Having gazed out of a St. Andrews University dorm window at the Old Course and seen only hazards like gullies, grazing cows and cow pies, I can vouch that golf and gators don't mix. This was confirmed when I lived in Savannah, Georgia: There and in nearby Hilton Head, South Carolina, fat-cat golfers feeling around for balls in water hazards sometimes lost hands, arms or legs.
To celebrate our 250th anniversary as a nation, our golfing President Donald Trump had a similar gator habitat created in the National Mall's reflecting pool, turning it into a veritable cesspool of puke-green algae. He blames vandals, but that's rich coming from a world-class vandal, who pollutes, ruins, or destroys everything he touches.
The word "vandal," by the way, comes from the Vandals, Germanic barbarians who sacked Rome in 455 A.D. and — with help from Roman infighting, unfit emperors, and rampant corruption — precipitated the fall of the Western Empire in 476. Could this etymology be somehow relevant today? Human history does tend to repeat itself.
But back to the alligator allegory: The National Mall's toxic reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial has become a media symbol for the Trump administration's confusion, chaos and corruption. But the static symbol doesn't do Trump justice; it doesn't forecast the dynamic consequences yet to come.
To capture that dynamism, you've got to have an allegory, a story with an ending, like John Bunyan's classic Christian allegory "The Pilgrim's Progress" (1678). Just don’t expect any progress here, only massive consequences, maybe suddenly. For that, you need lurking alligators.
The gators are coming for us all
I'm afraid it won't be long before gators take up residence in our national cesspool. There is already abundant evidence that with global warming (which Trump denies) not only desperate immigrants, but catastrophic weather events, pandemics and invasive species are headed our way. It's only a matter of time.
One new gator species is a northern type that has developed, known as Greenlandia freezum. It catches prey by first giving it frostbite or freezing it solid. That way, the gator can preserve it, consume it slowly, or transport it for consumption in Europe, where breeding Greenlandia freezum has become popular.
It's rumored one of these little gator pets bit Trump's butt when he got close with Italy's pretty Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on a small couch recently at an economic conference. What does it take for Trump to learn? His mother was born and raised in Scotland (Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides) and Trump owns golf courses there, but are the Scots proud of him? No, they disown him.
Another gator type, a native species that apparently has been breeding covertly for a while, is the Epsteinian youngun. This gator is said to prefer tender young girls, which it consumes by the dozens, so it is particularly dangerous. Let's hope it doesn't take up residence in Washington.
Some Trump supporters claim women of all ages can be reassured by his famous 2024 campaign promise: "You will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared. You will be protected, and I will be your protector." But this vague statement could refer to overturning Roe v. Wade and protecting women from transgender athletes.
Still another gator species, notable for taking over whole waterways, is the Iranian uranum, nicknamed "the Curse of God" because it was put on Earth to harass the human race. This deadly creature is radioactive, definitely not an animal you want to let into the country. But I'm told the Geiger counters are off the scale around the Persian Gulf, Israel, and now our own Cesspool Central.
It's hard to believe there's a worse gator than Iranian uranum, but there is. It's another native, and it's called Oligarlicky oilum, an obscene, stinky species that claims to represent the best of our country, the tiny top .01%. But they're gigantic monsters that eat up everything and everybody and are even cannibalistic.
With creatures like these moving in, the nation might not survive two or more years of Trump. But hope remains that Republicans will use the 25th Amendment to remove him, or Democrats will gain enough Congressional seats in the 2026 election to impeach him (for the third time).
Or maybe Trump will not only be impeached but permanently housed with his gators on Mar-a-Lago ("sea to lake") or in Alligator Alcatraz. Now that's justice.
Harold Branam is an old West Virginia guy living along country roads. He was a Marshall Scholar in England, an assistant editor of the first "International Encyclopedia of Communications," and a professor and chairman of English.
