Stay with me here as we explore this analogy—
Not fun being Kate to Trump’s Petruchio, is it GOP?
Abbreviated recap of Shakespeare’s play--
Petruchio tells (Katherine) that he will marry her whether she
agrees or not. He tells Baptista (her father), falsely, that Katherine has consented to marry him on Sunday. Hearing this claim, Katherine is strangely silent, and the wedding is set.
Petruchio is late to his own wedding, leaving Katherine to fear she will become an old maid. When Petruchio arrives, he is dressed in a ridiculous outfit and rides on a broken-down horse. After the wedding, Petruchio forces Katherine to leave for his country house before the feast, telling all in earshot that she is now his property and that he may do with her as he pleases. Once they reach his country house, Petruchio continues the process of “taming” Katherine by keeping her from eating or sleeping for several days—he pretends that he loves her so much he cannot allow her to eat his inferior food or to sleep in his poorly made bed…
Katherine and Petruchio soon return to Padua to visit Baptista. On the way, Petruchio forces Katherine to say that the sun is the moon and that an old man is really a beautiful young maiden. Since Katherine’s willfulness (or spirit/soul/judgement) is dissipating, she agrees that all is as her husband says...she obeys everything that Petruchio says and gives a long speech advocating the loyalty of wives to their husbands. www.sparknotes.com/…
Sound Familiar, Anyone who Watched the 2016 GOP Primary, Campaign, & Its Aftermath?? Hmm??
Trump & the GOP insult each other in a mockery of a courtship/primary.
“Say that she rail, why then I'll tell her plain
She sings as sweetly as a nightingale:
Say that she frown, I'll say she looks as clear
As morning roses newly washed with dew:
Say she be mute and will not speak a word,
Then I'll commend her volubility,
And say she uttereth piercing eloquence:
If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks,
As though she bid me stay by her a week:
If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day
When I shall ask the banns and when be married.”
(Petruchio, Act 2 Scene 1, Lines 23-33)
(The verse is Shakespeare, the notes & copy are from www.novelguide.com/...)
Against all understanding, she/the GOP agrees to marry him.
"No shame but mine. I must, forsooth, be forced
To give my hand, opposed against my heart
Unto a mad-brain rudesby, full of spleen
Who wooed in haste and means to wed at leisure"
Kate says to her wedding guests when Petruchio is late for their wedding.
Act 3, Sc. 2, Lines 8-11
Foreshadowing, Katherine!! Run away, GOP, don’t do it, flee for your lives!!
Deliberately, he will destroy all values that you claim you admire.
You love free trade, he hates free trade.
You like law & order, he muses about shooting someone on 5th Ave.
You worship a dead constitution, he worships himself and wipes his ass with the constitution.
He will starve you of your base, its love, and fidelity. You have trained your audience to believe in lies that confirm their own bias. Trump/Petruchio is the king of lies, if it benefits him. He can turn his angry horde of keyboard warriors against you at a moment’s notice.
Right Paul Ryan, John McCain, et al.??
"Thus have I politically begun my reign
And 'tis my hope to end successfully
My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,
And, till she stoop, she must not be full gorged,
For then she never looks upon her lure,
Another way I have to man my haggard,
To make her come and know her keeper's call
That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites
That bate and beat and will not be obedient.
She ate no meat today, nor none shall eat.Last night she slept not, nor tonight she shall not.
As with the meat, some undeserved fault
I'll find about the making of the bed,
And here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster,
This way the coverlet, another way the sheets.
Ay, and amid this hurly I intend
That all is done in reverend care of her.
(Act 4, Sc. 2, Lines 188-211)
Contradicting you, Making you publicly denounce all of your previously held positions, Getting you to publicly state that left-is-right / up-is-down/ black-is-white is his plan, not an accident.
Right Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, et al.??
PETRUCHIO
Come, let’s continue on toward your father’s house. Good Lord, how bright and splendid is the moon tonight!
KATHERINE
The moon? You mean the sun! It is not nighttime now
PETRUCHIO
I say it’s the moon that shines so bright.
KATHERINE
I know it is the sun that shines so bright.
PETRUCHIO
Now, by my mother’s son, and that’s me, it will be moon or star or whatever I want before I’ll travel to your father’s house. (to servants) Go return our horses.— Constantly contradicted and contradicted, and nothing but contradicted!
HORTENSIO
(to KATHERINE) Say what he wants or we’ll never go.
KATHERINE
Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please.
And if you please to call it a rush candle,
Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.
PETRUCHIO
I say it is the moon.
KATHERINE
I know it is the moon.
PETRUCHIO
Nay, then you lie. It is the blessèd sun.
KATHERINE
Then God be blessed, it is the blessèd sun.
But sun it is not, when you say it is not,
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it named, even that it is,
And so it shall be so for Katherine.
Act 4, Sc. 5, Lines 1-20
www.sparknotes.com/...
This, little elephant, was the point of the obvious inaugural crowd lie.
Announcing that more people viewed his inaugural (in person & online) than ever before in U.S. history, when it was clearly not true, was Trump’s “is this the Sun or the Moon” test.
Honest people said Obama drew larger numbers.
Republicans agreed with Trump/Petruchio, or spoke volumes with their silence. That was the test. Trump got you to publicly deny the truth, showing fealty to, and fear of, him.
You obeyed.
GOP, Trump owns you now. Get used to it.
You have made your bed. You must lie in it now.
"[TRUMP] Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintence commits his body
To painful labor both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst though liest warm at home, secure and safe,
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience-
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a [Party] woman oweth to her [Master] husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that [Republicans] women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace,
Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway
When they are bound to serve, love, and obey."
Act 5, Sc. 2, 162-180
A Tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing—
Oh, wait, that’s another story.
Play descriptions in the quiz are from : www.timeout.com/...