16 November—If you were able to make it all the way to the penultimate paragraph of yesterday’s disquisition (there was a paragraph after it, if you weren’t), you may recall my silly, baseless conjecture that perhaps Donald Trump had pragmatically seen the handwriting on the ballot boxes. Well, the flaming super-sized asshole didn’t see the handwriting, or if he did, he simply ignored it, as usual. So last night, considering only his own insatiable ego—again, as usual—he lied (as usual) his way into the 2024 election.

Mind you, Ike’s Vice President Richard Nixon lost the 1962 California gubernatorial election to popular incumbent Governor Pat Brown. Then he famously told the press, “You don’t have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference”; and six years later Tricky Dick was elected President of the United States and got kicked around quite a bit more. And for good reason.

But the subject of today’s disquisition is the handwriting on the ballot boxes, which alluded to the biblical handwriting on the wall, meaning that there were clear signs of an impending failure. Unfortunately, that may not be the case with Donald Trump, because he is an incredibly successful con man and his unbelievably faithful legions of supporters and followers are incredibly gullible morons whom he can always count on—especially to do the wrong thing. And let’s not forget the cadre of sycophantic grifters who are naturally drawn to the grifter king.

The handwriting on the wall, then, comes from the story of Belshazzar’s Feast in the Book of Daniel (5:25-31). Since the Book of Daniel, like the rest of the Bible, is historical fiction, the details aren’t important. Suffice to say, though, that the words written on Belshazzar’s wall by a disembodied hand were Aramaic: “mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.”

The disembodied hand could well have been an accountant’s, because the phrase literally means “numbered, numbered, weighed, divided.” But Daniel the captive Jew (who just happened to be a prophet, as well, perhaps, as an actuary) interpreted the graffito for Belshazzar the pagan as meaning something like, “if you don’t mend your ways, turn over a new leaf, and convert to Judaism, your kingdom will be conquered by the Medes and Persians.”

It’s amazing how prophets and oracles can foretell so much from so little (tea leaves, entrails, mathematical concepts) while political pollsters and pundits can foretell so little from so much (polls and statistics out the ying-yang). Anyway, Daniel hit it, because that very night, according to the story, Belshazzar was killed and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom. But there’s no historic record of this particular Darius.

Historical fiction or not, though, it’s in the Bible, so, as the late New York Mets pitcher Tug McGraw put it, “Ya gotta believe.”

As for Donald Trump, you have to love and respect a man who asserts, “If they win, I should get all the credit, and if they lose, I should not be blamed at all.” That’s CEO and presidential talk if I ever heard it. He simply can’t lose . . .