NEW YORK — Upset that he’d been impeached, President Trump was having trouble falling asleep one recent night. So his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared were reading bedtime stories to him to help him relax. When nothing seemed to be working, they turned to reading him principles of Judaism, and one had him fully engaged.
It was the Tikkun Olam precept, the requirement that, while the world is innately good, every person should strive to repair or improve it.
The words themselves, as well as the principle, delighted the president. “That could be the story of my life in a nutshell,” he declared. “Remember the old wristwatch commercial –‘takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’? Well I can change ‘tickin’ to ‘Tikkun’ and use it in my reelection campaign speeches to Jewish audiences.”
Without being asked to specify the ‘lickins” he’s taken, Trump observed, “Just being president has cost me millions. But that’s okay. More than anything,I want to serve our great country.”
Among his “remarkable accomplishments,” in this regard, he cited keeping out undesirables. “The fake media criticized me for keeping foreign kids in cages, but trust me, to them it’s like being in sleep-away camp. Separating them from their parents, he said,” is all part of keeping undesirables out of the country.” Reminded that many Jews also had parents and grandparents seeking asylum in the United States. as they fled tyranny and possible extermination, Trump responded, “But they were documented.”
He boasted that he succeeded in getting the U.S. out of “unfair alliances that drained our treasury.. No more ‘Uncle Sap for Uncle Sam,’ he said, and mentioned he was particularly proud of leaving the Iran agreement. He said he couldn’t believe “We gave those terrorist monsters millions in cash.’ Reminded that the funds were Iran’s originally, he said, “So?”
On what he termed the plus side in international relations, Trump said he was responsible for “great relations” with Vladimir Putin and the president of Turkey, “when it wasn’t even Thanksgiving. (Turkey, Thanksgiving. Get it?” he roared). Un is a little bit of a mystery, but he’ll come around.”
The president also took credit for taking U.S. troops out of northern Syria. Reminded that the action had left Kurdish troops vulnerable, he said, “They’re great fighters who love being on their own.”
Reminded, too, about his holding up military aid to Ukraine, authorized by Congress, action that resulted in many Ukrainian deaths at the hands of Russian invaders, the president said, “Rooting out corruption — especially with the Bidens–is our number-one priority.”
At home, meanwhlle, he bragged about the state of employment. “Unemployment,” he said, is way down for African-Americans, for women, for Galitizianers (whoever they are),” he said. “Some workers are even holding two and three jobs, and doing very, very well, thanks to the Trump administration.”
“Also, I’ve given corporations big tax breaks, which will filter down to workers.”When? he was asked. “Eventually,” he said. “Obama and crooked Hillary never did anything for our working class.”
Among other proud achievements, he named defeating the “phony climate-change hoax, by lifting what he called “monetary punishments,” and “convincing good ole Mitch McConnell to work hand in glove with the White House on those phony impeachment hearings. Also we shook up our complacent intelligence agencies.”
On guns,”No one’s protected the Second Amendment like I have, or saved the coal industry, or fought the fakers in health insurance. I was born” should not be a qualifying pre-existing condition…”
All things considered, Trump said, he planned to establish a Tikkun Olam. Award. “Of course,” he commented, ” everyone’s going to insist that I get the award first, and l would l have to accept. Winners after me? Who cares? it won’t be an election year for me.”
But in any case, he’s confident he’s going to “keep on Tikkun.”
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Readers unfamiliar with Joel Cohen’s “Just Kidding” column are assured it is satire and nothing should be taken seriously.