Tag Archives: Donald Trump

“Stalin’s Epigram” and the Trump Era

By Robin Bates | Published: November 5, 2020

Russian poet Osip Mandelstam describes life under Stalin. It eerily describes what life feels like under Trump.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Stalins Epigram", Election 2020, Masha Geesen, Osip Mandelstam | Comments closed

2020: Wandering between Two Worlds

By Robin Bates | Published: November 4, 2020

A witty riff on a T. S. Eliot line and an illusion to a Matthew Arnold poem neatly capture the 2020 election results.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Hollow Men", "Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse", Election 2020, Joe Biden, Matthew Arnold, T. S. Eliot | Comments closed

Do Not Let Your Anger Drown You

By Robin Bates | Published: October 28, 2020

Many Trump supporters are consumed by anger. Dante shows how they construct their own hells in the process.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Dante, Election 2020, Election anger, Inferno, Joe Biden | Comments closed

Parental Despair over Trump’s Orphans

By Robin Bates | Published: October 23, 2020

Spiritual Sunday I don’t throw around the word “evil” lightly, but the Trump administration deliberately and systematically tearing children away from their asylum-seeking parents was evil. Although some of the children were still breastfeeding, Trump and his minions didn’t care enough to ensure the families could be reunited, which means that he may have created […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged asylum seekers, family separation practices, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, slaughter of the innocents | Comments closed

Scott Atlas, a Fieldingesque Quack

By Robin Bates | Published: October 22, 2020

Fielding’s jabs at quack doctors in “Tom Jones” are suddenly relevant again given Trump’s approach to the pandemic.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Center for Disease Control, COVID-19, Deborah Birx, Henry Fielding, quack doctors, Robert Redfield, Scott Atlas, Tom Jones | Comments closed

Trump as a Gibbering Ice Giant

By Robin Bates | Published: October 21, 2020

For those expecting a coherent debate out of Trump tonight, check out the ice giant Nimrod in Dante’s “Inferno.” We can expect the same incoherence from the president.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged 2020 election, Dante, Inferno, Nimrod, Tower of Babel | Comments closed

Scott Atlas’s Miracle Covid Cure

By Robin Bates | Published: October 20, 2020

Radiologist Scott Atlas has Trump’s ear about Covid, with disastrous implications. Perhaps he thinks he’s Charles Atlas or the Atlas in “Atlas Shrugged.”