Credit: from a BigStock image

The 17th and 18th centuries in Europe are often referred to as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. The early 20th century in the U.S. is known as the Gilded Age, a term recently dusted off and reclaimed for use in our own period of growing income inequality.

I suggest the period beginning June 16, 2015, the day Trump announced his candidacy for president, should be referred to as the Age of “What The Fuck?!”

Thirty-plus years of teaching in a high school classroom trained me to keep it clean, in public anyway. Though my private conversations are laced with profanity, I watch my language when I’m in the public square. I broke with my normal decorum when I used “bullshit” in a post last March, but I made sure to give the word academic respectability by referring to the book, On Bullshit, by American philosopher Harry Frankfurt.

Today I’m throwing away my decades-old restraint. Nearly every night as I watch cable news, I yell, “What The Fuck?!” at the latest Trump outrage. Mornings, I growl the phrase as I pore over the paper and check the latest on the web.

Prior to the advent of Trump, I was often angered by what goes on in our political world. More than angered. Outraged. Incensed. Horrified. But I was rarely this astonished before The Donald descended the Trump Tower escalator and walked onto the political stage. I find myself doing mental double and triple takes at the unbelievable, frightening absurdity of our president’s actions and utterances. Political humor on Saturday Night Live is meant to be satire. Lately it feels more like reportage.

I don’t know if examples are necessary here. Everyone except for Trump supporters knows what I’m talking about, and his supporters’ minds won’t be changed no matter what I write. But let me pull a few instances from WTF?! Central: Trump’s daily tweets. In the interest of space, I’ve restricted myself to yesterday and today.

Trump declared that Hillary Clinton’s former aide Huma Abedin should be in “Jail!” With an exclamation point. No need to bother with the standard judicial process. The Commander in Chief has spoken. Lock her up!
What The Fuck?!

Trump wrote, accurately, that there were no deaths on U.S. commercial airlines in 2017. The tweeted reason? “I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation.”
What The Fuck?! (The Associated Press was more restrained than I and devoted 600 words to debunking Trump’s assertion, noting there hasn’t been a death involving a scheduled passenger airline in 4½ years.)

Trump tweeted, “DACA activists and Hispanics will go hard against Dems, will start ‘falling in love’ with Republicans and their President!”
What the Fuck?!

Trump tweeted he will be joining journalists and culture critics’ end-of-the-year Top Ten Lists by creating his own “MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR.”
What the Fuck?!

And finally, here is Trump’s apocalyptic “Mine is longer and stronger than yours” tweet directed at Kim Jong-un, in full:

“What The Fuck?!” does not begin to do justice to a tweet where the president is fucking around with the fate of the planet, but I don’t know what else to say.

I could add Trump’s tweets during the same two days threatening to withhold financial aid from Pakistan and the Palestinians, but I’m not knowledgeable enough about diplomacy to understand the implications of these changes to our foreign policy.

Ages rarely have a hard-and-fast starting date. This one does: June 16, 2015. The end date (We can only hope it comes before the End Times) is yet to be determined.

This article appears in Dec 28, 2017 – Jan 3, 2018.

22 replies on “The Age of “WTF?!””

  3. Keep it coming, David. I’m also a former teacher, considered quiet, patient, affable and thoroughly prissy about language in school in front of and by students. I’m astonished at our lack qualified leadership. WTF

  4. A Donnie Trump fan here, to express my concerns for David’s mental health and well being. I hope his health care covers the cost of pathological obsession counseling.

  5. David, you will still be screaming three years from now when Kim Jung Yung has been emasculated and rendered moot.

    You believe 3 things that are just simply not true.

    1) That economic growth and prosperity for the poor will collapse this year when in fact they are going to do better than any time during the last 8 years in the coming years. But, you are right about one thing, even though the poor do much better than in the last 8 years, the skilled rich will, by now growing their companies and creating jobs, do much better than all of us. Great, I don’t begrudge them a bit, they work 24 hours a day.

    2) That the temperature of the world’s climate is going to increase every year for the next 8 years. Isn’t going to happen unless NOAA keeps doctoring each year’s records to be able to declare the next year’s temperate an “all-time” record.

    3) That education outcomes will go down over the next 8 years. Not going to happen. Watch NAEP, which went down under Obama, will now go up under Trump.

    Keep screaming. But, we will be keeping score. Jobs report out tomorrow, first big post-tax-cut report.

  6. Amen Wayne, Amen.

    Thanks for the post. Just the beginning of the Trump era. Taxation of economic growth is now lower than even the 1920s when Coolidge’s economic growth was 37% as compared to Obama at 13%.

    Your great report is just the beginning the speed of events is going to pick up dramatically. We could easily see an 8% growth quarter, the first since 1984.

    I noticed a minute ago that the Wilshire Total Market Index just hit $28.4 trillion up from $22.5 trillion since the election.

