Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Trump to Torture’s Opponents: Drop Dead

By Robin Bates | Published: January 25, 2017

Donald Trump wants to bring back torture, specifically waterboarding. Like the colonel in Carolyn Forché’s poem by that name, he is a showman who seeks to intimidate.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Colonel", Carolyn Forché, torture, Waterboarding | Comments closed

1984 Explains Why Trump Keeps Lying

By Robin Bates | Published: January 24, 2017

“1984” gives us new insight into Donald Trump’s incessant lying. We are not supposed to apply logic to contentions that Trump’s inauguration crowd was bigger than Obama’s. We are supposed to submit to power. The more outrageous the lie, the more Trump demonstrates his power when people go along.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged 1984, George Orwell, Lying | Comments closed

Can Poetry Stop This Man?

By Robin Bates | Published: January 22, 2017

Poetry may not have been able to stop Donald Trump, but it has its ways of mounting resistance. Poems by Tennyson, Auden, and Yeats explain how.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", "To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing", Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam, Joyce Carol Oates, William Butler Yeats | Comments closed

Empty but for Pain: How Faith Is Perverted

By Robin Bates | Published: January 21, 2017

During Inauguration activities on Friday, we saw two dramatically different versions of Christianity, with one pastor finding scriptural backing for Donald Trump’s wall and another presenting him with the Sermon on the Mount.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Louise Erdrich, Presidential inauguration, Robert Jeffress, Tracks | Comments closed

How Will the Future Judge Us for Trump?

By Robin Bates | Published: January 20, 2017

Jane Hirshfield’s poem “What Will They Say” was reprinted by the National Academy of Poets to coincide with the inauguration of Donald Trump. Imagining what future generations will say of us, she urges them to understand us. Which is not to let us off lightly.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Let Them Not Say", Jane Hirshfield | Comments closed

The Good Ol’ Boy That Conned America

By Robin Bates | Published: January 19, 2017

Flannery O’Connor “Good Country People” may help us understand why America got taken in by the man getting sworn in as president today: Donald Trump conned people whenever he caught them feeling superior to him.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged con men, Flannery O'Connor, Good Country People | Comments closed

Jonathan Swift, Master of Fake News

By Robin Bates | Published: January 18, 2017

Fake news, which played a role in the 2016 election, may have become particularly sophisticated, but satirists have been creating fake news since at least the days of Jonathan Swift. Take, for instance, Swift’s “The Last Speech and Dying Words of Ebenezer Elliston,” which supposedly lowered the crime rate but which, for that reason, is problematic.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged fake news, Jonathan Swift, Last Speech and Dying Words of Ebenezer Elliston, Modest Proposal | Comments closed

Trump as Browning’s Pied Piper

By Robin Bates | Published: January 17, 2017

Charlie Pierce of “Esquire” makes good use of Robert Browning’s “Pied Piper of Hamelin” to describe Donald Trump’s con job. Then he imagines the tables turned and Trump as the deceitful major who stiffs his employee.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Pied Piper of Hamelin", 2016 presidential election, Robert Browning | Comments closed

Obama’s Problematic Allusion to Atticus

By Robin Bates | Published: January 12, 2017

In his farewell speech, Obama quoted Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In light of the white backlash against having had a black president, however, the Atticus Finch of “Go Set a Watchman comes to mind, making Obama’s allusion seem a bit weak.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Barack Obama, Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee, racism, To Kill a Mockingbird | Comments closed

Tag Archives: Donald Trump

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