Garrison Keillor’s recent op-eds about Donald Trump (aka The Snapper) are always pointed and funny, but today’s op-ed about The Snapper entitled “A nation’s fascination with the unthinkable” really hit my funny bone...hard. I read it in my home-delivered paper version of the Houston Chronicle (yes I’m a dinosaur), but it’s also in today’s online Washington Post linky here.
First some background. I was raised on a family farm in Iowa that was started by my German great-grandfather and great-grandmother after he emigrated from Germany and fought in the Civil War for the Union with Gen. Grant. I attended a rural Lutheran Church as a child, and went to a rural two-room Lutheran parochial school for grades 1–8. (I gave up church as soon as I left home when I went to university and could finally think and act for myself.) One of my two brothers still runs the family farm in Iowa with his son (and is an elder in the same Lutheran church). My other brother is a family doctor in a small farming town in Minnesota (and still an active Lutheran). The reason for all this family history is that I like Garrison Keillor...a lot. I really understand and appreciate his self-deprecating, and intelligent, Midwestern humor—it’s the kind of humor I grew up with. When I read his columns or his books, or have listened to him on The Prairie Home Companion going on 40 years now, I laugh at his jokes and stories, I understand the people and communities he is talking about, he reminds me of home in Iowa and makes me warm and happy inside. Some people may not totally get Garrison Keillor, but that’s OK. I do and that’s OK too.
Anywho, reading Keillor’s column mentioned above had me laughing so hard in bed that my wife woke up and asked “Well, what did Trump do now?” So allow me to share with you what had me laughing. First he begins by commenting how the hot summer weather can make people do crazy things. Then a bit about those who sat in the back during history class, then a segue to Copenhagen and Denmark and Norway, and then to how Liberals love meetings and how The Snapper is not big on meetings. And then the last three paragraphs that had me rolling.
The second reason for his nomination is The Fascination of the Unthinkable: When the rational fails to satisfy, why not the counterintuitive? If your car won’t start and you don’t know why, push it over a cliff and watch it blow up. If you’re tired of the same old same old in Washington, why not elect Bob Barker, host of “The Price Is Right”? It’s like having a walrus in church Sunday morning. The minister tries to explain the parable of the vineyard, and the walrus says, “BLEAUGHHHHHH.” Which one do you remember for weeks afterward?
Now that walrus in the church imagery just started me laughing out loud—the kind of laughing that once you start it’s hard to stop. I can understand that ridiculous walrus metaphor perfectly. And oh how I would have loved as a child to have seen a walrus at a Sunday church service. But Keillor continues:
Long ago in Minnesota, a state somewhat like Denmark, a man ran for governor who had bleached hair, enormous pectorals, and a penchant for hitting other men with folding chairs. I am not making this up. It was unthinkable that a state of sober Scandinavians and Germans would elect a man like this. And so we did. His term in office was not a happy time and he didn’t run for re-election. Not many Minnesotans miss him. The Snapper is not campaigning in Minnesota that anyone is aware of. We’ve been there, done that. Talk to one of us if you need more information.
Yes I remember that Jesse Ventura “experiment” in Minnesota too. Trump lite. And Keillor concludes:
What will defeat the Snapper in the end is plain wrongness. When the surgeon comes in to say hello before he opens up your skull, if he’s wearing a baseball cap backward and listening to Metallica on headphones, you climb off that table. And when you board the plane and glance in the cockpit and see Moe and Curly doing eye pokes, you disembark. The Snapper is not a president of the United States. He isn’t even of mayoral quality, unless maybe in Toronto. He’s a joke. Nice try. No cigar.
Garrison Keillor says it all, with laughter and truth. Please read Keillor’s whole column to get the full Keillor experience—Minnesota’s Molly Ivins. And even though it’s 100 degrees out there don’t buy any anvils you don’t need. And don’t vote for The Snapper. Cheers.
Update: Changed all the incorrect instances of “editorial” to “op-ed”. A big shoutout and thank you to Catte Nappe for pointing out this error.