Trump is Hermes (the shape shifter)

Hermes is Trump... Hermes is the second youngest of the Greek gods. Dionysos, god of wine and partying, is the youngest. Donald Trump is a teetotaler. Doesn't seem like a party animal. Not a Dionysian, Trump is Hermes.

Hermes is considered a god of transitions and boundaries. He is described as quick and cunning, moving freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine. "He is an emissary and messenger of the gods, an intercessor between mortals and the divine, and conductor of souls into the after-life."

Trump has become an intercessor between physical reality and electronic or virtual reality. He has turned facts and truth into a game. His wild ravings change direction constantly and twitter rantings create a universe of their own. He alone manages that electronic universe  from atop his Trump Tower. He works with only a small phone in his hand, texting out unsettling versions of reality while the media, his followers, and his enemies, hang on every tweet.  Trump is the master of rhetoric and crosser of boundaries.

"In some myths, Hermes is a trickster and outwits other gods for his own satisfaction or for the sake of humankind."

Trump has proven himself to be the master trickster, portraying himself as a patriot while paying no taxes, calls himself a friend to the little man, but steals money from the little man through gambling casinos, phony Trump University, etc.. Trump lacks real friends. He prefers not to have physical contact with other people, certainly not the hoi polloi, the common people. Watch how awkward his physical movements become when he stands in close proximity to anybody, other than his wife and children.

Hermes' attributes and symbols include the herms, the herms is a statue of just the head and genitals... Trump brags about his genitals...  the rooster,  Trump strives to be the rooster in the henhouse, the tortoise (Trump is a hard-skinned animal), satchel or pouch  and Trump carries a money bag with his constant references to his wealth, winged sandals (Trump prefers wingtips, the shoes of the businessman), and winged cap. Trump wears a crazy wig of orange hair with wings flying off in every direction. 

"Hermes has been viewed as the protector and patron of herdsmen, thieves, oratory and wit, literature and poetry, athletics and sports, invention and trade roads, boundaries and travelers." 

Trump has a fondness for thieves and conmen-- a rogues gallery of characters like Rudy Guiliani and Chris Christie, the vainglorious David Petraeus, etc.. As for sports, Trump has been involved with boxing, at his failed casinos, and the United States Football League (USFL). Trump has an undeniable talent for oratory-- he used words to rise like a Phoenix from the ashes-- tripping up the likes of Jeb Bush... low energy.... Ted Cruz... Lying' Ted.... and Hillary Clinton... Crooked Hillary with his witty and effective use of language.

Hermes is called Mercury in the Roman pantheon. Have you seen the elusive movement of mercury, a substance neither solid nor liquid, shifting constantly, impossible to grab, dissipating and re-forming but always impossible to grasp. Trump is Mercury.

The Hymn to Hermes invokes him as the one "of many shifts (polytropos), blandly cunning, a robber, a cattle driver, a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night, a thief at the gates, one who was soon to show forth wonderful deeds among the deathless gods." 

Trump is the shape shifter supreme.

Roiling Electorate: is @realDonaldTrump all that real?

The Presidential election sends people into spasms of pain, or delight, depending on whether they fear Trump or embrace him. The powerful reaction of people has more mystery than the political issues. Nobody knows what to expect, Trump included, from a man who rode gambling casinos into bankruptcy. Gambling is an addiction! If you cannot succeed playing to people's addictions, wow, you've got a problem. That's like failing with a liquor store. Hardly ever happens.

I understand Trump turned his failed casinos into a profit-maker, for him, but that's another story. I have none of the information on how you turn failure into profit. You've got to be big-time player to pull off that kind of ruse. And now Trump is the biggest of all players!

Why does hucksterism work so well in the new media environment-- the electronic universe we all occupy in the present day. Trump mastered Twitter. Everybody constantly studies the phone in their hand. Marshall McLuhan warned us that the digital environment would be grafted directly to our brain and nervous system. Trump, give him credit, figured this out and circumvented Jeb Bush and his hundred millions of dollars. Trump did the same to Hillary. He went directly to the spinal chord of the people via their telephones.

Will Donald Trump use electronic communications to run the country? He spoke grandly of manufacturing and other dreams of restoring the past. That mechanical, industrial stuff is not the thing 21st century dreams are made of. Obama kept saying that the less fortunate needed to learn the digital skills that enable a worker to flourish as a present-day worker. That gets down to learning to program computers, or at least function in the digital environment, beyond the ability to study your phone. Trump promises factory jobs. That seems like sentimentality. But he sold it brilliantly.

The people hired a businessman, a guy with an aversion to paying taxes. He wants to punish the high tech moguls for keeping their billions offshore. Well, takes on to know one, as they say...

Celebrity Apprentice prepared Trump for his present mission. Only now he is the celebrity apprentice, trying to learn the job of President of the United States. Could be something of a challenge-- and not sure Twitter works as well when you're behind the wheel of the country. Not as easy to lob Twitter grenades when suddenly you find yourself as the establishment. And Trump is now the main guy, no longer the gadfly.

Life is Shortz (New York Times)

NY Times crossword, Tues, Nov 2, 2016

Life is Shortz, no doubt about it. Will Shortz shared some wisdom in his crossword puzzle on this day: amidst all the blockgame scenery, fake and feint foolery, word and parry parody.

The clue—Down 23--What kindness and graceful aging reveal… La respuesta, the answer … Inner beauty, sounds like the supercilious, surefire meaning to existence

Will said it best and moved on ahead most beautifiously  to Down 24—Quibbles. And the answer to Quibbles? Nit… And so goes life you move from inner beauty to nitpicking in a heartbeat, a nanosecond a blink of the eye. Cause that’s how Will rolls… the man has cojones like Yemens Lemons, he’s no slave to space and time. Well, actually he’s pretty particular about his spaces. And he likes his rhymes.

Way down upon the Swanee River, far far away. In Ancient Central America, Juliet found her Romeo amidst the Ebola, the Togoslogos and the Allosaurus. Or was that Al O’Saurus, the Irishman from Pleistocene.

Rolling Stones lack it—. Moss. A rolling stone gathers no moss, fools us does Mr. Will Shortz the harlequin, and even adds a  television reference, a “Wheel of Fortune” buy— an e. You’re a funny guy Big Willie.

Bonnie and Clyde went on a crime spree, he reminds, and Theseus slew the Minotaur on Crete. Don’t know if Bonnie and Clyde made it to Peoria but I know they never hit Lesotho. But like Sondheim said… It takes two. And that’s Across 59-- a duet. Just do it!

And Mr. Shortz does do it, roaming down and across the cosmos like an Allosaurus from pre-history to Wheel of Fortune… across the map and all over history, myth and legend. Across 61, To be, in Toulouse, that’s c’est  and with Will it’s either c’est la vie or not to be—you just never know.

Just gotta see if it fits.