Satire: Cruelogies

By Laurie Baron in San Diego

Decent people have been taught not to speak evil of the dead. A person grieving the loss of loved ones doesn’t want their ones sullied unless they have committed a heinous crime. Donald Trump does not abide by this standard of behavior or tradition.  He lacks a scintilla of sympathy for the pain of others and spews contempt towards anyone who has criticized him.

Although he issued a perfunctory condolence message when John McCain died, he then reiterated that he wasn’t “a fan” of McCain whose vote to jettison Republican attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act he deemed “disgraceful.” He refused to call Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to express condolences after the assassination of Melissa Hortman saying it was “a waste of time.” In the wake of the recent murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, he surmised that the motive for the killing was motivated by someone who legitimately hated Reiner’s “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

This has prompted Trump to wonder how he would eulogize other famous figures.

Abraham Lincoln: “Abe didn’t seize the opportunity to legalize slavery and prevent the Civil War.  This would have guarantee a constant supply of cheap labor and eliminate our dependence on immigrant workers.  His monument celebrates his wokeness. I’m issuing a posthumous pardon to John Wilkes Booth to memorialize his fight for the preservation of racial inequality in the United States.  I have continued his struggle.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt: “I concede he won World War Two, but it took 3 years.  I would have won on the day of my inauguration.  He was a cripple and couldn’t walk and play golf like I do. I will remove the statue of him sitting in his wheelchair that is part of his monument.  He burdened our nation financially with Social Security.  It is just as bad as Obama Care.  I’ll get around to repealing both in the second ‘Big Beautiful Bill.’”

Martin Luther King Jr.: “While I have promised to “bring his dream to fruition,” I dislike that King was a troublemaker.  He organized mass protest demonstrations that have inspired Antifa and the No Kings movement.  I will mobilize my supporters to stage No Martin Luther King rallies.  King’s monument is sculpted out of a block of granite and could easily be reconfigured to erase his racist legacy of Civil Rights legislation and DEI.  A talented sculptor could easily superimpose a likeness of Charlie Kirk for King’s face.  Kirk correctly believed the Civil Rights Act was a “mistake” that has been employed as an “anti-White weapon.”

“I discern a common thread in these eulogies. My ideas for updating their monuments are bad.  Instead, I should demolish them like the East Wing of the White House and build huge monuments to me in those spaces. Today the Kennedy Center, tomorrow the National Mall!”

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Laurie Baron, retired from San Diego State University, is a professor emeritus of history.