The Neophyte President

2F7166DA-A990-42E0-923A-CB05893908CCBack in March, Republican congressman and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, David Nunes, said, “The president is a neophyte to politics…sometimes he doesn’t have 27 lawyers and staff looking at what he does.”

According to merriam-webster.com, “neophyte” (beginner) was one of its top lookups that day.

It has become clear to a large majority of Americans that having a political neophyte in the White House is not a good thing. He doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing. His lack of knowledge about how to get things done is astonishing. He has surrounded himself with billionaires and family members who also have little political experience and who are giving him awful advice, most of which he wouldn’t listen to anyway because, in his own words, he’s the only one who matters.

He’s making our country the laughingstock of the world. He’s rolling back regulations designed to protect and save our environment from the catastrophic consequences of man-made climate change. His reckless tweets on North Korea are threatening to bring about a nuclear war, and his kowtowing to the very wealthy and the big GOP donors in order to enact huge tax cuts for corporations and “the one percent,” while eliminating or drastically reducing funding for programs to help the middle class and the poor, is beyond the pale.

And just today, after meeting with Vladimir Putin, our neophyte president said he takes the Russian dictator at his word that Russia did not seek to interfere in the US presidential election last year, despite the findings from nearly all US intelligence agencies that it did.

I could go on, but what’s the point? You already know this and the only potential light at the end of this very dark tunnel is the Mueller inquiry into corruption, collusion, and other crimes and misdemeanors of the Trump campaign and administration, charges that might lead to Trump’s impeachment and possibly even his imprisonment.

One can only hope.


This rant was written for today’s one-word prompt, “neophyte.”

SoCS — Spelling Matters

The group of about a hundred armband-wearing radicals gathered in the armory awaiting the speech by their local organizer. When he finally arrived, the audience members swarmed around him, shaking his hand and encouraging him before he got to the podium.

The attendees were silent as the speaker started talking. “My fellow Americans, I sincerely thank you for coming out on this very warm night. The only way for us to live in harmony with our American brothers and sisters is to sound the alarm. Those who wish to do us harm want to take away our rights and destroy the very fabric of our beloved county.”

After a large round of applause, the speaker continued. “Don’t allow yourself to be charmed by the rhetoric of the east coast globalist and elitists who want to disarm you with their flowery words. You must raise your arms toward the sky stand tall against the harmful ideas that would take away our God-given right to bare arms.”

Loud cheering ensued and the speaker raised his arms to quiet the crowd. “So before you go back to your homes and your farms tonight, in an act of solidarity and to demonstrate our harmoneous commitment to our cause, I command you to bare your arms!”

At that point, throughout the armory, the sounds of ripping fabric could be heard as the hundred attendees tore off the sleeves of their shirts and bared their arms.

An attendee in the back of the auditorium tapped one of the exuberant men on the shoulder and said, “What’s going on? I thought this was a rally to support our right to bear arms.”

“Oh no,” responded the other guy. “The rally for the right to bear arms is at the high school. This here is the rally for the right to bare arms.”

“Huh?” said the first guy.

“Spelling matters,” said the second guy.


Written for today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt from Linda G. Hill. The challenge is to write a post using the word “arm,” either as a stand-alone word or as a word with “arm” in it.