New Photo Added 7/10/20 -- scroll down!
During the week of August 12, 2019, I posted the following poems as our site's "Featured Poems of the Week" -- "This was the Year of the White," by Emmett Lee Dickinson (on the left) and "This was in the White of the Year," by Emily Dickinson (on the right).
By Emmett Lee Dickinson: This was in the Year of the White – That – it’s so obscene – Raids are as difficult then to think And Dreadful now to be seen – Looking on is best that you don’t Or if you do – be warned – Close inspection of Lives destroyed Makes your conscience mourn. | By Emily Dickinson: This was in the White of the Year – That – was in the Green – Drifts were as difficult then to think As Daisies now to be seen – Looking back is best that is left Or if it be – before – Retrospection is Prospect's half, Sometimes, almost more. |
A domestic terrorist inspired by racist and incendiary rants from Donald Trump posted a hateful manifesto online and then gunned down 22 people in a Walmart in El Paso. According to an arrest affidavit, the white supremacist told police that his targets were Mexicans.
“I'll do whatever is necessary to stop the invasion of our country,” he said.
Later, Donald Trump visited the city for a photo op, but many let it be known that he was unwelcome – “salt in the wound,” said one.
And when did Trump visit? On the very day that ICE raided food processing plants in Mississippi. As Trump gave a ghoulish smile and a thumbs up as he posed with a baby whose parents had been brutally murdered in El Paso, ICE was tearing families apart in Mississippi and leaving children in the streets.
The rise of white supremacy in our country, the racist rhetoric of Trump, the domestic terrorism, the raids which tear families apart and abandon children – all of this called to mind Emmett Lee Dickinson’s poem “This was in the Year of the White,” one of our Featured Poems of the Week. Dickinson’s poem inspired third cousin Emily to pen her poem “This was in the White of the Year,” our other featured poem.
Below left: The ghoulish photograph of Trump and Melania. Beow that: A photograph of a crying child left abandoned by ICE after the chaotic and muddled raids in Mississippi. Below right: A chilling tweet from the Anne Frank Center: history repeats itself.
Later, on the same day I posted the two Dickinson poems and the photographs above, I came across an article by Rhonda Garelick for "The Cut," entitled "Surrogate Angels of Death: What to make of the First Lady holding the motherless child and youngest survivor of the El Paso Massacre" -- the complete article is HERE.
In the article, Ms. Garelick details "ghastly truths' which "make themselves felt in this single photo of the vacuous and smug Trumps masquerading as kindly hospital visitors, seeking to comfort the El Paso survivors."
She goes on to say, "Posing for this photograph, the Trumps remove any last doubt about their dead-eyed cruelty and transactional view of life. Smiling emptily above this wounded little boy, whose life was shattered before he could take his first step, the president and his wife call to mind those famous safari photos taken by Trump’s sons, Eric and Don Jr. — in which they, like their father, smile brightly over the victims of their own heedless cruelty and violence. To Donald Trump, this baby is little more than a hunting trophy in his own brutal race war (which explains his triumphant thumbs up)."
All of these ghastly and ghoulish photos of the Trumps made me think of others -- Trump and the orb; Trump, Melana, Ivanka and the Pope; Jared and Ivanka staring blankly out the window at Buckingham Palace. These are some of my favorite ghoulish pictures of the Trumps -- and there are plenty more!
With so many gruesome pics available of this ghastly family, I thought I would start a "Ghoulish Goulash" -- a family album of our First Family of Ghouls.
I've added some starter pics below -- and I'm sure there will be plenty more to come! I'll update this page from time to time, so if you have a favorite ghoulish picture of these swamp critters, let me know, and I'll add it to the mix!
Some new ghoulish pictures:
The creepiest and most ghoulish photo of Trump yet --
shot during his Klan rally on July 3, 2020 at Mount Rushmore:
Do you have a favorite ghoulish pic of Trump or his family? Let me know, and I'll add it to this goulash of ghouls!