If I Had a Hammer

By ROSIE SORENSON

As the saying goes, “To the man who owns a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

To malignant narcissists such as Trump and Bannon, everyone looks like a monster to be destroyed: immigrants, CNN, women, blacks, congress, democrats, journalists, Australia, NATO, Melissa McCarthy. But not Putin. No, never Putin. Curiouser and curiouser.

Tis a puzzle why men who have been privileged and allowed to accumulate so much wealth under cover of our democracy are so intent on killing it. Why can’t they be happy with what they have and work for the good of all? But no. It’s as if before they were born, God installed in them a couple of hinky chips, just to mess with the rest of us. And at the same time, God inserted chips in millions of other Americans designed to render them vulnerable to the hinky-chipped dudes. Thanks a lot, Big Guy (or Gal).

Now, everyone’s feeling the pain, even Republicans.

The American Psychological Association has, for the past ten years, been conducting surveys on “Stress in America.” The typical stressors identified have been money, work and the economy. Stress, as defined by those three factors, the APA has discovered, has been on a gradual decline over those ten years.

However, in January 2017, the survey of 1,019 adults living in the United States, conducted during the first two weeks of January by the Harris Poll, showed a significant increase in stress for the first time in 10 years.

More than half of their survey group reported that the current political climate was a significant source of stress. According to a Bloomberg article, “a full two-thirds (including 76% Democrats and 59% of Republicans who responded to the survey) said they are stressed out about the nation’s future.”

Dang. Where’s the Eleventh Commandment when we need it? Thou shalt not cause unnecessary distress in your people while playing at being President. Did you hear that, President Trump, Speaker Ryan, Senator McConnell? Stop the effing pain.

Take two Russians and call me in the morning.

A few days ago, I was stressing myself while online playing “Find the Latest Trump Outrage,” when I stumbled upon a treasure trove of names for politicians. Most were unflattering.

Here’s a small sampling from www.describingwords.io: merely chimerical, unscrupulous, wild and weak, false, arrogant and wayward, fatuous liberal, ham-fisted, unhumanly stiff, prosy British, female partisan, singularly crafty, ignorant and retrograde, scheming, able ecclesiastical, evil Hungarian, rapacious and brutal, profligate and hackneyed, bastardly crooked, reasonably honest, gassy. I could have easily littered two more pages with similar slurs.

My favorite, though, is “snollygoster,” whose definition on YourDictionary.com is: “One, especially a politician, who is guided by personal advantage rather than by consistent, respectable principles.” Sound familiar?

Hammer that, you old Snollygoster!

Rosie Sorenson of Richmond, Calif., is humor columnist for the Foolish Times. Her work has appeared in other publications and anthologies, including The Magic of Memoir, edited by Brooke Warner and Dr. Linda Joy Meyers. Email RosieSorenson29@yahoo.com.

From The Progressive Populist, May 15, 2017

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