Garrison Keillor is in fine form as he asks whether God intended for Trump to be elected president. He seems to have been inspired by some of the mail landing in his mailbox or email..

 

So many Trumpists have written in since the election, and I am grateful for their interest and also impressed by the sheer variety of their profanity. I never learned to swear that well because by the time my mother died, at 97, it was too late for me to learn. I gather from the letters that these people’s lives were devastated by the advent of gay marriage, political correctness, the threat of gun control and the arrogance of liberals, and now a champion rises from Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue and East 56th Street, and God forbid that any dog should bark when he speaks or any pigeon drop white matter on his limousine.

 

What the letter-writers don’t grasp is that cursing is highly effective in person — someone kicks his car in rage, forgetting he’s wearing flip-flops, and flames pour from his mouth, and it’s impressive. But you see it in print, and it’s just ugly. It makes you pity the writer’s wife.

 

It’s not good form to curse at someone you’ve just defeated. That is why the president-elect made it clear he would not be waterboarding Hillary Clinton or sending her back to Mexico. He was gracious in victory and said the Clintons are “good people.” Several of his biggest applause lines seem to have been put back in the box. And his base is faced with the possibility that they may have elected a Manchurian. They know that he was a Democrat for most of his life and that the sight of Adam and Steve holding hands does not fill him with loathing. He is, after all, a New Yorker; he’s not from Tulsa. He likes drama. Maybe he’ll appoint his sister to the Supreme Court. Maybe he would rather row than wade. Maybe the Republicans will privatize the Pentagon, and maybe the Chinese will be the low bidder. Why not run the Marines like a business? Put the “deal” back into “idealism.”