Honoré-Victorin Daumier: The Election Hoax
[La carotte de l'élection] (1844)

A caricature depicting a politician addressing a peasant family. The politician offers a carrot to the family, symbolizing the false promises made to voters.

"How did Decency get so lucky? It was probably the result of Hoaxes."

Decency might occasionally be subjected to some Hoaxes, though most were probably intended as April Fool jokes. I wonder what it means when someone seems continuously bedeviled by Hoaxes, where hardly any situation doesn’t come with a hint or a suggestion of nefarious Hoaxing. In my own short lifetime, I recall encountering fewer than a spare handful of Hoaxes, and none of those seemed in any way malicious. Our incumbent seems immersed lip-deep in a swirling cesspool of them, with some new one appearing almost every news cycle. I wonder what sort of curse might be behind such an infestation, for I swear I’ve never even heard mention of anyone, not even the most tragic Shakespearean character, more beset with such toils and troubles. To listen to the press secretary, her boss must be the most unjustly accused since Moses, and Pharaohs were notoriously intolerant.

It’s one thing to fall victim to Hoaxes, but quite another to publicly proclaim oneself a victim of them. In most cases, serious Hoaxes seem unspeakable. The last thing some rube ever wants to do involves confessing that they became a victim. Most Hoaxes seem transparent when viewed from any distance. Most people fail to see how the victim ever found the false premise attractive. A few might conspire to pull a little wool over someone’s eyes, but vast conspiracies involving large communities seem wholly unbelievable. Who could keep the secret secure until the Hoax went down? Some loose lips would surely result in sinking that ship before it ever sailed, but our incumbent seems to proudly proclaim his repeated victimhood. He’s attracted Hoaxes like flowers attract bees. To hear his stories, he continually attracts swarms.

Yet he seems to fall for each one in turn, only later realizing that his lunch money was stolen. Then he reports the infraction not to any proper policing authority, but to the nation. It’s as if he repeatedly nails himself to the same damned cross and then suffers for his faith in public. Why was he smiling when he announced his latest victimhood? The reveal seems far too familiar. Shouldn’t anyone so experienced at being the victim eventually see the next one coming? Couldn’t someone with access to vast resources manage to successfully avoid at least a few of the lamer attempts to swipe his lunch? A time comes when the victim seems complicit. If everywhere you go smells like dog shit, consider checking your own shoes next.

Decency sometimes gets taken mean advantage of. The unscrupulous are in business for the sole purpose of accomplishing that, but Decency rarely seems to become a serial victim. Their victimhood seems noteworthy because it’s so damned rare. Besides, he’s apt to keep even those rare occasions to himself, choosing not to become a spectacle. He might quietly cooperate with authorities to chase down an egregious perpetrator, but Decency never becomes a regular proclaimer of having been fooled. Maybe Decency understands that he ultimately stands alone, responsible for whatever outcome might befall him. Nobody’s victim, Decency stands tall even when—especially when—he might choose to quietly take a fall.

An old saying suggests that it might be best to simply be lucky. If this rings true, we might wonder what we thought we were doing when we elected an individual with the most impressive history of unfortunate experiences ever recorded. Our incumbent might as well have been born with a lead boot stuck up his butt, as tragic as he’s been. Though he inherited a small fortune, a series of Hoaxes apparently quickly drained that away. To hear him tell the story, it was a good thing he hadn’t inherited more because Hoaxes would have probably stolen that fortune, too. He was as unlucky in love as he was in business, with each relationship heading south and wives turning into Hoaxers. Business associates, too, took serial advantage of his beneficence. He seems to view himself as a modern-day St. Francis, with stigmata inflicted by Hoaxers. Few people in the history of the world were more set upon than our incumbent, our Job of an incumbent. No wonder he continuously lashes out at Decency. How did Decency get so lucky? It was probably the result of Hoaxes.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Decency, #PureSchmaltz