Prince Vasili in “War and Peace” will say anything to come out on top. He’s a lot like Donald Trump.
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Tag Archives: Donald Trump
Trump, Prince Vasili, and Pure Cynicism
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Gulliver's Travels, Hillary Clinton, Jonathan Swift, Leo Tolstoy, Marco Rubio, politicians, politics, War and Peace Comments closed
Bernie, Black Lives Matter, & Invisible Man
Bernie Sanders’s early missteps with Black Lives Matter, which bewildered him and his followers, is explained in Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged angry middle, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Invisible Man, Race, race issues, Ralph Ellison Comments closed
Trump & GOP Tax Plans: All Humbug
Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Jeb Bush have all presented tax plans that claim to be populist even as they mainly benefit the wealthy. The Wizard of Oz would feel right at home in their company.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged election politics, GOP tax plans, Jeb Bush, L. Frank Baum, Marco Rubio, Wizard of Oz Comments closed
The GOP Descends into the Maelstrom
Poe’s “Descent into the Maelstrom” describes the state of current GOP politics, where even moderate Republicans are being pulled into rightwing extremism.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Descent into the Maelstrom, Edgar Allen Poe, GOP, GOP debates, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio Comments closed
The GOP Debate & the Ox-Frog Fable
Last night’s GOP debate often reminded me of the fable of the ox and the frog, with people trying to puff themselves up with hardline positions to impress voters. Here’s a Scott Bates version of the fable.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Fable of theFrog and the Ox", GOP debate, Jeb Bush, politics, Scott Bates Comments closed
Trump as the Duke of Bilgewater
Although a couple of recent articles have compared Donald Trump to Pap in “Huckleberry Finn,” I find him to be much more akin to the Duke and the Dauphin. Which is to say, an ace con artist.
Donald Trump as Willie Stark
Donald Trump calling out the GOP establishment is like Willie Stark calling out the Democratic establishment in “All the King’s Men.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged All the King's Men, Fox News, GOP, Republican primary, Robert Penn Warren Comments closed
Trump as Frankenstein’s Monster
What is it about Donald Trump that brings out the literary analogies? First a Salon columnist compared him to Odysseus’s Cyclops, then the New Yorker’s John Cassidy saw him as Gulliver, and most recently Rachel Maddow of MSNBC and others have compared him to Frankenstein’s monster. I’ve written about the Cyclops parallel here, but let’s take […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Frankenstein, GOP, Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, Mary Shelley, politics Comments closed