with tanks and jets on his birthday, a level of childishness every other president in our time would’ve avoided at all costs. Meanwhile his pal Cardinal Dolan says about the pope photo, “I hope it wasn’t his idea.” Someone ptuies in your face and then does it again and you think, “I hope that was an accident.”

The man is a gross insult to every living American citizen, he has made us a nation of nincompoops in the eyes of the world, and yet most of his voters are still behind him. They are writing a new chapter in the history of mass delusion. Every morning the news hits us like a baseball bat. How did this crook and clown achieve the White House so he could wage war on science, higher education, the Constitution, regulatory agencies, and the world economy, while redecorating the Oval Office to look like the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas.

There are two intelligent, principled Republican men who know they have turned a blind eye and hung on too long and watched a cruel dumbbell turn Lincoln’s party into a fascist cult. They are Mike Johnson and John Thune. They know the man up close and personal: he is a dreadful joke. They need to bring themselves to do their duty and oppose him. The man is a coward. He’s shown it over and over again. Stand up to him and he will fold like tissue paper. The Constitution provides the remedy. Impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors. Bribery is one. The man’s crypto scam is a pipeline for bribes.

Remove him from office and let us begin the long process of restoring the honor of our country. The world needs America and when we elect a brazen blockhead to power, we put the entire planet in danger.

This country’s ideals cannot survive this man’s term of office. It’s just that simple. Republicans have served up a cowpie for supper and they must take it away.

Garrison Keillor © 05.05.25