Consequence

 In teacher school, they like to remind us over and over again that "consequences don't always have to be unpleasant." When we are setting up our classroom for the year, we are encouraged to have an equal number of good consequences as we have bad. Phone calls home, for example, should be made for successes just as often as they are made for days that are not so wonderful. A prize should be awarded as often as a time out. Or, heaven forbid, even more often. 

But I don't think the Trump administration deserves any prizes. And if there were parents to call that would do anything, I can't think of a single thing that I would want to acknowledge. 

Except maybe this: There used to be a lot of talk about Ronald Reagan being "The Teflon President." It was Colorado Representative Patricia Schroeder who first suggested that nothing sticks to then president-elect Reagan. Which can't exactly be said of Donald Trump. Quite the contrary. all of his lying, cheating, philandering, obfuscation, and general sliminess doesn't seem to come off in the spin cycle. It all sticks. Like glue. And yet, he manages to drag all that carnage and filth around with him, as if it were no worry at all. He has been wrong on so many things he could be used as a contra-encyclopedia. You can pretty much assume whatever he says is just the opposite of the reality in which the rest of us live. 

Donald Trump is not made of Teflon, but I do think that there is another bit of science that would explain his presence: He is a vortex. Everything that gets within a certain distance gets sucked up, never to be seen again. Energy, light, hope. Especially hope. Through it all, he has managed to avoid censure, jail, being removed from office. There was a time when some marveled at the fact that Ronald Reagan could be shot in the chest at point blank range and survive. That was the Teflon at work, probably. Donald Trump, by contrast, began his ascent to the presidency by announcing that he "...could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” As it was in the beginning, so it is in the end. 

Survivors are beginning to finally catch on. In order to stay alive, you have to distance yourself from this man. Which is why I make the following suggestion: the consequence that fits the situation here is to send this man into space. Far away. Among the stars, he can join black holes and Galactus, consumer of planets.

Because, as it turns out, Donald Trump sucks.