George Danby, cartoonist

Dear Mr. Rumpt,

I have emerged again from my Dome of Positivity and I’m feeling much better, thank you. Your messages sent via Twitter are much easier to digest now.

The concussion I suffered on election day over two years ago is improving as well. I’m a little less foggy each day and I expect a full recovery to occur the day you leave office. I’m sure you won’t make the requisite four-year term due to your nihilism and over-inflated view of yourself. I’m sure you’ll pop before 2020 and vanish in a puff of smoke, thank goodness. A tweet too many fabrications and outright lies will do anybody in even during these fake news times we live in.

Yes, we’ve pulled back the curtain and there you are but at this point the fans of your reality TV show haven’t seemed to notice.

I just happen to think that there’s only so much hot air in a balloon and at some point you’ll just turn the gas off all by yourself and down you’ll go like a butterfly without wings. That’s what happens to people who can’t fool themselves any longer into believing the false narrative they’ve created over an entire lifetime in order to live the life of a faux-billionaire.

You are the schmoozer king, sir.

All that will be left is that orange foldover hair and a pair of shiny shoes.

Things have changed so much since you took office nearly two years ago. My how time flies in this new age of illusion. Matter of fact, your role has now grown to that of the Highest Order of the Master of Illusion, a very prominent and self-promoted role in a world ever more enamored with propaganda and illusion and the many advantages those abilities bring in keeping the cows and people who act like cows in the pasture, so to speak.

Now don’t get me wrong. I know full well you can’t pull a rabbit out of your hairpiece or a job out of your ass but that’s exactly the point. The illusionist can’t toss a rope around the moon and pull it close. What the illusionist does it make it look like he can do such a thing and get the cows and the people to believe such legerdemain in spite of themselves, just like you do each and every day.

Oh, did I mention that you lost the popular vote in 2016 by over three million votes? I’m terribly sorry to say that you’ve done one too many victory laps for a person who ended up in second place. Your continuing victory tour is a bit overstated. No mandate is ever granted from runner-up status.

But as is so true in your life, you keep the carnival rides running, keep the parades and accolades to yourself flowing, avoid the facts at all cost and leave all the lights on so there are no dark corners where the truth can fester. Blame the messenger. Fill the castle with billionaires and evangelicals and call it populism or nationalism. Orwellian doublespeak has nothing on you and your pals, that’s for sure.

Well, I’m going to settle back under that Dome of Positivity for a few more hours and get my life back on track. You’ve been able to hijack my sense of well being long enough, you old illusionist, you. You can’t fool me, pal. A card trick or two is fine and dandy but you’ll never steal my soul just to replace the one you never had.