#578: I See Willy Loman

Because each night I try to watch
the opening monologue of my favorite
late-night comedy talk shows,
in addition to the Maddow or the Psaki,
the various news highlights from the day,
I’ve seen the clip five or six times by now
of Donald Trump’s interview with Terry Moran
where Trump insists against
glaring evidence to the contrary,
and against Moran’s repeated pushback,
that our friend Kilmar Abrego Garcia
has MS 13 tattooed on his knuckles.
More primitive than the worst photoshop
trick, the photo has clearly been faked,
seemingly, ridiculously, with a sharpie.
In this moment in particular,
but in many other moments,
I see Willy Loman in Donald Trump.
The same narcissism, the same
alternative reality, the same incoherent
dream state, the same inability
to square with the truth,
to take any responsibility whatsoever
for any heinous thing he has done,
the same obsession with buying and selling,
the same inextricable entanglement with the past.
What separates Loman from Trump, however,
is his humanity, of which Willy abounds
and Trump exhibits a staggering deficit.
Neither man is fit to be a president
of anything, but I can feel a kind of love
for Loman and nothing but disdain
for the guy currently in the White House.