A horrible thought

January 31, 2018 • 6:18 pm

I was watching the local news, which had a report on the Obama Presidential Library–to be built not far from where I live. And then I thought this:

WILL THERE BE A DONALD TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY?

Will it really happen? Maybe not if he’s impeached. But even Richard Nixon, who resigned in disgrace, has one.

112 thoughts on “A horrible thought”

    1. No, of course, he has a complete collection of all the magazines that have his picture on the cover. That will be the centerpiece of the library.

    2. The centerpiece will be two giant TV’s.

      One will be an endless loop of Fox and Friends.

      The other will show an endless loop of Trump Tweets.

  7. Don’t you dare fix the typo! It’s perfect for this post! 😀

    It will be an annex at Mar-a-lago. It will look like a reading room in a Medieval Monastery. All the books will be gold embossed and chained to the wall, and unreadable by a person not educated in Trump-speak. Except for his full works i.e. his Tweets.

  9. He will. It’s Federal law. The Presidential Libraries are part of the National Archives and Records Administration.

  10. Perhaps it can be placed on the 18th hole at Mar a Loco where it can be washed away by rising sea level.

        1. The US news media doesn’t always update the goings-on out there in “not-America.” Sorry.

          1. I sent the “You’ve been Trumped” video (the one about his despicable behaviour in Scotland over a similar issue) to all the councillors in Clare county (the ones who voted on it). Fat lot of good I did.

    1. Yes, the library will be on the 19th hole. All the books will be about golf and Trump. You can check a book out but never leave.

  12. Where would it go? Usually to a place the former president came from. Can you imagine New York wanting it. Maybe at Fallwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.

    1. That is probably the only kind of place that would want it, and it’d be a fitting tribute to Fallwell’s role in the world.

    1. People were making the same cracks about his back in the day. I never thought I’d say this, but we’ve at least *seen* Mr. Bush reading …

      What does it contain, though? _My Pet Goat_ was the joke …

  15. Nixon, for all his myriad faults, was at least reasonably well-read (for a politician, anyway). If we were to fill the the Trump Presidential Library with all the books he’s never read, it would have more titles (including his own, from all appearances) than the Library of Congress.

      1. Indeed. The EPA was created under Nixon.

        Both on knowledge and policy, and increasingly even on ethics, I’d take Nixon over most of the GOP today.

      2. Nixon left domestic policy to other, lesser men; he and Henry Kissinger were too taken with their folie a deux of being International Übermenschen to be bothered.

        Nixon was a swinish thug, always to be found on the political low road. He could be read for scum from three-thousand miles.

        But then, next to Donald Trump, he seems like Pericles.

        2. Well put.
          I was sitting here imagining the Donald reading your comment. He’d never get through it; too many big words, and annoyed by who the hell is Pericles?

  17. Needless to say, at the Trump library, free ‘Covfefe’ will be served in ‘Nambia’ room which will feature a bible open at ‘Two Corinthians’, no ‘Bad hombres’ welcome.

  18. Filled with textbooks from Trump University. Or at least with invoices from there.

    Seriously, though, why wouldn’t there be a Trump Library? It might be one of the more interesting of the presidential libraries given his, ah, eccentric claims and statements.

    People will be wondering “why” from the beginning to the end.

    Glen Davidson

  19. I hope the pee tape finds it’s way there.

    (Actually, I don’t think there is a pee tape. Trump would shrug off merely cavorting on tape with peeing prostitutes. It’d be like a two day scandal for him and everyone would move on. No, if there’s a tape that can account for his obsequious deference to Russia, it’s got underaged girls in it).

  20. One phrase that helps me endure Trumpocratic anomalies comes from Buffett (Jimmy Buffett)…If we couldn’t laugh we just would go insane.

  21. I am suddenly reminded of Bob Hope’s wisecrack about Spiro Agnew’s library: it had been completely destroyed by fire and so both his books were lost…and he hadn’t even finished coloring one of them.

  23. All very funny comments. I got most all of them. However, I remain optimistic. I cringe at some of the things Donald says and does. But he has made a very good showing for himself in the world of business throughout his whole career. Did he stumble? Don’t we all. He is never going to be a likable person. Which may be his strength.

    1. He hasn’t “made a very good showing for himself in the world of business” though.

      He is one of the many ‘billionaires’ who ain’t – it’s normal in that world to exaggerate for the purposes of generating further ‘deals’. His assets consist mainly of his brand name on properties that he doesn’t own any more – his golf resorts/clubs brand is break even or running at a loss.

