I spent a few days of my Christmas holiday in the hospital. The nurses were festively dressed in reindeer antlers, and the rooms were strewn with garland and various shades of green and red. On Christmas morning, I made the mistake of reading about the social media post of the most uninteresting man in the world. After his usual screed of overworked and overused insults, he ended by wishing an array of people would rot in hell. Aside from being the most self-(un)aware human being on Earth, Donald Trump may be the most uninteresting.
How can that be, one might ask?
His name is constantly in the news; he has a faux legend built on a mountain of lies, malfeasance, and racism. Trump commands a cult-like following; even my offering today is dedicated to Donald Trump. So, as my blood pressure rose and my dosage of meds went right along with it, I turned away from my smartphone and turned to what was once called the idiot box: TV. I ended up watching a tried and genuinely feel-good movie, Forrest Gump. Based on the 1986 novel written by Winston Groom, it is the story of a man who stumbles through the innocence of his intellectual restrictions to become a hero and, most of all, a good guy.
It occurred to me that Donald Trump is the evil id of Forrest Gump. Mr. Trump has not displayed the intellectual capacity to command respect and lucked into riches. In short, it was not what he did that made some think he was interesting, but it is precisely what makes him an overwhelming bore. In place of a box of chocolates, Trump feeds his cult a box of stale insults. How many times can we hear the words witch hunt, deranged, or rigged without walking away? In the film, Forrest Gump ran from Greenbow, Alabama, to Santa Monica, California, then again and again, lasting over three years. He amassed a cult following, with the media monitoring his every step. Other runners idolized him, starting to run behind him, awaiting the wise words he would impart after his many coast-to-coast treks. As it turned out, Gump was not fascinating at all. At the end of his last run, with his followers holding their breath, finally to hear the words they had awaited, he turned to them and said,
Unlike Forrest Gump, who innocently captivated an audience on a park bench, regaling them with his stories of naïve heroism and meetings with President(s), Mr. Trump’s biggest fan is himself. Overwhelmed by a false sense of self-centered importance, all of America is trapped with him on his inescapable bench, forced to listen. Gump’s stories changed with history, and Forrest Gump was wise enough to realize he was not the real object of the story but the recipient of the same. Mr. Trump’s life story has not changed since he pretended to be his press agent, [John Miller or John Barron], planting false stories about who he was dating, inflating his inherited net worth, and dabbling in racism and xenophobia.
A famous moment in the movie is Forrest listening to his army buddy Bubba endlessly regale the many ways to prepare shrimp. Finally, Bubba abruptly stops, stares, and says, “That’s, that’s about it.”
Trump’s shrimpy menu was never tasty, and the variety is limited. That’s all I have to say about that.
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