Donald Trump is the Wizard of Oz, and this past week America got to see him exposed, complete with collapsing curtain.
Tag Archives: Donald Trump
Trump’s Pleasure Dome (with Caves of Ice)
Coleridge’s Kubla Khan and Donald Trump have a lot in common: both build sunny edifices that prove to be sterile at the core.
Trump, “FDA Food Police,” & The Jungle
Donald Trump yesterday floated a proposal to roll back food regulations. It’s worth remembering that such regulations were first put into place in large part because of a novel, Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” (1906).
Twain Anticipated Trump’s Crazy Talk
Donald Trump is popular with certain fans not despite but because of his outrageousness. Mark Twain has a humorous piece, “The Presidential Candidate,” that captures how much fun such outrageousness can be.
Satanic Trump Unleashing Dark Forces
When Donald Trump excited the alt-right with his Wednesday night speech promising to deport all undocumented immigrants, he reminded me of Milton’s Satan inspiring Sin and Death after engineering the Fall.
Politically Incorrect Okay for Hemingway?
If Bill Gorton, a positive figure in “The Sun Also Rises,” is politically incorrect, does that mean that Donald Trump is correct in his attacks on PC? Award-winning high school teacher Carl Rosin tackles the issues by contrasting Gorton and Trump.
How Trump Echoes Marc Antony
A New York Times article argues that Trump is using rhetorical flourishes like those that Marc Antony uses to defeat Brutus in Shakespeare’s play. His key strategy is casting himself as authentic against the inauthenticity of politicians.
Trump as Melville’s Confidence Man
Why, in the words of Nicholas Kristof, do we think of Hillary as “a slippery, compulsive liar” and Donald Trump as “a gutsy truth-teller.” Herman Melville gives us a compelling explanation in “The Confidence Man.”
On Walls: A Letter to the Incoming Class
Talk about walls and keep people out of America is beginning to seep down to high schools and colleges. It is therefore important that students understand how walls operate. Daniel Defoe and Lucille Clifton has some useful insights into how walls both make us safe and entrap us.