      He has caused a lot of pain among a long list of creditors who haven’t been paid & never will be paid – the multiple bankruptcies helped him there.

      He started with a silver spoon in his mouth, absolutely great connections via Fred & Fred’s address book, numerous bailouts from Fred while alive, a healthy trust fund, a large sum on Fred’s death, a share of $250M [? 3 ways?] a few years after Fred’s death when property was liquidated plus NYC mafia to sort out his construction site labour disputes & oil the political wheels.

      He would probably be wealthier today if he’d kept his money in the bank earning interest.

      He is a brand & that’s it – no skill that I can see

      1. I also believe to be a sanctions-busting money launderer via his property rentals & sales. He’ll get caught or maybe only his patsy[s]/messenger boys [Kushner? Manafort?] will.

      2. The idea that rich people are necessarily smart and capable, or even more absurdly that they have worked hard, betrays a lack of contact with rich people. Many do have these positive traits, of course, and many have used those traits to get rich. But at least an equal number are merely winners of some life lottery, beneficiaries of one lucky deal that exploded, or of being born rich. Wealth, once obtained, creates it’s own gravity that generally attracts more money even to the foolish, dumb, and lazy.

        There is a tremendous amount of evidence that DJT falls into the latter category.

        1. I guess your remarks are addressed at Bill Bass although you’ve replied to me. I agree with what you’ve written – he actually made some very bad business decisions to that cost fortunes & yet he bobbed back to the surface.

          Some of his most profitable decisions were bad risks that happened to pay off – such as involvement with the ready-mix concrete Mafia – it solved his labour problems & insured against future ones, but nine out of ten times that would have ultimately stymied his casino/Atlantic City ambitions. Teflon luck up to now.

        2. Trump has a low cunning when it comes to scarfing up other people’s money (and credit for their successes). He also has an animal instinct for sussing out where things like clout and leverage lie — as well as an alley-fighter’s instinct for stomping a man when he’s down.

          But “smart,” in any ordinary connotation of that term, he’s not.

          1. The thing that I am so fucking tired of is the long common opinion among conservative voters in the US that those kind of traits are exactly what you need in a President. The old “you need someone who can make the tough decisions” point of view. I don’t think anything has held as back more than that attitude. It results in people you wouldn’t trust to help your elderly grandmother cross the street, because they’d be just as likely to lead her in front of a bus so they can pick over her corpse for anything of value, being over represented in leadership positions of all kinds, including POTUS.

    2. Re Trump and “business decisions”.
      1) He managed to make casinos got broke–this is almost impossible for any undinged human to do
      https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html
      2) Assuming that he is worth 10 billion (which he isnt) then this represents a 10% growth rate from his initial (inherited) 270 million property empire over fifty years. Anyone hwo is impressed by that should see some Florida swamp investments that I have for sale…
      https://www.marketwatch.com/story/donald-trump-could-have-been-five-times-richer-2017-04-06
      3)He’s been known to be a crook and laundering money for Russia (because no-one smart in the USA would do business with him) for over 25 years. Forget “collusion”, he’s been a tool for kleptocrats and oligarchs since 1983. None of this is remotely secret.
      https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/02/15/donald-trumps-ties-russia-go-back-30-years/97949746/
      If that’s a “businessman” then so is Al Capone. Only, Al could actually make returns to share-holders from time to time.

        1. What sort of businesman loses money on a casino? If I had to hazard a guess I’d say “one who is laundering money for criminals”. But, of course, that would mean that the Americans had elected a mobster to be their commander in chief. Which couldnt happen of course. I mean–there would have to be some sort of record going back years…surely no electorate would be so assinine…
          The Australians took one look at Trump and his mob conenctions and went “no way”
          https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/08/report-queasy-aussies-killed-trumps-casino-bid-over-mafia-connections/
          I know that America has a penchant for mobster presidents (Kennedy for instance) but at least they usually have the decency to pretend to be upstanding citizens while they are in office. Kennedy didnt just march in with a big bag marked “swag” and start to loot the country while putting his equally appaling crime family in positions to do the same. Trump is doing exactly that.

