There will be no war with Iran. Yet.
This is because President Donald Trump sent troops to the threatened embassy. It wasn’t at all like a similar situation when Hillary Clinton “murdered” several Americans in Benghazi. So, that is a tinseled Trumpian victory, suitable for inscribing on the soon-to-be-built Arc de Trump.
As a bonus, “only” 11 American soldiers were injured during an Iranian missile attack on our troops. None of them died, however, and most of them can be sent back to a battle zone. Plus, when they return home, they can exercise the American right to PTSD. They will be given a miserly government monthly stipend and will be “thanked for their service” forever.
There will be no nuclear exchange with Korea. Yet.
The country is still run by a loon with a Moe Stooge haircut, and they have every nuke they had at the beginning. Still, they gave the United States several boxes of bones intended to remind us of what’s going to happen to Los Angeles. That attempt at reminder failed. This, too, is a Trumpian triumph.
The economy is gee-willikers great, particularly if you have tons and tons of lovely money in the stock market, which every Uber driver and convenience store clerk does, of course.
And, hosanna, hosanna, there was a pro-gun rally in Virginia, where, as we are endlessly reminded by pistol-kissers, there were thousands of guns but no killings. The rally was thus a great triumph, since everyone is supposed to be grateful when they are not shot by “patriots.”
There is still a war in Afghanistan, but no one cares. Getting the public to ignore an entire war is an even bigger triumph than winning a war, which America hasn’t done since 1945, when the “brave boys” most of us never met tracked Hitler to his lair and then came home to maintain a vicious system of segregation they had to be pried off the way you’d pry a dog off a particularly smelly piece of roadkill.
To be fair, the Trump family had no part in that war, or in the Korean War, or in Vietnam, or in any of the little wars that now burn holes in the map. The Trumps lead from behind. Very far behind. New York City, to be exact. How horrified the Trump family must have been on 9/11. The never knew a war could come right here, to where they lived.
Worst of all, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a man crazy people used to take seriously as a presidential candidate, has now begun to look like Tevye the Dairyman in a high school production of Fiddler on the Roof. You tell me pesticides aren’t screwing up the water supply. In addition, Cruz gets a little shriller every day, particularly in the face of impeachment.
Everyone on the Republican side of impeachment is getting a little nervous because every one of them is acting, not on behalf of the American people, but on behalf of the man behind the curtain, Trump.
If Trump survives impeachment, and declares himself president for life, there will be other trials without testimony or evidence. In those trials, the Republicans who didn’t work hard enough for Trump will be sent to the American gulag, which will probably be located in Texas, right next to the child cages.
Poor people believe it is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep. Rich people believe it is fine to live as a lizard, as long as you live. After all, if a lizard is rich enough, he can still get girls, young girls. The doorman will keep everything else at bay.
The impeachment will continue along party lines. You had better get to work.
— Marc Dion is a retired columnist at the Fall River (Mass.) Herald News and author of The Land of Trumpin’, a collection of his columns about the man who heads what was once the mightiest nation on earth. Contact hin at news@noozhawk.com, and follow him on Twitter: @MARCMDION. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.