I got a text recently from Pete Hegseth. Bob, you’re invited … to Trump’s Ballroom. Are you in?
Frankly, I’d rather go to Yosemite.
That note from the Secretary of Defense, or excuse me, Secretary of War, is small potatoes, though.
A little over a week ago, I got an urgent text from the White House. Almost every text I get like that is urgent.
A direct order has just come down from the Oval Office with YOUR name on it. We need your immediate response.
Amidst the texts from relatives and friends or my examiners such as my Journal editor, my pastor or my dentist, I am overwhelmed with a surplus of unsolicited texts
and emails each day from President Trump, J.D. Vance, Mike Johnson, Don Jr., John Kennedy, Ken Paxton, Susan Collins, and on and on. Not long ago I got a text from Elon Musk, and it was urgent. MAJOR WARNING FROM ELON MUSK Pleading with you not to ignore this, Bob. It went on to tell me every Trump voter would read the attached link.
I didn’t read it.
One of the best I got recently was a “personal” one from the 45th and 47th President of the United States, announcing, Bob, I just dropped everything to send you this email. Because of dedicated supporters like you, I DROPPED EVERYTHING to contact you.
I bet you didn’t know the president (along with Elon Musk) and I are on a first-name basis. I sure didn’t know it. Much less did I ever expect that the President, as busy as he is, reportedly getting just three hours of sleep a night, would “DROP EVERYTHING” to send me an email.
I can just picture it now. He’s in a meeting with J.D. and Pete and Marco, and they are talking about Iran or China or Vladimir or Volodymyr.
(Confession: I am not on a first-name basis … yet … with either Vladimir or Volodymyr, so I will refer to them as Putin and Zelensky. That’s less confusing, too.) Then, during this top-level discussion, the Secretary of State looks at them each, straight in the eye, and gravely suggests, “Mr. President, don’t you think you should DROP EVERYTHING and email Bob?”
“My God, Little Marco, you’re so right,” he surely would react. “I should’ve thought of that earlier! I get along very well with Bob. I’ve known him for a long time – him and his wife, Janet. I read where someone referred to him as a central Louisiana ‘icon.’ I call him Bobcat! You can find lots of bobcats in central Louisiana, but only one Bobcat.” The president stops and immediately starts typing to tell me he’s “DROPPED EVERYTHING” to send this message, and then he types in a link for me to click on, presumably with a request to contribute.
I thought AI was churning out these kinds of texts and emails, but I have since learned real people on the staffs of big shot politicos are generating most of them. Whatever they get paid to do that job, it’s too much.
Since that last email from the president, he sent me another, proclaiming I AM PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP! I haven’t heard back from you for so long. … Are you seriously ignoring me?
I was told not to reply to that email, but I can reply here by saying, I know who you are Mr. President, and there’s no need to proclaim who you are in all caps. The next thing you know, you’ll be trotting around an MMA ring in MAGA red boxing shorts shouting, “I AM THE GREATEST!”
Fortunately, I have not received texts or emails from Newsom, Harris, Schumer or Mamdani or any Democrat, socialist or communist. Nor any Democrat Socialist, nor any Democrat Communist. Not even Democrat political advisor James Carville, a fellow Louisianan, has texted or emailed. No point in reaching out to Bob, they probably concluded with Carville’s help. He’s on a first-name basis with Trump and Musk.
A famous lawyer once said that boasting and seeking praise are empty and foolish. He warned that a person who brags to gain glory from others is just “feeding himself with wind.” He also compared human pride to a mouse that falsely boasts about ruling over other mice. President Trump and Musk and Newsom and Mamdani and all the so-called political elite could do well to heed that wise man’s words.
That wise man, by the way, was Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England during the reign of King Henry VIII. As in Saint Thomas More.
The patron saint of politicians.