  24. Yes. On the campus of Liberty University. Thus highlighting his Christian values and his defense of Christianity in America. Lol

    1. Very good. They could start building a new wing at Leavenworth Prison to hold all of this and all the Trump followers in these indictments. But they better hurry because the U.S. Justice Dept. and the F.B.I. might soon not even exist or if it does, it will be nothing but a subsidiary of Trump Inc.

  28. Well, even if he’s not a billionaire, he’s certainly living like one. He must have it over on somebody.

    1. He’s LIVES like a billionaire? But that wasn’t the point you originally made.

      Being as “optimistic” as you are, regarding the Donald’s presidential capabilities, based on how you perceive his business acumen, is the same error many of his financial partners, customers & licensing authorities etc have made. He’s a Teflon conman – not someone to be optimistic about in any role.

      1. To look at Trump and to go “he must be msart, else why is he like that?” is precisely why so many Trump University rubes got conned. Its ok to get conned,we are all vulnerable, but to go back to a known conman and ask him to do it again? Now that’s really dumb.

  29. Appreciate the humor. It helps.

    But can’t shake the thought that, despite “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” despair may be the most accurate response to what is happening in the former USA.

  30. Of all the damage DT has, can, and will do to our national fabric, a shrine is the least of our worries.

    But, if you dig deep enough in the proposal for infrastructure, you will likely find a nice design by Alfred Speer.

    1. Albert Speer’s stuff is above Trump – too elegant & restrained [even with all those eagles & searchlights] – I rather like Speer’s understated, but huge ’30s modernist PRORA RESORT which was recently finally finished & put to use.

      I nominate the Hipgnosis team as architects – they built the Pink Floyd inflatable pig. Another just like that, but bigger & gold not pink. Full of hot air rather than helium, purely for the symbolism.

      3. There is nothing beautiful about this Prora construction monster which extends terribly monotonous for kilometers along the coastal landscape on the Baltic Sea.

        1. Geez, just took a look at Prora- not only ugly, but hope no one everys show a photo to the president. He could build The Wall of his own hotels. And Mexicans would have to pay to stay there.

  32. This same thought had occurred to me a few weeks ago and I started making a list of characteristics of the library. Here is what I have so far:
    1. The entrance is flanked by golden arches.
    2. Women would be required to wear athletic cups for safety.
    3. Anyone not of Scandinavian descent pays to get in.
    4. Very small. Only one book inside.
    5. A phone at every display where you can tweet your own idiotic comments to the nation.

    1. I’ve a vague recollection of him being acquitted in the Senate and completing his two terms in office — and of eight years of relative peace and prosperity, too.

      I’m no fan of Bubba, as I’ve made clear many times in this space before, but there’s no comparing him to Chairman MAGA.

  34. And what the hell would be wrong with that? The spirit of Donald Trump has a lot to contribute even to the fine arts! In HIs Library you’ll find such great works as a critical edition of E.L. James’s complete works. A first edition of Coen Van Der Kroon’s “Golden Fountain”, signed by the author in his own bodily fluids. The uncritical edition of “Mein Kampf”, obviously. Facsimile editions of all of Josiah C. Nott’s groundbreaking works. Just to name a few …

  35. I did also have a terrible thought – or maybe better a déja-vu yesterday, hearing in the local news that Trump announced that he will increase spending money on military and infrastructure: A man of ridiculous stature inexplicably coming to power, promising to make his nation great again, producing unexpected economic success, gaining respect, although much grudgingly by his enemies, pushing military and building infrastructure, and …?

  36. It will undoubtedly have a drive-through window and the lobby will feature a magnificent statue of a bare-chested Putin astride a galloping stallion.

    A reflecting pool full of jet-skis (ala Idiocracy) would be a nice touch.

  38. Well, it isn’t going to have “The Fire and the Fury” in it, and that’s a damn shame.

    1. Would be nice if some staffer is charged with “getting everything about me” for some narcissistic reason and that sort of thing comes in (even if it is a hack job).

  39. Well, obviously, the Dotards Library will have to contain a complete collection of the Dilbert books (cartoonist Scott Adams is a rabid Trump fan). And Norman Vincent Peale–the first person to peddle the whole “The Universe really cares about you, you special magical flower you, and you dont have to abide by the rules those other poor saps follow” schtick. Peale presided at Trump’s first wedding.

    1. We need a word for the sad feeling one gets when one finds out someone whose work we admire is, as you call it, a rabid Trump fan. Something German is needed I think but I don’t know German. Anyone?

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