Exit Stage Right

     Melania Trump worked as a model in the United States illegally in the 1990s.  Ironija means ironic in Slovenian, yet it seems appropriate that the wife of America's leading anti-illegal immigration advocate has this nugget in her past.  Mrs. Trump's plagiarizing of Michelle Obama's speech last summer at the Republican National Convention gives further cause for me to regard her as a phony, lacking the will to be a real person in the public eye, but pretending to be genuine, just as her husband acts like his sincerity is real.
     Still, regarding the couple side by side on a couch facing a TV interviewer, I felt some compassion for Mrs. Trump when she said her priority is staying home and taking care of her young son Barron, rather than traveling and making speeches for her husband's campaign.  Donald Trump butted in, saying, "She's going to make some speeches.  She's a wonderful speaker."  She looked at him, face frozen in the usual Melania mask, but something in her eyes said, "Shut the fuck up!  Don't commit me to speaking engagements during a televised interview!"
     That's Donald's way.  Shoot from the hip, except that Charles Bronson's character in Once Upon a Time in the West would put him on the ground.
     A strange thing happened in Reno, Nevada, over the weekend.  Probably many strange things happened there, but this one occurred at a Trump rally.  A protestor holding a sign reading "Republicans Against Trump" was assaulted by several Trump supporters.  Someone, in the middle of this, shouted "Gun!"  Trump was fast-walked out by two Secret Service agents.  The assaulted protestor didn't shout "Gun!"  He was removed, handcuffed, by several police officers, who, upon questioning him outside, determined that he wasn't the source of the problem.  It turns out that some of Donald Trump's supporters are violent white men with bigoted and racist tendencies; the kind of people who don't like foreigners, "illegals," the news media, the First Amendment, outspoken women, anyone who disagrees with the shifting viewpoints of Donald Trump.
     The sign-carrier and assault victim was given permission by the cops to reenter the venue.  Bear in mind, this is not yet Trump's America, but Obama's America where a citizen holding a sign saying simply, "Republicans Against Trump," a political view lacking profanity (although it could be turned into an acronym, R.A.T.), gets assaulted by other citizens, then removed in handcuffs by cops and questioned as if he's the perpetrator of a dangerous situation involving the presence of a gun, which failed to manifest.  The actual menace consists of Trump's violent supporters, not those protesting him, yet, the police, in numerous cases over the past year and a half, have punished the victims, overlooking crimes carried out in front of their brutality-approving cop eyes.
     What made the video from this incident all the more strange, was the way Trump looked when the agents hustled him from the podium to backstage.  He shielded his gaze to see what was going on in the audience when the assault was occurring, and then felt the Secret Service muscle tightening on his arms as they moved him quickly, making him resemble a hog that hasn't moved in five years, suddenly having to relocate hastily.  We don't often see Trump moving fast.  He told Dr. Oz (a popular daytime TV medical professional whose personality and viewpoints have infected much of American health-based culture) that he gets exercise by gesticulating while he talks.  One can expend calories by tapping one's foot to music, too, but one is still fat.
     Melania Trump's immobile face betrayed an emotion to me when her husband volunteered her to give speeches, indicating he doesn't really give a shit about what she wants.  This makes him typical of politicians.  I mean, when politicians describe to interviewers their decision-making process in running for office, they often say they had a family meeting.  Dad wants to be Senator for the great state of Ohio.  Fine, but what does his fifteen year old son, who depends on his father's wealth for college and also a later career, have to say about that?  Do the wishes of his six year old daughter actually matter, when it comes to issues involving her father's political ambitions?  If a dad is overbearing, like Trump, does anyone in the family dare speak their actual thoughts?  Or have they been brainwashed by Father's bullshit all their lives?
     Donald Trump, Jr.: "My dad's gonna be president!  And then you're gonna pay!"
     Grab America by the pussy, Donald, but when your Secret Service guards led you out of that room in Reno, you looked like an out of shape old man who had to think, for a few seconds, that someone might shoot him.  Your tough guy rhetoric didn't match the image, at all.

                                                                              Vic Neptune