Donald Trump's unexpected success in rousing Republican voters this early primary season has made for the political story of the year. A front page New York Times article today attributes his success to a cult of personality. By brute force of person he has gained a large following despite taking positions that blatantly contradict the views of many current adherents. They appear drawn to his financial independence, contempt for probity and political correctness, and his swaggering, chauvinistic, nativist approach to just about everything. Psychoanalysis has a lot to say about phenomena like this. So why a poem today instead of an essay on the application of psychoanalytic thinking to politics? Because in the first instance, psychoanalysis is all about the feeling, i.e. the nature of the feeling-experience that shapes and structures us, that underlies all of our behavior, motivation and relating to self and others.
The Donalds in Our Closet
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
-Edmund Burke
The Arrogance of Ignorance is bumptiously hilarious
We laugh so hard we can't believe it's frightfully nefarious
Piously presented as genius great and glorious
We're lending notoriety to something most notorious
The melting pot's no problem when compassion is gratuitous
ISIS falls before our eyes, be-headings are no threat to us
The market's always rising, financials are salubrious
America is great again! Down with the lugubrious!
So tempting are the Donalds with accoutrements so glamorous
Doubt drops into disarray and leaves us blindly amorous
Drunk on toxic fumes of fuel that energize and motor us
We find the scent sublimely grand that's dark and most malodorous
Could it be me so logical and liberal and wondrous
Who harkens to that confidence so sure and tintinnabulous
A musical rendition so fetching, fun and fabulous
Words don't even matter when his upper cut's that jabulous
When lazily we set aside a task that is laborious
We've only got ourselves to blame when darkness reigns victorious
The Donalds in Our Closet
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
-Edmund Burke
The Arrogance of Ignorance is bumptiously hilarious
We laugh so hard we can't believe it's frightfully nefarious
Piously presented as genius great and glorious
We're lending notoriety to something most notorious
The melting pot's no problem when compassion is gratuitous
ISIS falls before our eyes, be-headings are no threat to us
The market's always rising, financials are salubrious
America is great again! Down with the lugubrious!
So tempting are the Donalds with accoutrements so glamorous
Doubt drops into disarray and leaves us blindly amorous
Drunk on toxic fumes of fuel that energize and motor us
We find the scent sublimely grand that's dark and most malodorous
Could it be me so logical and liberal and wondrous
Who harkens to that confidence so sure and tintinnabulous
A musical rendition so fetching, fun and fabulous
Words don't even matter when his upper cut's that jabulous
When lazily we set aside a task that is laborious
We've only got ourselves to blame when darkness reigns victorious
