The Dodo is of course, an extinct, flightless bird discovered in 1598, and rendered extinct by man a short 82 years later, in 1680. The extinction of the dodo within less than a century of its discovery brought to attention the previously unrecognized human ability, and even propensity, to wipe out entire spices.
Since then, references to “Dodo Birds” are used in common context as meaning, “Obsolete.” “A failed effort or cause.” “A flash in the pan.” “Here today, gone tomorrow” “Vain, and meaningless.” And most importantly, “Having become completely irrelevant.”
While his pending extinction is not fully recognized at the present moment, Donald Trump has indeed become “King of the Dodos.” More accurately, “King of His Dodos.” The falling head of a lost cause. The Crown Prince of hatefulness. A tweeting piper of those marching off a cliff. The last remnant of a dying breed with heads in the sand. The boss-man of latent racists, perpetually in denial of science, history, and justice. And soon – The Failed Greatest Con Man Who Ever Lived.
Yes, a very harsh assessment of both Trump and the Red Hat Trumpiteers. For how could such a retrograde and powerful movement pass so fast? Yet, time, ever so quickly passed, did in the unaware Dodos. Man destroyed the Dodo habitat and hunted the rest down – until every last one was chased from the face of the Earth. The Dodo didn’t understand what was coming and weren’t ready to take it on.
Donald Trump and his grey-haired Red Hats are unprepared for the onslaught of a resurgence of common sense and enforcement of American rule of law. Their fall will be much quicker than that of the Dodo.
Events and intrusions outside his control are overtaking Donald Trump. It may be the laws of tax evasion and money laundering. It may be common sense, as voters far and wide wake up and realize the duping they’ve been taking by a lawless, rude, crude, self-dealing, mean-spirited sicko. Maybe we’ve returned to the core of our professed faiths and convictions, and human kindness, care, fairness and humility are again returning to the forefront of our minds.
Sure, the zippy jabs at Lying Hillary and Loser John McCain and all the pokes and jokes of people of color and comments of s—hole countries and all the rest of it was rudely fun – and brought out the worst in many of us as we enjoyed finally being able to air out our prejudices without repercussion. Trump empowered many Americans to become openly racially aggrieved and, overall, mean. It seemed fun for a while for many.
But the meanness got too mean.
Most Americans, as evidenced in this past wave election, woke up to the realization we were becoming something we don’t really want to be. This is not who we were taught to be:
America doesn’t want to be racist, at least not the vast majority of us. Americans don’t want to be mean-spirited. We don’t want to lock up thousands of kids away from their parents. We don’t want to be lied to, day after day after day, and be expected to simply swallow it all up as “fake news.” America doesn’t want to vilify the press and call them the Enemy of the People. America doesn’t want our politics to be the politics of personal pettiness and attack. We don’t want the executive branch to be run like a monarchy. We don’t want double-dealing and personal enrichment in the White House. We don’t want the nepotism of having the president’s kids run the country even while they run their own businesses out the same doors. We don’t want the current incompetence, revolving doors and indictments in the White House. We don’t want to alienate our prior allies — those people we have fought and died for. We don’t want to run up endless deficits for short-term economic bragging rights.
In short, Americans don’t want to become a failed country. We don’t want to be the “Dodo Bird Country of the World.”
And so, as with the Dodo Birds back in the 1600s, Americans are destroying the Trump Dodo’s natural habitat. We’ve repealed his cowering representatives. No more natural habitat of the House covering up for him. Instead, the Trump Dodo will face the bright lights of oversight. Bright lights shining on dark and hidden deeds. There might be indictments, and perhaps even incarceration of the Trump lackeys who’ve acquiesced to his manipulation. Shame itself will push many of Trump’s Duped Dodos into political extinction.
Within the next two years the extinction of Trump and Trumpism will be complete. Future history books will resign The King of the Dodos as an odd aberration of American politics. Students of the future will wonder about the sudden rise and equally fast fall of such an odd bird as Donald Trump. And why did so many fall for him?
These future students will wonder also, with awe, how Americans indeed regained their senses and so quickly. How they woke up and turned Trump and his fellow self-dealing Dodos out into the waiting realms of irrelevancy, scorn and political extinction.
Trump: “Obsolete.” “A failed effort or cause.” “A flash in the pan.” “Here today, gone tomorrow” “Vain, and meaningless.” And most importantly, “Having become completely irrelevant.”
The greatest Dodo of our time.
Gary Horton’s “Full Speed to Port!” has appeared on Wednesdays in The Signal since 2006.
