Bob Shepherd is well known to readers of this blog. He is a polymath who writes, edits, comments, and is a true lifelong learner. He has been in the educational publishing business, has written articles and books and assessment. And he retired as a classroom teacher in Florida. He’s the best thing these days about the Sunshine State.
He wrote on his blog:
My way of saying, “Thank you, Mr. President.”
Trump, of course, has added a number of new words to our language: unpresidented, syllabolic, covfefe, bigly(his New York mafiosi thug pronunciation of big league). But I don’t think those new terms, rich as they are, sufficiently celebrate the man we’ve come to know. (I’m using the term man loosely, of course.) So, I’m offering these suggested usages in hopes of seeing them widely adopted going forward:
And wow, she was apetrump mad!
Are you trumping me?
Don’t trump where you eat.
He doesn’t know diddlytrump.
He showed up totally trumpfaced.
He was spouting a trumpload of nonsense.
He’s just trying to stir up some trump.
Holy trump!!!
I practically trumped myself!
I really don’t give a trump. Do you?
I trump you not.
I warn you, don’t get on my trump list.
I’m getting too old for this trump.
I’m telling you: He’s battrump crazy.
Keep this trump up and you’re fired.
Looks like we’re up trump creek without a paddle.
No trump?!
Oh, man, you’ve really trumped the bed.
Oh, you’re going to catch trump now!
Same trump, different day.
Seriously, cut the trump, man!
That’s like pushing trump uphill with a pity stick.
No, don’t travel to the US right now; it’s a trumphole country where Covid is rampant.
Then the trump hit the fan.
Trump happens.
Two can sling trump, you know.
Well, THAT was a dumbtrump thing to say!
Well, you’re trump out of luck this time.
What a pile (or bunch or crock or piece) of trump (or horsetrump or dogtrump)!
Yeah, he has trump for brains.
Yikes! What a trumpshower!
You are so full of trump.
You won’t believe the trump he’s been up to.
You’re gonna have to eat that trump sandwich yourself.
You’re too chickentrump to try it.
You’re trump outta luck.
And, just for fun,
He was all over me like a fly on pence.
NB: This post was inspired by my dear mother, who for years now hasn’t used Trump’s name but, instead, just refers to him with a POS emoji.
For more on Don the Con (aka IQ45 or Moscow’s Asset Governing America [MAGA]), go here: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/category/trump-don-the-con/
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I want Bob Shepherd to write Trump’s eulogy, when the opportunity presents itself, I hope soon.
I hope that when the time comes, the tombstone will read
Here lies Donald Trump,
but that’s nothing new.
Unhinged Bob!!! I will make sure to put a maga sign on Lloyd and bobs graves in near future . Biden can’t do anything wrong he can take millions he corrupted be a pedophile but it’s always about trump .
This is an appropriate time to mention that Trump was fined $400,000 yesterday by a judge for legal fees for the New York Times and three reporters. He sued them for writing about his taxes. He lost so he pays their legal fees. What a loser!
Please, “Steve,” enlighten me on the nature of my coming demise.
It is all a part of the syndrome. DJT has occupied the minds of these poor radicles since 2016. The limericks, poems, sarcasm and comedy attempts should be sold to the late night comics or the women on The View. They can use some new material.
Dumb Donald Trump
sat on his rump,
eating cheeseburgers all day.
He called for his Miller
and brownshirted killers
and hypocrite fundies to pray.
He called for his Barr
to make him a czar
and all rule of law to allay.
And to meet his requirement
that it trash the environment,
he neutered the EPA.
“To switch out democracy
for rank kakistocrasy,
I had but to bellow and bray.
I’ve drawn to my Trump
many millions of chumps
and given sweet Vlad complete sway.”
“I’ll call it a day,” the con man did say,
“I’m still president anyway.”
Then he farted and stood
and called it all good,
and went to a golf course to play.
The Seven Wives of King Donald the Wurst
Posted on December 13, 2019 by Bob Shepherd
NB: a wurst is a sausage.
Six wives had he, the Eighth King Henry.
