On Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024, Trump visited San Francisco to dip once again into the deep pool of dark money available to fund his transition from convicted felon to the office of the 47th President of the United States.
Accompanying Trump on this trip was his most devoted aide, Natalie Harp, pretty blonde 34-year-old MBA graduate of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. In addition to Business, Natalie enjoyed Art History classes and was eager to show Trump the Mary Cassatt exhibit at the Palace of the Legion of Honor.
The “Legion” was built in 1924 on a bluff overlooking the San Francisco Bay, funded by the Spreckel family’s sugar fortune in honor of the 3,600 Californians who perished in World War I.
Mary Cassatt, Impressionist painter of the late 19th and early 20th centuries focused on the sorts of domestic scenes that had previously been eschewed by male painters of that era. However, because of her gigantic talent and her acceptance by the male Impressionists in France—Degas, Pissarro and others—Cassatt flourished. Her paintings are on exhibit at museums and in private collections around the world.
At Natalie’s request, Trump had ordered his team to make sure the Museum would be closed for the afternoon of their visit, saying, “I don’t like soldiers who get killed, but I like Natalie, so let’s do it.”
One of Trump’s male aides winked when he told Trump that the exhibition was filled with all sorts of “babes.” Babes, being right up Trump’s alley, fueled his desire to see the exhibit.
After Trump and Natalie entered the second gallery of Cassatt’s exhibition, he frowned and said, “Where are the babes? All I see are fat women with snotty babies at their tits. Who the hell wants to see that? And where the f*ck are paintings of men in the battlefields?”
After quickly passing into the third gallery of Cassatt’s paintings, Trump turned to Natalie, flung out his arm and said, “Babe, why did you drag me all the way up here to see this schlock? Half of the paintings are not even finished at the bottom. They just fade away.”
Natalie’s hands began to flutter as she tried to explain that this Impressionist style was a feature, not a bug, but she was overridden by the impatience of the President.
“Look at that one,” he said and pointed to “Mother and Child.”
“There’s no leg there, just a bunch of swishy colors. That’s not art, that’s not Rembrandt. I know who he is; I saw him once or twice when he came to Mar-a-Lago, heck of a friend. Loved to paint.”
“Oh, sure, sure,” Natalie said, out of breath, “I just thought you might enjoy the exhibit, but sure, we can leave now.” If annoyance was churning in her soul, it did not travel to her eyes.
“Seeing all this,” Trump said, squinting this way and that, “this actually gives me the ammunition I need to destroy the NEA” (National Endowment of the Arts), “Now that I’ve got the Senate and the House under my control, I can do it this time. I tried last time, but the Democrat fags in Congress wouldn’t let me do it, but now?”
Trump snapped his fingers. “Gone is Biden’s $210 million for the NEA. Finito!”
Trump and entourage marched quickly through the front door. Outside, in the crisp cool air, Trump threw out his hands, faced the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge and said, “Now, that’s a view. That’s a multimillion dollar view!”
He turned to Natalie and grinned, “We should buy it, doncha think? Get rid of all those ugly paintings, those wretched headless armless statues and the rest of the mishegoss and transform this into Mar-A-Lago North. Whaddya say?”
Natalie smiled, tilted her head, following his gaze and said, “Why, sure! You’re right of course. You’re always right, President Trump, though I’m not sure it’s for sale.”
“Of course it’s for sale, Babe. Everything is for sale.”
Rosie Sorenson is a humor writer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her column is satire and, like Fox “News,” cannot be believed as fact. She has a new (serious) book, “If You’d Only Listen: A Medical Memoir of Gaslighting, Grit & Grace,” available on Amazon if you can’t find it at your neighborhood bookstore. Email RosieSorenson29@yahoo.com See RosieSorenson.com
From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2025
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