The Gold Dragon

     I heard on the news this morning that Donald Trump wants the United States to have ten times as many nuclear weapons as it has now.  Our current stockpile of such weapons (Go U.S.A.!) is 4,480.  Trump wants us to have 44,800 nuclear weapons.
     When I was a teenager playing the fantasy role playing game Dungeons and Dragons, my character and my friends' characters would gradually accumulate wealth, weaponry, personal defenses, property.  Our ambitions would grow, ultimately leading us towards the game designation, Chaotic Evil, Lawful Good's opposite.
     Our characters, starting out with good intentions, ended up living and thriving in an atmosphere of acquisitiveness, treachery, and casual violence.
     Yesterday, Trump sat in the Oval Office with a familiar gnome, former Secretary of State and current war criminal, Henry Kissinger.  The unspoken rule in corporate news media persists: show Kissinger but do not mention his vital role in killing millions of people.  Instead, the story focused on Trump's tiff with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, that the latter "allegedly" called the President a "moron."
     Trump, though he's pretended to be unruffled by this, bothered to tell a Forbes interviewer that if the moron comment is true, he'll "have to compare I.Q. tests with Tillerson," adding that we "know who would win."  In saying it that way, Trump implied, to me anyway, that Tillerson might be a moron.
     Verbal exchanges like this point to the adolescent nature of the Trump Administration.  The Executive Branch eats itself.  Paranoia, leaks to the press, "strong" new officials brought in to restore order (like Chief of Staff John Kelly) who themselves find it likely they might have to resign.  How does one work for a lunatic indefinitely?
     Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders (the second person to hold that position and it's only eight months into this administration) seems to be holding tightly to her job without fear of dismissal. Her father, former Governor Mike Huckabee, who ran in primaries against Trump in 2016, interviewed his former adversary, giving the President an easy-going chance to sound off about how great he is.  Not even Sean Hannity is as sycophantic toward Trump.  He drew a compliment out of his daughter's boss by asking about Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her ability as a press secretary.  Trump used one of his few adjectives, "great," to describe her job performance.  I have no doubt that Trump thinks this of her, because Sanders lies for him every time she faces the press.
     On November 4, 2016, four days before the election, Mike Huckabee tweeted, "Trump may be a car wreck, but at least his car is pointed in right direction.  Hillary is a drunk driver going the wrong way on the freeway."
     When I see a wrecked car on a freeway or on a street, I don't think, "Good thing that car's pointed in the direction it was traveling."  Huckabee last November couldn't bring himself to speak plainly, resorting instead to nonsensical car metaphors, when he could've just said, "Both of these candidates suck, but one of them, the Democrat, sucks worse."  That would be an honest statement from Huckabee, at least.
     I think, though, that Huckabee was hoping for a cabinet appointment or some other role in Trump World.  In the interim period between election and inauguration, Huckabee met with Trump to discuss the possibility of being appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel.  Yes, a Bible-thumper with the standard set of End Times beliefs, which include the ultimate damnation of all Jews, as the top American diplomat in Israel.
     Huckabee instead got his own show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, an organization I know nothing about, except that they, as Christians, are willing to have as a guest on one of their shows a man who admitted to Billy Bush on audiotape that he sexually assaults women, an activity enabled by his big money and power, the pattern seen in Trump's friends Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly, and in the recently discovered sexual predator, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
     Go Christian values!  Go capitalism!
     Corporate news networks keep reporting the Tillerson insult as "moron," but in fact he called Trump a "fucking moron."  He said this last June in relation to Afghanistan policy; it took three months to filter through, to the point where anti-Trump networks, CNN and MSNBC, mention it over and over, omitting the "fucking" part, which of course gives the insult its bite.
     What this has to do with Dungeons and Dragons, I don't know, except that my friends and I, playing that game, knew we were Chaotic Evil

                                                                              Vic Neptune