Trump had but three, we’re told, but when he
was twixt and between those he made a great show of,
perhaps he swallowed some four we don’t know of,
for as you most certainly know or have guessed,
King Donald Doolittle must always Be Best.
The wurst attempt I ever saw.
Trump 2024 Campaign Slogans
Please vote for me. Otherwise, I go to prison.
Why just documents in the toilet? Why not the whole country?
Making America Grate Again
TRUMP 2024: 20 for Obstruction of an Official Proceeding. 24 for Seditious Conspiracy
MAGA: Moscow’s Asset Governing America
The Man with No Plan and the Tan in the Can
Trump, the Relapse
Back to the Future! Way, way, way back!
Trump: For a Whiter House in 2025!
Vote for Trump or He’ll Stamp (or Stomp) His Foot, Hold His Breath, and Throw a Plate of Food
Grab ’em by the Ballot!
Cuckoo Coup Redo
If I Lose Again, Again, It’s Because It Was Rigged, Ha Ha
Because He Doesn’t Give a **** about You
No One Believes Any of This BS I’m Saying, but People Vote for Me Anyway –Donald Trump
I am sure Kimmel, Joy and Woopie will love them.
Roget just added Trump as a synonym for shit.
BTW: Is a polymath a parrot that spouts equations?
“Is a polymath a parrot that spouts equations?”
Chuckle.
What do you call a parrot who was sent to bed without his supper?
A poly no meal.
Very ingenious, Bob.
Of course, we all know that a dead parrot is a polygon.
That pun should evoke mynah groans.
perfect
Haaaaa! so funy fjstats!
When a person’s knowledge covers many different areas, he or she is a polymath. The Greek word for it is polymathes, “having learned much,” with poly meaning “much,” and manthanein meaning “learn.” Definitions of polymath. a person of great and varied learning. In another definition it mentions, “one who fixes things they have broken”. Uh, I too, fix stuff and know things. Moreover, Bob “the Legend” has engaged me in deep thinking and the “the love of learning”. Thank you.
I like your definition of polymath better. It has an “Alice in Wonderland” quality to it, which is how I feel sometimes when Bob really gets wound up. I think he would make a superb Cheshire cat. I hope you notice, Bob, that this has more to do with my sometimes limited ability to “grok” you. 🙂
I believe we are very fortunate to have Bob Shepherd comment, usually with astonishing erudition.
Pretty Polly: so called “love song” especially prominent in the Appalachian highlands in which a girl was killed by a lover.
Polymath: in this version, she was killed when he induced her to attempt to prove the parallel postulate.
Polly put the Kettle on: a well-known dance tune in old time music
Polymath: using mathematical words to dance around an answer rather than answer it directly
“Pretty Polly” is a dark, dark song. I used to play it on the banjo, which made it sound even more creepy.
A man who will admit to playing the banjo on s public forum is satisfied within himself.
By the way, you are correct. Very dark.
Love these. Just too bad we have had this trump in politics for so long.
Yeah. After watching this serial defecator at rallies and on cable news, I gotta take a Trump.
Ten words that rhyme with Trump. (There are more, I assure you.)
chump… clump… lump… bump… dump… grump… hump… plump… jump… stump…
A challenge to readers of this blog: Write a limerick about #45. Here’s mine.
There once was an asshole named Trump,
Who looked like an orangutan’s rump.
Poets ran out of rhymes
To recount all his crimes,
But soon he’ll wind up in the dump.
I offer this instead
Bye, bye, Orange Clown Man
To the tune of “O Danny Boy”
O Donnie boy, your cuckoo coup has faltered.
Time runs away, like dye down Rudy’s cheek.
What’s done is done. The vote count can’t be altered.
You’ll soon be jailed. Your prospects sure look bleak.
Will you come back, when Biden’s term is over?
Will Princess Sparkle run then in your stead?
Will you be king and rule and roll in clover?
Well those cloud castles, Donnie boy, are made of lead.
Or this
“O Donnie Boy”
(to the tune of “Danny Boy)
O Donnie Boy,
your handler Putin’s calling,
extending thanks
for the Ukraine delay.
He wants to say,
impeachment’s surely galling,
but still the tape
won’t see the light of day.
