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Words were very important to William Shakespeare
I taught his play Hamlet more than 50 times to Fargo Central High School seniors, and I enjoyed every minute because he is the most interesting, fascinating, dominating and confused character in Shakespeare’s 37 plays.

Hamlet plays important scenes in every act. In Act Two he is faking madness while exchanging words with Polonius, the father of the beautiful Ophelia.

Polonius asks Hamlet: “What do you read, my lord?”

Hamlet: “words, words, words.”

Polonius: “What is the matter, my lord?”

Hamlet: “Between who?”

He is faking madness and confuses Polonius by evading probing questions. Hamlet is covering the fact that the “matter’ is between two people, himself and Ophelia.

In this column I’m going to quote   malignant narcissist President Donald John Trump, who is also recognized as a jerk, prick, asshole, socio-psychopath and war criminal, as he tells lies at every opportunity whether it is in conversations, speeches, press “conferences” or on social media. His “faking news” words will not be surrounded by quotation marks. My comments will be surrounded by brackets.

• “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

• “I alone can do it!”

• “So, we are going to have a phenomenal ballroom. It’s going to be one of the best anywhere in the world. There won’t be anything like it, actually. It’s four sides of beautiful glass. We will be able to have state dinners. We literally not even have state dinners because it is not set up.”

• “It’s so relaxing to me. Real estate is relaxing. For a lot of people, real estate is a very trying business. I’ve always liked it. I’ve always done well with it.” [six bankruptcies?!!]

• “I think we are just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into the country, OK? We’re going to kill them.”

• “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th.”

• “My government has brought more positive change than any government in U.S. history. There has never been anything like it.” [That’s’ for sure!}

• “Windmills drive whales loco and wind energy kills birds.”

• “We do need Greenland, absolutely, we need it for defense.”

• “You are stupid and nasty, ugly, terrible and insubordinate, low IQ traitor, incompetent. Quiet, piggy.” [Directed at Bloomberg’s Catharine Lacy]

• “Somali are American savages seeking to impose their Sharia bullshit.”

• “I love this Ilhan Omar, whatever the hell her name is with the little turban. She comes in, nothing but bitch. She’s always complaining. They kill each other all the time. She married her brother in order to get in. Therefore, she’s here illegally. She should get the hell out. Throw her the hell out.”

• “And Schumer is a Palestinian as far as I’m concerned. He used to be Jewish. He’s not Jewish anymore.”

• “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.”

• “I’ve also announced a permanent pause on world migration, including from hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries.”

• “It’s a ridiculous situation. We’re going back to plastic straws. These things don’t work. I’ve had them many times, and on occasion, they break. Liberal paper straws don’t work.”

• “Marjorie (Greene) is not a AMERICA FIRST or MAGA, because nobody could have changed her views so fast, and her new views are those of a dumb person.”
• “You are invited to a candlelight dinner featuring special guest President Donald J. Trump. Additional details provided upon RSVP. RSVPs will be accommodated on a first come, first serve basis. Space is very limited. $1,000,000 per person. We will have two other dinners, one in December, one in January, under the same conditions.”

• “She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was very nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job.” [funeral sermon at National Cathedral by Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde]

• “It’s not the question that I mind; it’s your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions. ….You’re a terrible person and a terrible reporter.” [directed at ABC News chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce]
• “When they give you a putt, you pick it up and walk to the next hole and say ‘Thank you very much. A gimme.’”

• “We all want to make deals, but I am this giant store. It’s a giant, beautiful store, and everybody wants to go shopping there.”

• “We need to take Greenland from Denmark, annex Canada and re-establish control of the Panama Canal. We need to dominate the Western Hemisphere.”

• “The writer of the story, Katie Rogers, who is assigned to write only bad things about me, is a third-rate reporter who is ugly, both inside and out.”

• “I’d like to be pope. That would be my number one choice.”

• “Why is it we only take people from shithole countries, right? Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few?...From Denmark. Do you mind sending us a few people? Send us some nice people. Do you mind? But we always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime. The only thing they’re good at is going after ships.”

• “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, another Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the f-----g Strait, you crazy f—k or you will be living in Hell! JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

• “Because they let him in. Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? Because they came in on a plane, along with thousands of other people that shouldn’t be here and you’re just asking questions, because you are a stupid person.”

• “I hereby withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement.”

• “We’re a big country…We’re fighting wars…It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.”

• “The United States cannot continue to be the policeman for the world.  We’re no longer the suckers, folks.”

• “Democratic politicians did not raise one word of protest as American women and girls were raped and slaughtered by these monsters. They were raped and slaughtered by numbers that you don’t want to hear about.”

• “Getting woke lunacy and transgender insanity the hell out of our government.”

• “Some guy I’d never heard of, John James – is he a congressman? He said, Ladies and gentlemen, I am going to start impeachment of Donald Trump.”

• “Women: You have to treat them like shit.”

• “So, under President Trump, America is a dumping ground for criminals no longer. They’re not even trying to get in.”

• “Our enemies are losing and America, as it has been for five years under my presidency, is winning and now winning bigger than ever before.”

• “Democrats know full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens have to endure. You caused that problem. They knew their statements were a lie. They knew it. They knew their statements were a dirty, rotten lie. Their policies created the high prices.”

• “They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th president of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so!”

• “I do believe I will have the honor of taking Cuba. Taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it. Maybe we will capture the president as we did with Venezuela.”

• “When a man leaves a woman, especially when it was perceived that he has left a piece of ass – a good one – there are 50 percent of the population who will love the woman who was left.”

• “One thing I have learned about the press is that they’re  always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational the better…The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.”

• “The pope is weak on crime and terrible on foreign policy – and I helped elect him. I don’t want a pope that criticizes the president of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected — IN A LANDSLIDE, TO DO, setting Record Low Numbers in Crime and Creating the Greatest Stock market in History. I’m not a fan of Pope Leo.”

• “You know who is one of the great beauties of the world. According to everybody? And I helped create her. Ivanka. My daughter, Ivanka. She’s six feet tall, she’s got a great body. She made a lot of money as a model — a tremendous amount. Every guy in the country wants to go out with my daughter. She does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I would be dating her. There’s nothing I love more than women, but they’re really a lot different than portrayed. They are far worse than men, far more aggressive.”

Where does Donald John Trump belong on the great chain of being?
Once upon a time long ago two busybodies, Plato and Aristotle, came up  with a scheme that put all matter and life on earth in scala naturae, or in a Chain of Being.

Minerals are at the bottom of the chain and it has links to plants, animals, humans, angels and finally to God. It was approved by both Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Ages. Shakespeare loved the scheme and called it the Elizabethan Chain of Being.

Lead was the bottom mineral and gold is at the top. Kings were at the top of the human link. Angels were above them and God was alone.

If a human tried to climb the chain and failed the task, he was killed. Prince Hamlet will not be king of Denmark like his father because Shakespeare had him dither and dather and decide he must be cruel to be kind to the young beautiful Ophelia and his “immoral” mother.

Donald Trump has been charged with rape, sexual abuse and sexual harassment by more than 30 women, including his first wife Ivana.

On the chain of being he is between animal and human and will never climb the chain. The Lyin’ King wants to be on Mount Rushmore. So, I suggest the part of his anatomy that will be kissed the most in his two  terms be carved on the mountain where his buttocks will best fit.

No doubt Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum will be the first to climb it to kiss the bare granite.