Thomas Holctoft: Lawyer Doublefee (1806)
from Henry Fielding's 1742 novel
The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews
and of his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams.

" … They exclusively worship craven images."

NextWorld seems full of imaginary enemies. Former friends and associates apparently turned on us, though I remain unsure just what their infraction was. One morning, I learned that they were also vilified. I wondered if we would have any allies left at the rate we seemed to be chasing them off. Trust collapsed into enmity. Dignity coalesced into infamy. Cooperations evaporated into clouds of obvious Dis-information. Praise became distrust. Admiration turned into public Dis-gust. The incumbent couldn't say enough bad things about anybody. Fascism apparently thrives on a steady diet of imaginary enemies.

But it's not only trading partners who receive these bum's rush characterizations. Individuals and practices are also lined up in successive firing squads. Traditions can't escape this treatment, either. Even the sacred seems fair game, so much the worse for all those so-called Christians. He slices every demographic into Us-es and Thems. The thems can never again be considered our friends. He encourages the enmity with a steady patter of supportive Dis-information, none of which qualifies as accurate, though he seems to think it somehow useful. I suspect it might be impossible to undermine an otherwise stable governance merely by utilizing truths. He must vilify self-evidence itself so people come to question their own perspective to rely upon his. Many of his characterizations, though, seem damnedably difficult to swallow whole.

His base seems willing and able to swallow even the most fantastic Dis-, and even seems appreciative of the meals. The rest of us register our own Dis-trust over how he plates up his entrees. Rebutting becomes exhausting, especially when most of the assertions seem Dis-gusting and absurd. He plans to prosecute under civil rights laws private companies practicing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. Criminializing decency? He continually renders himself merely petty. His skin thins considerably once he assumes office. He can at best assume an office he was always unfit to fulfill. He won't rest until he kills the spirit of every patriot or a preponderence of patriots find a way to kill his malign ambition.

We wonder what he thinks he's gaining, for he seems to lose every attempt to initiate anything. He directs his minions to blow something up, and then the courts direct them to glue Humpty Dumpty back together again. He disses the judicial system—everything except himself. His minions learn soon enough that they never served as his pleasure but exclusively at his eventual Dis-gust. The terms of their engagement insisted that they place their heads on a chopping block. They live a whim away from oblivion.

The incumbent has no friends, for they seem far too expensive even for one of the self-proclaimed wealthiest persons. He claims to have had friends in the past, though each eventually turned traitor. It became convenient to scapegoat them or otherwise distance himself from their Dis-order, lest it be cited as his. (It was.) Many of them were indicted, convicted, and then pardoned. The final act in their relationship became that curious ressurection. They were not restored to their previous position. They would be ignored going forward, lest their transgressions somehow smear off on their savior. Even their salvation must be treated as a crime. They might be released but never forgiven. Forgiveness requires a soul, and we see no evidence that our current incumbent ever had one of those.

He might have been born with a soul but bartered it away to some youthful Mephistopheles, who promised him riches and fame before he suspected he could only lose at that game. He achieved his riches then lost them in rapid succession, innumerable times. His fames, too, were fleeting, beginning with promise before inevitably ending in infamy. He was prosecuted many times and almost always lost, but he never learned a lesson other than that crime pays pretty well, if only temporarily. This encouraged him always to plot a successor crime and have another one in the wings. He also learned to avoid partners, replacing them with suckers instead. A sucker believes the banter. They suffer from gold nuggets in their head. They parrot the party line until they become the catch of the day. They also learn to Dis- everything they encounter, but never with the aplomb their idol exhibits. They exclusively worship craven images.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #NextWorld, #PureSchmaltz