But come ye back
to Moscow, if you’re worried.
We’re here to help
you grab ‘em at the polls,
and if you lose,
you won’t see jail, I promise.
O Donnie boy,
just fly on home
to Sochi Bay.
And see below
Inspired, Bob!
A Dirge:
Oh, Donnie Boy, the jail door’s slam is waiting
And your appeals will soon enough run out.
Your loony base alone can’t re-elect you.
But the electoral college can bring this travesty about.
And I fear that Nikki and Joe Biden
Will pardon you and all you dirty stealing.
She to keep her campaign promises;
He to pretend both parties yearn for healing.
With Judge Cannon and the Supreme flunkies
We may not need to reach that hour,
Because We the People have long known
Justice always bows to power.
LOL. Here’s an oldie I wrote back when he was first being impeached:
Once again, Democrats will be compelled to vote against an evil Republican while the Democratic Party’s “leadership” largely ignores the concerns and needs of the American working class. Same as it ever was!
James,
I think this is an unfair statement.
The Democratic leadership can’t pass legislation when they don’t control the House.
But Biden did pass the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which will create millions of well-paying working class jobs; also the CHIPS act, which will bring high-tech manufacturing companies and jobs back to America. The unemployment rate is under 4%, as low as it’s ever been. Biden has gotten legislation to lower the cost of drugs. He tried to get the PRO Act, which would have strengthened and increased labor unions (the Republicans defeated it).
If he controlled both Housesif Congress with a majority of 5 or 10 seats, he would be a new FDR.
Instead, he was held hostage by Joe Manchin and Kristen Synema.
TRUMPING — my proposed new adjective, adverb, and verb.
Definition: obsessive liar, prevaricator, dissembler; obscenely deceitful or deceptive; vulgar nonsense peddler; painful or irksome purveyor of falsehoods, source of disinformation.
Examples:
1. He lies like a trumping grifter.
2. He’s as duplicitous as a trumping con man.
3. His mendacity trumping kills me!
4. That Republican spokesperson is trumping us again.
Doubtless people will use “Trumplike” in this way forever more.
The public will see through his Trumplike denials.
Bubba, you strike again. But, add this to your journal…https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Trumpified
Yes, rcharvet! “Trumpified!” I love it!
In light of being “Rickrolled” what would it look like to be “trump rolled” oh wise one of words?
Being Trump-rolled
TRUMP: The Marxist Democrats are trying Your Favorite President for various hoaxes. Stop them today by contributing to my Trump Legal Defense Fund. Me love you long time [not].
What video would you link?
The one that Putin has been holding since Trump’s Miss Universe Contest Moscow visit in 2013.
As Diane has pointed out many times, Trump wouldn’t allow the typical Trump supporter through the gates at Mar-a-lago. He loathes and robs the types of people who support him. If he weren’t a candidate for president, this would be darkly humorous.
Diane to Trump supporters: You know that he hates people like you, right?
My hubby loves, “Trump you!” Or is that too nasty.
That’s simply using the language precisely, accurately. Le mot juste, Flaubert called it.
And what haunts me is the fact that this man thinks he is qualified for the highest position in this country. More aptly put (and probably in the words of Clark Griswold) this “brainless deficient dense doltish dumb empty-headed foolish half-witted idiotic imbecilic inane meaningless mindless moronic not intelligent pointless senseless simple simpleminded slow thick-headed unthinking witless unqualified jerk” has no business being on a ballot.
My mother never uses his name in texts, just the pile of do do emoji. That dumbf–K [do do emoji] just gave a speech in court after the judge ruled that he couldn’t, days before the same judge will rule on how much he should pay and whether his New York properties will go into receivership.
So, she inspired my modest proposal, above.
I expect the DNC will want me to sing this version of Cee Lo Green’s hit song with my new lyrics at the National Convention this year. I shall have to buy a new blazer made with bright blue sequins.
(Sung to the tune of Cee Lo Green’s “F**k You/Forget You”):
I see you flying around the country I Love
and I’m like Trump you ooh ooh.
(Ooh, oooh, oooh)
I guess the change in my pocket wasn’t enough
And I’m like Trump you! And Trump MAGA too.
