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When I think the word “crude”, the first thing that comes to my mind (after images of barrels of oil), is Donald Trump.

Could we have had a cruder warning? I think not.

Below is part of a piece I wrote for The Marina TIMES, in my May 2017 column, Enter Stage Left. It’s my prompt response for today:

“He has a peculiar orange face and a lumpish, doughy body he tries to contain within costly suits of broadcloth and grey sharkskin, dark blue blazers and crisp white shirts. His accessory is an extra-long, bright red necktie, especially made to hang below his belt-clutched waist. No one in the kingdom falls for these sartorial tricks, meant to fool the eye into believing the king is a handsome, well-shaped man. For he is just the opposite. And to make matters worse, thinking he can trick the on-looker into thinking he has a healthy head of shiny blonde hair, King Harumph glues yellow thatches of straw to his head and goes about his day whistling through his fishy pursed lips.

As unattractive as his exterior , all slippery smiles and smarm, what is going on on the inside of King Harumph is far uglier and more dangerous. For on the inside of this desperate ruler is nothing but the barren landscape of self-interest, of degrading selfishness and staggering visceral displays of concern for no one but himself. His heart is made of basalt, an igneous rock formed from the extruded lava of the dead volcano of his arrogance. He has stomach for only the basest of foods, cooked in the fast-food kitchens of his slum lands, and processed in his digestive tract, which is generously lined with the acid of reptilian avarice.
From the day he was crowned King of the Land of Unfortunates, Harumph knows nothing but strife, for he has no idea how to be a king, and now holds particular hatred in his rocky heart for all the kings that have come before him. He counters their intelligence with his willful ignorance; tears down their fine and civic-minded institutions with the zeal of a true destroyer. So that, now, gold pours from the meagre purses of the citizens into the already bulging stores of the wealthy and people are dying every day from fear and hunger.

Where is the hero that will rescue the land from King Harumph?
Is it possible the kingdom will meet its doom at his behest? Will his oddly tiny hands peel away all that is civil and decent?
Will he cash in all the kingdom’s chips to build a wall to keep others out, behind which he presumes himself to be safe?
Dream on, King Harumph! For you are not safe. Your days are numbered.

But for now, in King Harumph’s fake gold halls, where the marble is actually ply wood covered with contact paper, his Deplorableness sits on his unstable throne and contemplates his name in huge lighted letters displayed across the far wall: HARUMPH!!!!! His name is also displayed across every other wall in the throne room, large letters encrusted in cheap gold paint, all yelling HARUMPH!!!!
He observes the workmen laboring to erect more signs with his name writ large. Soon the enter castle will be lit with HARUMPH’S blocking even the windows. He does not need to see outside into the real world, for all that matters is his own reflection, his own name, shouting back at him to reassure him all is well.”

Could it be, now, in these years after i wrote that column , we are finally heeding the crude warning that is Donald Trump? Are we finally waking from the nightmare we have all been forced to share? Will his “base” (and what a great word, a useful word) ever wake up?
One can only hope so.
I devoutly pray so, and i am not usually a praying woman.