Remember that person from your youth?  (High school, college youth…)  The one you wanted to be with but, for whatever reason, never were?  Life went on, moved forward but that person – the fantasy of that person, anyway – stayed with you through the years fueling more than one…um…personal experience.

Life being what it is, currents somehow managed to bring the two of you back together.  You hit it off in ways you hadn’t before.  The conversation was great, the interaction easy and natural.  One thing leads to another and before too long, you find yourself on an unfamiliar sofa pursuing in real life that which had been relegated to fantasy years before.  As things heat up, you begin moving your head, lower and lower down their body, the promise of pleasure beckoning…and then you see it.  There!  And another one, there.  And there.  Warts…

I don’t know what you’ll do in that moment and this piece isn’t about your choice.  That would be a personal decision.  But whatever you choose, there’s one undeniable reality: you’ve been warned.  You KNOW there’s a risk to moving forward that will very likely affect you adversely for the rest of your existence.  You know it because you’ve seen the evidence…

Most of American history is made up of lip service about who we are, as a nation.  Most of it was and is pure bunk but I always believed it was aspirational bunk.  We weren’t describing who we actually were but who we wanted to be.  Maybe, we told ourselves, if we keep repeating that we’re good and honest and true, we might actually become good and honest and true.  Oh, well.  Nice try, I guess.

I have this basic, guiding rule: anything begun dishonorably is destined to fail.  At it’s founding, the United States of America institutionalized slavery.  If the rule is correct (it is) failure was inevitable despite our chanted group-mantra about “truth, justice, and the American way.”  (Even that line has become more of a threat: “Truth and justice?  Or the American way?”)

For much of the world, the United States of America seems very much like that object of your affections from your youth –  a place where dreams come true.  But if it ever WAS such a place, it surely is not any more.  When I look at the nation today, I don’t see us even pretending to be good anymore.  For clarity, I’m not talking about individuals, I’m talking about the nation as a whole – who and how we are as a group.  Our once-great nation has been taught to revel in the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride.

So, what if some country gets involved with us and doesn’t realize we’ve dropped the pretense?  What if, because of our old reputation and their outdated fantasies, they find themselves on an unfamiliar sofa, thinking they’re pursuing a dream come true?  Those countries need a warning.  Of course, they get to make whatever choice they deem appropriate but they should KNOW, up front, that getting involved with the US  involves a risk moving forward that will very likely affect them adversely for the rest of their existence…

For that reason, I’ve come to the conclusion that we should just do away with these dog-and-pony show “election” cycles.  Let’s just leave things alone.  We’ve managed, accidentally, to find the perfect warning to the world.  Why would we mess that up?  Houston, the Eagle has expired.  We have a NEW symbol to represent us.  It’s fat.  It’s orange.  It’s stupid.  It’s racist.  It’s lazy.  It’s arrogant and egotistical.  It’s downright narcissistic.  And it is us.

Donald J. Trump is the very personification of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride – the perfect reflection of who we the people truly are, the perfect symbol of the New United States.  Forget the past.  Forget the stories.  Forget the fantasies.  Disregard the sanitized history.  All that matters is the situation as it actually is today.  Donald J. Trump IS the genital warts of the United States…and you have been warned…