We the people of the great state of New Jersey were honored that the president had chosen to spend his seventeen-day vacation at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.
We realize that he is always being criticized for spending so many weekends at his resorts in Florida and Virginia. In his first six months in office, almost every weekend, coincidentally, he visited a Trump-owned commercial property, which some hostile nitpickers said was tantamount to a free infomercial for the Trump brand.
There are those who also say his “vacation” in Bedminster this time is a cover-up for his checking into a rehab facility (mental institution).
He could have picked Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach or Russia. Pres. Putin would have been happy to lend him the summer imperial presidential dacha and golf course on the Black Sea, fit for a USA super czar like him.
Especially after the president thanked his best bud Putin for making us axe 750 employees in our embassy in Moscow. It helped cut the payroll, as he explained.
Of course, not all of us were thrilled by the vacation visit. There were those of us who were unhappy because we couldn’t land our jets at the nearest airport (Morristown Municipal). As a taxpayer, I always thought it was cost-ineffective for him to gas up and fly that monster from Washington or Manhattan to New Jersey for a few rounds of golf at his Bedminster rest home. Cheaper to go by bus. Or call Uber.
Air Farce One is now parked on the runway in Morristown like a beached whale in case the president wants to go out for a spin to Manhattan or savor the cuisine of New Jersey.
Not only is New Jersey the only state that had as its governor Chris Christie—who managed to achieve the lowest gubernatorial approval ratings in history, at least partly due to his friendship with the president—it’s also the fast-food capital of the nation.
As a campaign strategy, His Hungryness Christie pledged to dine in every fast-food franchise on Route 22 between Newark and Phillipsburg in Lopatcong, and he more than fulfilled that promise. Taking the Chris Christie Gourmet Tour, in between exercising in the official presidential golfmobile, may be the reason the president’s jackets are never buttoned.
We also like to think the president chose to get away to New Jersey for a breath of fresh air. Trump’s elimination of pollution regulations nationwide is New Jersey–friendly. We only believe in air we can see.
With a clear head in the New Jersey environment, the president has been able to deal with issues that have befuddled his predecessors.
It is in New Jersey, future historians will note, that the president was able to roll up his sleeves and deal with the North Korea missile crisis thing.
So what if his willingness to get tough with that “total nutjob,” as he called the North Korean president during the campaign, in his historic “fire and fury” tirade might lead to a nuclear attack on Guam.
It would be good for tourism, as he suggested to the governor of Guam. He saw a flood of tourists who might want to experience the threat of incineration at the epicenter of a nuke holocaust.
As Guam goes, the Trump Doctrine might suggest, so go Wake Island and American Samoa.
At this point, it’s speculation but the fine points of the Trump Doctrine may have been hammered out in consultation with his host, former transition head, Chris Christie.7 If he was president, our Jersey boy might have said to Pres. Kim, “Shut the hell up, and go get a haircut.”
Having said all of this, I still wish the president would be vacationing in the DMZ.
At the risk of sounding un-American, I worry about bellicose nuke rattling. North Korean missile technology is still in the back-to-the-drawing-board stage. Aimed at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster in Somerset County, their missiles might land in my backyard in Bergen County, an acceptable error of twenty-three miles. Call me unpatriotic, but I have just finished paying for replacing our gutters.