Did Sir Walter Raleigh Prophesy or Predict Donald Trump?
Did Sir Walter Raleigh prophesy the rise of Donald Trump and the terrible things that would happen afterward? Is the "end of crosses" the support Trump received from evangelical Christians? Is the "fear" that will make Christians "quake" yet to come? Will Trump trigger "great losses" in the form of a global depression or world war? The end of the poem is a riddle. Can you solve it?
On the Cards and Dice
by Sir Walter Raleigh
Before the sixth day of the next new year,
Strange wonders in this kingdom shall appear:
Four kings shall be assembled in this isle,
Where they shall keep great tumult for awhile.
Many men then shall have an end of crosses,
And many likewise shall sustain great losses;
Many that now full joyful are and glad,
Shall at that time be sorrowful and sad;
Full many a Christian's heart shall quake for fear,
The dreadful sound of TRUMP when he shall hear.
Dead bones shall then be tumbled up and down,
In every city and in every town.
By day or night this tumult shall not cease,
Until an herald shall proclaim a peace;
An herald strong, the like was never born,
Whose very beard is flesh and mouth is horn.
The herald whose beard is flesh and whose mouth is horn is a rooster. A rooster announces a new day. Will the new day be something that deprives Trump of power, such an impeachment, lost election, resignation, incapacitation, or death? But because a trump is a kind of horn, is it possible that a Trump family member will be Donald Trump's undoing?
Donald Trump and Benito Mussolini: Striking Parallels
Fascists of a feather
flock together.
—Michael R. Burch
Donald Trump and Benito Mussolini have many things in common ... not the least of which is that they appear to be identical twins! Is Donald Trump the reincarnation of the fascist Benito Mussolini? And there are many other striking parallels besides their looks ...
Will the fascist Donald Trump follow in the footsteps of Benito Mussolini, destroying the United States the way Mussolini once destroyed Italy?
The first striking parallel is that Mussolini and Trump appear to be identical twins, if not the same person (evidence of reincarnation, perhaps?) Please keep in mind that Trump would be as bald as Mussolini if not for cosmetic surgery ...
If we picture Trump without that bit of fluff surgically attached to his scalp, the resemblance is astonishing ...
The second amazing parallel is their nicknames: Il Duce and Ill Douche! The similarities have not gone unnoticed, because other popular (or unpopular) Trump nicknames include Casino Mussolini (coined by Samantha Bee), Hair Mousse-olini, Mango Mussolini, Cheeto Benito, Cheat-o Benito, Benito Cheetolini and Benito Trumpolini.
A third parallel is how they operate ...
Like Mussolini, Trump demands loyalty to his person, rather than to the nation.
Like Mussolini, Trump threatens and humiliates anyone who opposes him.
Like Mussolini, Trump attempts to discredit and cow the legitimate press.
Like Mussolini, Trump becomes enraged when criticized.
Like Mussolini, Trump exhibits "thin-skinned ignorance combined with arrogant contempt."
Like Mussolini, Trump is a "man of the banner headline" who is quickly bored by details, discussions and strategy.
Like Mussolini, Trump takes all the credit when things go right, but none of the blame when things go wrong.
Like Mussolini, Trump is what Umberto Eco called "a beehive of contradictions."
Like Mussolini, Trump lacks any philosophy: he has only rhetoric.
Like Mussolini, Trump gives the impression of talking directly to the people, while presuming to speak for them.
Like Mussolini, Trump pretends to be an expert on every subject while in reality being incredibly incompetent and uninformed.
Like Mussolini, Trump is closer to a Mafia don or gang lord than a democratic leader.
Like Mussolini, Trump has had multiple wives, several mistressses and scores of adulterous affairs.
Like Mussolini, Trump is working to strengthen laws against abortions, forcing girls and women to bear children they don't want or can't afford.
Here's an eerie coincidence: Mussolini appointed his son-in-law as foreign minister; Trump has appointed his son-in-law as his primary foreign minister in the Middle East, the source of 9-11 and two bloody, trillion-dollar wars.
And here's another eerie similarity, in an excerpt from The New Yorker:
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an American-born professor of Italian history at New York University, specializes in male menace. What interests her is the manufactured drama of world-historical strongmen—their mannerisms, speech patterns, stagecraft, and mythomania. Late last year, Ben-Ghiat had just published a book called Italian Fascism’s Empire Cinema, about the years of Benito Mussolini, when another spectacle wrested her attention. One of the candidates for the American Presidency was looking a lot like her principal academic subject. As President Obama put it, the United States now had its own “homegrown authoritarian.” Earlier this week, Ben-Ghiat sat at a table in her office, at N.Y.U.’s Casa Italiana, on Twelfth Street, inspecting two signatures on the screen of her laptop. One of them belonged to Donald Trump, the other to Mussolini. The scrawls—loopy, cursive, steepled—looked so similar that they seemed to blur together.
Mussolini was taken to be a sheep in wolves' clothing, until he proved to be a real wolf. Many Americans seem to believe that what Trump says cannot be taken seriously. But Ben-Ghiat disagrees about Trump: "He means everything he says. Authoritarians never pivot."
According to Ben-Ghiat, Mussolini described himself as an anti-politician, coined the slogan drenare la palude ("drain the swamp") and promised to make Italy great again. Ring any bells?
Other Parallels
They both were "problem children" and bullies who were sent to boarding schools as young men.
They both were megalomaniacs, obsessed with themselves.
They both had books published.
They both denounced military interventions, only to later advocate and order military interventions.
They both had children before they were married.
They both had affairs while married.
They both organized disparate right-wing groups into a cohesive political force.
They both blamed their nations' economic problems on other nations that acted unfairly.
They both advocated an aggressive foreign policy to arrest a purported national decline.
They both painted a picture of a society in crisis that needed a strong leader to save it (i.e., them).
They both stoked racial animosities and grievances of the majority against minorities.
They both favored the "stick" over the "carrot" in dealing with unwanted "inferior" people.
They both favored deportation of "inferior" people.
They both saw darker-skinned people as "inferior" to white people.
They both enlisted working-class voters against the left.
They both mocked people they perceived as weak.
They both glorified strength, power and "winning at all costs."
They both claimed that only they could restore order and "save" their nations.
They both became cults of one.
They both denounced legitimate presses while employing propaganda lavishly themselves.
They both demanded public displays of loyalty (in Trump's case, everyone saluting the flag during the national anthem).
They both called for large sums of money to be spent on public works.
They both supported their nation's dominant religion and were supported in return by religious leaders and their flocks.
They both used the term "love" while sowing discord, hatred and intolerance.
They both were wildly inconsistent; they said whatever suited "the mood of the moment."
They both had no time or use for scruples.
They both were patently unfit to hold any office, yet held the highest office nonetheless.
Trumpism is eerily similar to fascism.
The HyperTexts