TRUMP

Fit this saddle

TRUMP

Simpleton Sophistication

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

             There is a saddle tree shop in Canutillo, Texas that I frequent.

            It sits near the railroad tracks north from the village center, and, it was there, I stood Sebas one day getting him fitted for a custom tree. He was fidgeting as we sat the tree on him only to go back inside and tweak and trim the uncovered pine frame for another try.

            The fidgeting only became more intense as the first train passed within 30 yards of where he stood tied to the trailer. It was bad enough without the whistle. The engineer lay on it much longer than I thought he should and we stood trying to calm the big bay horse.

The fit was still not correct so it was back to the sander along with pulling and resetting the cantle. As I sat on the tree to feel how it fit me after that adjustment, the sound of yet another train approaching prompted us to hustle back outside to be with the horse. Again, the engineer seemed to delight on standing on the whistle. He was even smiling when we made eye contact as I tried to hold the horse.

By the time he was calm enough to retie him to the trailer, it was too late to signal our own special message back to the smiling face in the lead locomotive. He was down the track and certainly out of line of sight. We could only discuss the matter and emphasize our actions if we had a chance to do it again. Better yet, we needed to finish the project and get the horse loaded and away from the tracks.

Up close and personal, trains can be disruptive. They are kind of like presidential campaigns. They are too large to ignore. They come roaring into our lives whistling and holding up traffic, and, when they do pick up steam … they run the risk of running over something and annihilating it.

Fitting saddle trees

This business about a good saddle fitting the majority of horses is nonsense. A better description might be a good saddle will fit most horses if it is big enough to pad for outliers while the rest are cloned, the same age, and the same weight.

The same reasoning can be applied if the saddle is small enough to fit the middle of the back and lay fully behind the withers. In that case, the rider has to be mini-arsed and he or she fits in a 12” tree. There just aren’t too many of those riders older than ten so that option is unsatisfactory.

It is back to the tree being large enough to pad the outliers. That means building the saddle as short as possible in length, open the front up to more than 7” across the bars, and build the gullet with at least 9” of depth. Try to find that tree on a stock rack anywhere.

The analogy is like building one size shoes for all men. The guys with sizes larger than 14 shoes would just have to wear thongs (and that does not necessarily imply the underwear variety). Everybody else would buy that size 14 EEE in whatever color you want and start stuffing them full of padding to fit.

An entirely new industry would emerge. It would evolve around the padding of feet by building socks to fill out and fit the 14 EEE shoes. Like the new hot and cold wear technology, there would be summer socks and winter socks. Professional athletes would be hired to pose with the newest offerings. Those sweating through July two-a-days would seek the new air conditioned models while the December play off cats would be wearing those toasty iterations that are guaranteed warm down to 50 below.

The fellows in thongs would become subjects of natural selection.

The point becomes if one saddle is the alternative it needs to be bigger than smaller. If multiple horses are important enough to be treated individually, they should be fitted individually. In the latter alternative, less padding is necessary, closer fit is possible, and trips to Canutillo are sanctioned without the gnashing of teeth and finding excuses to justify hauling home another new creation.

Fitting TRUMP

I am backing Trump.

Oh, yes, I have winced at the stuff he says and it is true we probably wouldn’t have been high school chums even if I had been sent to some prestigious prep school, but, right now, I am backing him. I have arrived at this decision based upon the immediate need for change. No longer can we endure the rhetoric of constitutionality and accept the reoccurrence of status quo elfdom in the aftermath.

In short, I will never again vote for anybody who hasn’t signed a paycheck in his or her private life.

Similarly, I will never again vote for anybody who has made their living off the system in any shape or form. If they haven’t devoted some efforts to primary production of goods and services, they are not experienced enough in fundamental savoir-faire to run this country much less understand constitutionality. The professional politicians are worse. They are owned by somebody, and, in every instance of making decisions between the American people and their ownership, they will side with their ownership.

Trump’s greatest asset is he isn’t owned by anybody.

Implicit in that reveals he has signed paychecks. In fact, he fits the model the Founders expected … citizen leaders who rise to the top, who will serve their nation, and then return to their businesses or their life ending pursuits within framed periods of time.

The federal government has failed in its Constitutional responsibility to manage the borders. In that shortcoming, they have promulgated regulations, corrupted laws and maintained an elitist stance that implicates the citizenry. This isn’t new. It is old news for every state post statehood on the southern border. The executive branch, with two possible exceptions, has never protected the border as set forth in the document.

Congress is demonstrably clueless.

Trump’s stance on the border is foundational. It is the single platform issue that can formulate all other policy. We either have a border or we do not. We either have a country or we do not.

So, let’s dissect how we fit the Donald into the position of President of the United States.

The president is one person so he cannot be form fitted to each state or each citizen. That is why the Framers elevated the importance of first, we the people, and then the sovereign states. In our saddle fitting analogy, therefore, he has to be expansive and there emerges a whole litany of rationale for size and scope of Donald’s reach.

Perhaps the most important and overlooked aspect of the general fitting is his political affiliation. He is running as a Republican, but his New York registration remains Independent. In the past, he has largely been aligned with liberal, mainstream radical politics of the Democratic Party. His instincts are mixed and that can be configured into importance.

Perhaps it is time to field the universal candidate. Neither party finds comfort in his presence, hence, he should alter course and run for the nomination … of both major parties.

TRUMP, the universal candidate

Since Trump is accused of being a buffoon, let’s keep it simple. We know his business savvy so it should be a mute issue. It is a given.

His first plank, therefore, is to secure the border and deal with immigration. His second and concluding plank should be to rivet the imagination and support of the American people. He should serve notice that his highest priority will be dedicated to indicting and prosecuting current and past office holders who have openly breached their constitutional oaths of office. On those two tenants, he should then take his Trump Express to the people like a train running by my parked trailer.

Quite frankly, I think it would be worth the price of admission to see Trump debate Hillary as a Democratic contender. I’d like to see him debate the other lefty candidates on the Democratic side of the ledger as well.

What would be equally thrilling, though, would be to observe him debating the field on the Republican side. Make the debates extemporaneous. No preparation or notes will be allowed, but one visual prop would be employed and that would summarize money spent by each candidate. Those monies acquired from donor extraction would be totaled in red while those monies injected by self would be summed in black. The balance would appear in real time on the dais of each individual candidate.

Then … let the spectacle begin.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “It is time for a law requiring politicians to wear sponsorship patches on their suits revealing ownership, and it is past time for a constitutional amendment for term limits.”