After weeks of authoritarian threats to crush protests with the military, cancel elections, conquer foreign countries, and send masked agents door-to-door to round up anyone who can’t prove their citizenship, Trump on Wednesday told an already uneasy room full of world leaders that “sometimes you need a dictator.”
The offhanded comment came in the middle of a rambling speech at the reception dinner for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, in which Trump congratulated himself on a different rambling speech he’d given earlier that day at the summit.
“We had a good speech, we got great reviews. I can’t believe it, we got good reviews on that speech,” Trump said of the widely mocked address in which he continued to demand the US take over Greenland (which he repeatedly referred to as “Iceland”) and made new tariff threats against Canada and Europe if they resist the annexation.
*This is my attempt at writing a small short story depicting only a moment or two in real time. The author I am emulating is James Thurber. He was a master of the short story/essay. He had very dry sense of wit and was funny as fuck. I do a hope he would approve of my theft of inspiration. Here is my attempt at a modern version of his style.
January in Dayton is not preferable for very many people. The reasons are varied yet common. It truly sucks. Occasionally a wandering soul seeks more like minded individuals that aren’t part of the fundamentalist evangelical type community that dominate local cultural scope . This crowd is often difficult to intentionally avoid. Something something (mumbling sounds) *Checks notes, lowers reader glasses slamming down a stack of documents that provided the incentive. The patron was relaxed but owned a dash of anxiety while holding court at the local dive bar. That was until a small pour of Pappy Van Winkle with a single cube was thrown back & then gleefully announced that “Third time is a charm. Provided the good lord willin’ & the creek don’t rise. Can I get an Amen?” Someone nearby asked the bartender to change the channel to see if the game was on. Not half a second later there was some breaking news flashing across the screen The patron looked up at the television & smiled. “No fucking way, third time really is a charm”.