You said if I was richer, I’d still be with ya
Ha, now ain’t that some grift?
(Ain’t that some grift?)
And although there’s pain in my chest
From a nightstick up my vest
With a Trump you oooh oooh!
(Ooo oooh oooh)
Yeah I’m sorry, behind bars is not so starry
But that don’t mean you can’t get back there.
If it wasn’t for the fraud
You wouldn’t be in the yard
But the way you play your game ain’t fair.
I pity the fool that falls in love with you
What I gave goes to your attorneys.
Well (Just thought you should know, jackass)
Oooh ooooh ooooh
I’ve got some news for you
Your money now ain’t comin’ through.
I see you flying around the country I Love
and I’m like Trump you ooh ooh.
(Ooh oooh ooooh)
I guess the change in my pocket wasn’t enough
And I’m like Trump you! And Trump GOP too.
You said if I was richer, I’d still be with ya
Ha now ain’t that some grift?
(Ain’t that some grift?)
And although there’s pain in my chest
From a nightstick up my vest
With a Trump you oooh oooh!
(Oooh oooh ooooh)
Now I know that I had to borrow
Beg and steal and lie and cheat
Trying to keep ya, trying to please ya
‘Cause being in Love with your fat ass ain’t cheap.
Now I pity the fool
That falls in Love with you
You lied to me and made me work
(Just thought you should know, jerk)
Oooh oooh oooooh
I’ve got some news for you
Oooh I really hate your ass right now.
I see you flying around the country I Love
and I’m like Trump you ooh ooh.
(Oooh oooh ooooh)
I guess the change in my pocket wasn’t enough
And I’m like Trump you! And Trump your Cult too.
You said if I was richer
I’d still be with ya
Ha now ain’t that some grift?
(Ain’t that some grift?)
And although there’s pain in my chest
From a nightstick up my vest
With a Trump you oooh oooh!
(Oooh oooh ooooh)
Now Donald, Donald, Donald,
Why’d you wanna wanna hurt me so bad?
(So bad, so bad, so bad)
I tried to tell my mamma but she told me
“This is one time you’ve been had”
(Been had, been had, been had)
Uh! Why?
Uh! Why?
Uh! Why God?
Oh! I Love You!
Oh! I Still Love You!
I see you flying around the country I Love
Trump you ooh ooh.
(Oooh oooh ooooh)
I guess the change in my pocket wasn’t enough
I’m like Trump you! And Trump MAGA too.
You said if I was richer, I’d still be with ya
Ha, now ain’t that some grift?
(Ain’t that some grift?)
And although there’s pain in my chest
From a nightstick up my vest
With a Trump you oooh oooh!
(Oooh oooh ooooh)
Haaaa! Well done!
I decided to look up the word “trump” in the online etymology dictionary. Apparently there is some question as to its origin, but one path it’s usage seems to have taken was that it arose from the habit of hucksters on the street blowing a trumpet to attract attention so they could sell their wares, which were usually without much value. It’s usage in card games as a verb apparently relates to this in that a trumpet might be blown to celebrate a triumph, albeit not necessarily through a legal path.
Not having access to the OED (I have mine to a colleague out of concern for the burgeoning pile of unused books in my house and my difficulty in accessing its 4 pages on one reduction format with my failing eyes), that is as good as I can do.
I can still make out that print with a magnifying glass! But I fear that with my diabetes, I might eventually end up blind as a bat. Or, as I would prefer it, as Homer or Milton.
Not to spoil the fun, but I think his grandfather’s name was Drumpf.
The Prognosis for Poetry in the Age of Tan in a Can | Bob Shepherd, 2018
If I could speak
If I could speak in these lines
If I could speak in these lines in the old, high manner,
Austere and pure as a mountain spring
Before the days of polyvinal chloride,
If I could speke with the tungis of aungels,
If I could conjure King David, Orpheus, Taliesin, Oisin, or Shakespeare to speak for me,
If I could speak as even these never spoke,
Still, my voice would be as that of the shade of Willie Yeats, in a crowd of thousands at a Maga rally,
Reciting in that one small human voice some ancient fragment—“Ich Am of Irlonde” or “Westron Wind,”
Into the uncomprehending blare of rock music and lies from the main stage.
