By Hal Brown
I got the idea for this story when I was looking at Capitol Hill Blue today and recognized the image used for Doug Thompson’s editorial.
I remembered I had used the same image some time ago so I looked for and located where I used it.
In 2018 I wrote the following story in Capitol Hill Blue.*
I am referencing the story now because it not only does it still hold true, it is truer than ever. As you see I decided to use a photo of Freddie Krueger instead of Trump. I am avoiding reminding people of his nightmarish face as much as possible. I wrote about this on Dec. 22nd. and the ext day I posted a story about him with a bag over his head.
I suggested The Grinch for children because as bad as the Grinch is, the story has a happy ending. I saw no reason to frighten children. Whether or not they've been worried about Trump as many children old enough to be aware of their parent’s concerns are, all children need to be reassured that the nightmare of the pandemic will soon be over. In 2018 the Grinch was Trump. In 2020 the Grinch is symbolically Covid-19.
Back in 2018 for adults I recommended the first Nightmare of Elm Street movie for the following reasons:
Freddy Krueger is a name which evokes a sense of pure evil much the way the name Trump does to clear-eyed lovers of Democracy today. You can fire up the DVD machine and choose between, as I count them, six Nightmare on Elm Street movies. However I recommend the original which got a 94% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Ratings went down for the next five movies.
This is a paradoxical psychological way to escape from the current nightmare being caused by the resident of the mansion at 2000 Pennsylvania Avenue. The theory is that you may be able to escape from real horror to fantasy horror. I’m tempted to say “if you want to see the devil incarnate on Christmas day, watch Freddy Krueger,” but then I realize that all you have to do is turn on your television to see him. Chill inducing and gasp provoking as “Nightmare” is, the movie isn’t as frightening as watching MSNBC or CNN or any of the non-Fox media report on the Twittering terrifier that occasionally occupies the Oval Office.
If a Christmas movie was made about Trump it would have to be rated as not recommended for children under 13 because it would be traumatic for them. The is little doubt that Trump is the most frightening looking president since the invention of photography. Even an actor like Alex Baldwin, try mightily as he does, can’t contort his face into the angry malevolent expressions we see from Trump on a near-daily basis. It’s not just the mouth, it’s the evil in the eyes he can’t match.
I concluded”
When things don’t get his way Trump’s behavior is more unhinged than Freddy Krueger’s who is systematic and cool-headed in his mayhem. He never gets angry. He knows what his job wis, and takes great pride in being the best terrifying knife-fingered serial killer he can be.
At least Freddy’s history might inculcate some sympathy. “While in elementary school Freddy killed the class hamster and was bullied for being the son of a hundred maniacs. During his teenage years he would cut himself with a shaving razor for pleasure. He used the same razor to kill Mr. Underwood when he was beating him as revenge for all the times he abused him.” Reference
Trump has no such excuse.
It ought to go without saying that Trump has become so unmoored from reality, so delusional, and so dangerous, that many eminent therapists have suggested were he not president he’d probably be committed to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation. As a less than eminent therapist I have suggested the same thing on Daily Kos.
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* Capitol Hill Blue is a website which was started 1994 by newspaperman Doug Thompson and is the oldest surviving news site on the internet. Reference For a period of time I wrote columns there.