“Enough, Enough, Enough!"

When Mr. Trump touts his wares at a news conference or at one of his political rallies,  I am reminded of Mark Twain’s comments about Michael Angelo while visiting Italy in 1867. He wrote in The Innocents Abroad:

“In this connection I wish to say one word about Michael Angelo Buonarotti. I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo—that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture—great in every thing he undertook.  But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast—for luncheon—for dinner—for tea—for supper—for between meals.  I like a change, occasionally.  In Genoa, he designed every thing; in Milan he or his pupils designed every thing; he designed the Lake of Como; in Padua, Verona, Venice, Bologna, who did we ever hear of, from guides, but Michael Angelo?  In Florence, he painted every thing, designed every thing, nearly, and what he did not design he used to sit on a favorite stone and look at, and they showed us the stone.  In Pisa he designed every thing but the old shot-tower, and they would have attributed that to him if it had not been so awfully out of the perpendicular.  He designed the piers of Leghorn and the custom house regulations of Civita Vecchia (Rome).  But, here—here it is frightful.  He designed St. Peter’s; he designed the Pope; he designed the Pantheon, the uniform of the Pope’s soldiers, the Tiber, the Vatican, the Coliseum, the Capitol, the Tarpeian Rock, the Barberini Palace, St. John Lateran, the Campagna, the Appian Way, the Seven Hills, the Baths of Caracalla, the Claudian Aqueduct, the Cloaca Maxima—the eternal bore designed the Eternal City, and unless all men and books do lie, he painted every thing in it!  Dan (one of Twain’s fellow tourist) said the other day to the guide, ‘Enough, enough, enough!  Say no more! Lump the whole thing! say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo!’”

When Mr. Trump suggests that he inherited a mess and now, after just two years, he has made  “every thing” better than it has ever been in all of history, I begin to think Will Roger’s quip has come true:  “Everything is changing.  People are taking their comedians seriously, and the politicians as a joke, when it use to be vice versa.”  Or I paraphrase Twain’s fellow traveler, Dan, and say:  Enough, enough, enough!  Say no more!  Lump the whole thing! say that the Creator made America today from designs by Donald Trump—or say, as some seem to think,  that Donald Trump made the Creator!