The Donald Trump saga continues to claim the attention as he digs himself ever deeper into the pit of public disdain; it has all the markings of a train wreck that cannot be averted. For me, the most striking part of the open-mike incident during which he was bragging about his manly approach to womankind, was that he referred to himself as a “star”. Of course that was a decade ago and I imagine that he has upped his view of himself to be not just a single star but a constellation thereof, and my guess is that the constellation he likens himself to would be Orion, the Hunter, which these days is bestriding the pre-dawn sky in a similar manner to how Donald hulked over his opponent in the recent debate! Such huge self-absorption can only be marveled at; he must be the most brazen of the ego-maniacs alive today, maybe of all time. One wonders whether the “deplorables” are beginning to have cold feet about their champion.
His dismissal of his raunchy words as “locker room banter” now has the locker room fighting back; the twitosphere is inundated with scores of jocks protesting that vulgar misogyny has no place in their backyard (right!). And today we see that a number of ladies, hitherto not heard from, are coming out of the woodwork to lay claim to his assaulting them over the years, and so it continues.
Like many of you I have watched several of the debates in which Mr. Trump has appeared and I am amazed at the facial expressions he can draw upon. I especially like the one when he is being applauded by his doting supporters; here he puts on a smirk of self-satisfaction and is clearly preening. Then at the other end of the spectrum are the scowls and grimaces when not so pleased by events.
A few years ago when I was in my 20’s I had a job that was located in Cumberland in the northwest of England. There the locals had different folk traditions from those further south, for example, throughout the year, villages would have festivals for celebration of whatever-largely an excuse to party. One of the events that was not for running or throwing stuff was known locally as Girning (maybe Gurning) where the contestants (men and women) would face the onlookers with their head through a horse collar and be encouraged to make the ugliest/funniest/scariest facial expression they could in order to win the prize. Watching Donald takes me back 50+ years to those contests-he would have been a strong contender.