Circle Stroke

June 13, 2017

Disgusting. Who the fuck thinks this shit up?

Talk about blindsided – didn’t see it coming as the Donald started his first Cabinet meeting with the usual complaints about Democratic obstruction. Yeah, the Republicans hold both Houses and the presidency, hell there’s even a conservative majority in the Supreme Court, but they can’t seem to get anything done. So, Trump blamed the Democrats – the tyranny of the minority makes him sad.

Yup, this first televised Cabinet meeting looked to be just more of the same, a priori Donald – yawn.

But then, amazingly, after two-hundred-seventeen post-election days, Trump offered up a surprise. This time a study in awkwardness never before experienced by an unsuspecting public.

Right after the Donald’s opening remarks, he introduced a fresh Trump communication feature, yet another way to one-way communicate, a new way to make America great again, affectionately termed: stroke the Donald.

Trump led off the new segment by complementing himself on achieving more than any other president ever, with the arguable exception of Franklin Roosevelt. Mercifully, the Donald kept his self-congratulations short – probably because he was eager to hear the nice things his employees had to say about him.

And he wasn’t disappointed. As they went around the table, each cabinet member publicly thanked Trump for being Trump and lavished him with praise – out loud, to his face, in front of the cameras. The only holdout was the CIA director, who used his tough-guy card and proclaimed that, as CIA, he doesn’t talk to the press. (The whole bunch nervously laughed at his, singular, non-Trump-centric remark – gutsy).

The scene was, perhaps, the most awkward ever – cult like, it didn’t even elevate to the class of an adolescent circle jerk in that with the traditional circle jerk each participant pleases themselves – everyone gets some. With the Trump style circle stroke, everyone pleases the Donald and no one, other than the Donald, gets off.

Like I said before, disgusting – selfishly salacious, not suitable for family viewing.

The republic is a little traumatized after watching this latest public display, and can’t make the image of all those smiling sycophants servicing the Donald go away. We need a rating system for Trump events so non-consenting adults can avoid exposure to such explicit material.

Ugh,
osv