No Muse is equal to the news,
To the pee tape, to the Black Friday sale on smart speakers,
to the trailer for Venom, to Stormy and the Bunny
And Cheez Whiz now in a convenient aerosol spray.
How, exactly, is one to make poetry of such tatter?
How does one speak to such an age, in its language,
And call this poetry?
The rhythms from the drum machine, though crude and mechanical, are more insistent, easier to remember,
Than were those danced around ancient campfires.
They are designed, in fact, scientifically, to persist in memory,
like scars on the tissues of the brain,
making it impossible even to hear
a melody in Chopin or Liszt.
If I could speak true in such an age, my voice would be that of one who has awakened during surgery, paralyzed,
who sees and hears and feels it all–
the surgeon’s saw parting flesh and bone–
and screams and screams but cannot be heard,
who looks, to the one taking her apart, as oblivious as a chump before Trump on a stump.
Oh, yes, I could make poems.
I could make this, for example.
But if a poem is spoken where no one hears it, is it spoken at all?
Suppose one with greater powers than I wrote a true poem today.
Would it be a ridiculous anachronism,
like an Apple watch on the wrist of an extra playing a gladiator in Avengers 18?
It seems that way. It seems that a poet, today
is like a moth that has flown through a door left open by a cook who stepped into the alley for a smoke,
a moth who has gotten treacle on a wing from the pear flambé
and is stuck and circling madly on the edge of a plate in the servers’ window.
However much you might shout at the fellow at the Genius Station in the Apple Store,
there are some things that, once broken, cannot be fixed.
Does she know this, that moth?
That some broken things cannot be mended?
I think, sometimes, that poetry has had its run.
The greatest ever written are now as unknown
as the child who dies crossing the desert at the border of the United States of America.
All the poems? All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
at one fell swoop?
But then, a child is born,
and her breathing, her inspiration and expiration,
her beating heart, systole and diastole,
synchronizes with the voice of a mother who remembers some lullaby her mother’s mother sang,
and I think of the monks at Skellig Michael,
in the times we are not now supposed to call the Dark Ages,
the monks in their stone hovels by the cruel North Sea,
copying manuscripts by flickering candlelight,
with hands raw from the cold,
and holy, holy, holy,
keeping learning alive
until a better time.
Fact Check | Bob Shepherd | 2020
The fact that you even have to say
that Black Lives Matter
and the fact that you do–you do have to say it.
The fact that Putin and Trump
The fact that if you tell people
it’s about their freedom,
it’s about their jobs,
it’s about those Socialists
wanting to steal your hamburgers
The fact that Jesus on a plate
holding an AR-15 at the fireworks concession
The fact that Alex Jones
The fact that I’m so good at facing facts
they should name a recovery center after me
or a firing squad in Arkansas or North Korea
The fact that men in three-cornered hats told other men
that it was about THEIR freedom,
that it was about THEIR equality,
when it was really about (their, shh) not paying (their, shh) taxes
The fact that it doesn’t have to be same as the old boss
The fact that the Mystic Massacre
The fact that the Fort Pillow Massacre
The fact that age-defying cream
The fact that skin-lightening cream
The fact that you could go on all day like that
The fact that you learned the facts of life
but don’t even want to know the facts of death
The fact that if you are brown in America
someone else’s de jure
is your de facto
And the fact that that’s a fact
The fact that if you’re poor,
fact finding is easy because
there’s always a fact of the day
and if you’re not,
then you are an accessory
before, during, and after the fact
The fact that all markets look pretty free
if you’re rich and spending some poor person’s labor
The fact that everybody wants their Mama,
and no one wants to admit that,
is two facts
The fact that 27,375 days
The fact that Jimmy Carter said
he had sinned against Rosalynn in his mind,
which was so JC of him,
I could have kissed him on the peanut.
So, how dumb is Viveck Ramaswamy (or as I call him, Vividly eck Ramasmarmy)?
Well, Trump just Penced him, and Ramasmarmy was surprised by this.