Don't . . . for Trump

The Love in the Air . . .

            Will Donald Trump have a "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" moment?

            I know -- or assume -- he can't sing. And I don't mean to suggest that he will be exiled to some other, more compatible, country. Which wouldn't be today's Argentina, at any rate. Hungary? North Korea?

            I'm just saying:

            Can't you see it? Trump is standing -- I don't know where he's standing -- he's on TV.

            And remember what he said about the rally he staged on January 6, 2021?

            "I mentioned the word love -- the love, the love in the air, I've never seen anything like it."

            If you look at the lyrics to Evita's iconic song, that line of Trump's would fit in seamlessly somewhere between this:

            And as for fortune, and as for fame

            I never invited them in

            Though it seemed to the world they were all I desired

            They are illusions, they're not the solutions they promised to be

            The answer was here all the time

            I love you, and hope you love me

            Don't cry for me . . .

And this:

            Have I said too much?

            There's nothing more I can think of to say to you

            But all you have to do is look at me to know

            That every word is true.

           

I can see it. I would not have thought of it, however, if I hadn't read, in the Wall Street Journal, an excerpt from Mike Pence's forthcoming book, in which Pence reveals what he and Trump said to each other in their last chat in office. Pence by this point has fatefully proved himself to be, by Trump's standards, a pussy not a hero.

            Pence tells Trump he will pray for him.

            And Trump says a beautiful thing:

            "Don't bother."

            I love that. And I love that Pence says he told Trump, by golly, he was going to pray for him, anyway. I love that Trump sometimes wakes up from a bad dream. Pence at the Pearly Gates, reaching out . . . And Trump's response:

                        Don't pray for me, mother- . . .

            Or maybe not. You know Trump has more self-romance in himself than that. And if there's a way for him to get in somewhere, I can't see him deigning it, whatever it is.