The Cool (Obama) And The Uncool (Trump) In Our Presidents And People

by Evert Cilliers (original visuals by David Thall)

I want to suggest a new fault line that runs through the American psyche. It's not about race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ideology (conservative or liberal, feminist or sexist), geography (north or south, east or west coast) or any of the attitudes about these basic differences.

It's about being cool or uncool.

Are you a cool American like Obama? Or an uncool American like Trump?

You can tell cool and uncool by how people walk.

Obama walks like a sleek panther, while Trump walks like a constipated duck.

Michelle walks like an athlete, while Melania walks like she's got a poker stuck up her back going all the way through her neck.

You can also tell cool and uncool from people's tastes.

When it comes to music, Obama listens to Jay Z and Florence and the Machine, while Trump listens to old-school rock 'n roll.

Obama is the first really cool president we've ever had (JFK was charismatic, but it's hard for a Catholic to be cool; Clinton was very personable, but too bubba to be cool).

Obama's style is cool. He acts cool, he looks cool, he talks cool (and inspiring when called for), his wife and kids are cool, his professorial aspect is intellectually cool, and he was widely feted abroad, with thousands listening to his pre-election speech in Berlin — because he was so damn cool.

Plus, he sounds real cool when he sings like Al Green.

That's why the younger generation went for Obama.

That's why Jon Stewart liked to have Obama on his very cool show.

Obama is as cool as our younger generations themselves.

As for Trump: well, oy goddam vey, gadzooks, holy mackerel and fuck me with a blowdryer.

The last thing this rich vulgarian is, is cool.

Trump takes uncool to the max.

The man has golden toilet seats. He sticks his name in big gold letters on everything he's associated with (it's a wonder he hasn't done it to the White House yet, and I wouldn't be surprised if he did — he's that uncool). He marries rather vacant models. His sons hunt. Ivanka can look cool, but she is the only one in the Trump family who is only halfway uncool.

Trump is vulgar. He is rude. He is crude. He is a bigot and finds "fine people" among the marchers of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK in Charlottesville.

He has encouraged the police to be brutal to people they arrest. He was disgusted because Hillary returned from the loo for a debate. He calls women pigs, and that's just for a start. He said about one woman that she bled from her "whatever." He likes the Philippine leader who tells his people to murder anyone they think is dealing or doing drugs. He likes dictators like Putin. He picks fights with the NFL, a Puerto Rican mayor, and even members of his own party

No wonder LeBron James tweets at Trump the following: "U bum."

Trump stands by hurricaned Houston, but tells Puerto Ricans, who have no power or clean drinking water — his fellow-Americans — that they want "everything done for them."

That is unbelievably uncool.

Besides being totally racist and white supremacist.

Many Americans in Trump's base are as uncool as he is. Some are a little less uncool, and some — the neo-Nazis and KKK — are even more uncool than him, if that is possible.

His appointments to Cabinet posts are very uncool, and he has filled the White House with uncool people.

So we have an uncool President who was elected by all the uncool folks in America: the Americans who seem to love their guns more than their kids; who hate gays and Muslims and Mexicans and feminists; who make up the very definition of uncool.

Yet the newest generation of Americans — the young people who love Obama and Bernie Sanders — are mostly cool.

They have no hang-ups about gays, interracial sex, or a woman's right to choose whether to have a baby or not.

When they come into the majority, America itself will become cool.

High time for that to happen.

And when these millennial types finally vote in a cool government, we will finally and actually have a cool government — just like Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Germany.

So even though you might get upset by all the preposterously uncool things that Trump has done, is doing and will do (trying to destroy Obamacare, banning Muslims from coming here, finding fault with the Dreamers Act, calling Mexican immigrants rapists, saying Obama bugged Trump Tower, and sexually assaulting women), have no fear: Trump is a passing phenomenon in our history.

Trump is the last fart of the uncool.

After Trump, America will get cooler, and in due time we'll probably be overall quite cool.

So use your cool vote in 2018 and 2020. If Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren becomes our next president, America will find itself in the happy position of being ruled by the cool pretty damn soon (without the one uncool fact about Obama, that he didn't prosecute Wall Street fraud).

Which, at that point, we will deserve — some straight-up coolth.

Having suffered enough from the uncool.

Dammit.