    Trump is now the $5.9 trillion man.

    The total stock markets of Europe and China are only $8 trillion each after over 3000 years of civilization on each continent.

  8. I just keep thinking that if we don’t tell these guys they are never going to know it.

    Then I ask myself why would they be against higher wages and lowering black unemployment? And it all comes back to me….You need a constituency to survive.

    The Trump era will be known for causing people to stop the group think and actually reason things out for themselves. Ultimately it builds confidence and makes you stronger.

    Cast off your inner wimp and join us. There’s room for everybody.

  9. Confident? Stronger? Next thing you know people will be standing up on their own 2 feet without any help from the Dems. People who don’t need the gov’t. to survive? The Dems will be hurling themselves off of rooftops.

  11. I’m glad that the usual gang of idiots (not including Shirley Willis) in this comment thread are enjoying everything that their Orange Overlord is doing for them.

    But…

    What good is all of that going to do any of you if the boys comparing their missiles decide to take action instead of just being all talk?

    Let me answer it for you, because I know that you’ll refuse to get it unless your Tangerine Tyrant isn’t calling it fake news.

    None.

    It will do you no good at all. Nuclear fallout isn’t good for anything.

    So keep on believing that things are just going to keep getting better and that you have nothing to be concerned with, that is, until reality smacks you upside your ignorant head. When the area you call home becomes a wasteland, make sure to thank PO(TU)S Trump for that as well.

    Because you are aware that all the record breaking happening in the stock market can’t fix a nuclear winter, right?

  12. I suppose I’m included in the gang of idiots. Let me put it this way. This idiot saw Jimi at Woodstock and 4 months later saw the Band of Gypsys at the Filmore East on New years Eve. That’s something you’ll never do unless you figure out how to build a time machine !! Just sayin’.

  13. After calling everyone else an idiot, I did not find your solution to containing the madman in North Korea.

    If you knew anything about US defense capabilities, you would not have made such a random and worthless comment.

    Your time may be better spent reducing the world’s mean temperature. Or at least focus your fears on that.

  14. Crazy Al:

    I don’t think that you’re an idiot, but the company you’re keeping sure doesn’t do you any favours. This article expresses concern about the Cheeto in Chief not having any decorum or class regarding a very serious issue. The American public has figured out that is just the way he rolls, but when it comes to things as serious as ICBMs, we need to demand that he act as a sensible person. No one, including the person above with the even more random and worthless comment than mine, has any clue what Kim Jong-un has at his disposal or how he is willing to use it. These are sensitive matters that require a sensitive approach, something our self-centered sad excuse for a president just doesn’t have in him.

    P.S. – Yes, you still got me on the fact that you had the opportunity to to see THE Guitar God in the flesh. I will not deny that I am envious. But your support of our classless, tantrum prone baby-man of a president is definitely nothing to envy.

    Peace Brother, DC

  16. So…If CW13 weren’t so wimpy and had the ability to be a Superhero, would we call him Deflection Man? It seems appropriate, given his nature to always point out how Obummmer was the ultimate enemy of the U.S.A. Tell me, oh great Superpower, what exactly did Obummmer do in Iran that caused such a ruckus in your tiny mind? I’m sure the answer will be amusing because any answer you give usually is.

  17. Lets face it. I could go on for hours and you aren’t going to change your mind. You could go on for hours and you won’t change my mind. So, I’m just going to sit back and let time take it’s course. One thing is for sure, like it or not Trump will be around another 3 years so get used to it.

  19. Nuclear winter?

    Taken right from a CNN story:

    “South and North Korea have decided to make joint efforts for the unity of the people and reconciliation by establishing an environment for peace and easing military tensions on the Korean Peninsula,” the statement read.

    http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/09/asia/north-k…

    Looks like somebody just had to stand up to the pudgy little punk. Obama wouldn’t. Bush suffered from Iraq/Afghanistan fatigue.

    Trumped him again.

  20. When reading the comments, I often wonder why there is no WTF button near the like and dislike buttons?

  21. If there was you would be even more ignorant of the facts:

    South Koreas president said Wednesday that President Trump deserves big credit for renewed talks between South and North Korea, and that Mr. Trump has offered to negotiate personally with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
    It could be a resulting work of the U.S.-led sanctions and pressure, President Moon Jae-in told reporters. I think President Trump deserves big credit for bringing about the inter-Korean talks.-Washington Post

  22. Here’s ignorance of the facts dude:

    Fake News Awards that should be on tRump’s list but won’t be:

    I will release my tax returns after the election.
    My Inauguration was the largest in history.
    The Obama administration had me wiretapped.
    I fired FBI Director Comey because he was unfair to Hillary Clinton
    I did not sit in a meeting and call out people who come from shithole countries…
    I am the least racist person ever.

    Talk about someone who is ignorant to facts.

Comments are closed.