Thank you for selecting Lefty Blue’s Animal Tours as an entertainment destination. We are quite certain that you will enjoy your time with us as we explore the darkest corners of uncivilized society. For today’s adventure, we will be visiting the Soulless Bushlands, the Lower Regions of Moralitavia, and Mar-a-Lago. Hope you brought your camera!

However, before we climb into the eco-friendly bus that absolutely terrifies the Trumpicans, there are a few legal matters which we must address. It’s a bit boring and dreary, I’m afraid, but our lawyers make us do this after that horrible incident last month in Texas when a tourist stupidly dangled a microphone in front of a Feathered Perry and it went on a rampage of mendacity and disillusion.

As many wildlife experts will confirm, in order to survive encounters with the Trumpican species, it is critical that you fully understand the mating habits, hunting patterns and general mental instability of creatures without a moral compass. Once you can identify the following distinctive traits of a Trumpican, and learn how to react accordingly, your journey with us will be a safe, harmonious, and progressive experience.

1. Trumpicans have limited olfactory senses.

For example, they cannot detect the aromas of truth, honesty and documented facts. They will wander right past the trees of knowledge and not even realize they are in a forest.

Recommended reaction: Do not try to lure and catch Trumpicans using truth as bait. They won’t know what it is or what to do with it.

2. Trumpicans exhibit a great talent for mimicry.

Like other brightly-colored birds that do little more than make a lot of noise and leave droppings, Trumpicans will endlessly repeat the words and phrases taught to them by other Trumpicans. Additionally, they all tend to groom themselves in the same manner, wear the same expensive but boring clothing, and watch the same faux news programs.

Recommended reaction: You only need to talk to one Trumpican, one time, and you will know everything that they all think they know.

3. Trumpicans have a natural predatory instinct for other people’s money.

Trumpicans become greatly agitated when other species obtain money via legitimate endeavors such as gainful employment or the distribution of social welfare allotments. Once provoked and enraged by the mystifyingly offensive sight of people being rewarded for good behavior, the Trumpican will endlessly strive to divert the revenue streams of others into their own fouled nest.

Recommended reaction: Never allow a Trumpican to come within 500 feet of your piggy bank, retirement account, or branch of Congress.

4. Trumpicans have an inherent flight instinct when it comes to socialism.

Despite not really understanding what it is or how it works, a Trumpican will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid anything which they have identified as socialist. However, recent anthropological studies have shown that Trumpicans are just fine with socialism as long as they are the intended recipient of goods and services and not anyone else. Therefore, a better definition of socialism from the Trumpican perspective is “anything that wasn’t my idea or doesn’t make me money”.

Recommended reaction: If you come across an agitated, socially-confused Trumpican on a stretch of jungle path, turn and go another way. You certainly don’t want to go anywhere they’ve just come from, as anything of value in that direction has already been stolen or defiled.

5. Trumpicans have an interesting manner of breeding.

Trumpicans are almost rabidly interested in the fertilized egg of females that are not their own, going to great lengths to sustain the embryo and give it voting rights in Presidential elections, even if the affected female has other plans. However, once the child is actually born, a Trumpican wants nothing to do with the nourishment, education and cultural-enhancement of the little tyke, leaving it to make its own way in a world it did not create.

Recommended reaction: Ensure that wiser people are appointed to tribal council so that the Trumpican can only speak for his own body.

6. Trumpicans have a curious mythology as the basis of their religion.

Scientists have reported that, although the Trumpican religion shares certain key phrases with some other faith-based practices found in the animal kingdom, such as “Bible” and “Jesus” and “tax exempt”, these phrases have a completely different connotation in the Trumpican ideology, often contradicting absolutely with the precepts of other religions. In fact, the most recent study found that the seal on their Bibles had not even been broken, thus indicating that the tomes are used merely as pageantry props and not as educational materials.

Recommended reaction: Isolate and quarantine the affected Trumpicans until a proper vaccine has been developed and authorized. This may take some time, especially since we don’t know where the hell those people got their ideas.

7. Trumpicans often have split personalities.

This results in Trumpicans who pass anti-gay legislation and then head to the leather bars wearing nothing but chaps and a lecherous grin, Trumpicans who rail about the sanctity of marriage and then fornicate with anything that moves, and Trumpicans who get rapturous about the need for a strong military but won’t spend a penny to make sure the enlisted men and women are comfortable and protected while deployed or able to make a living when they come back home.

Recommended reaction: As mentioned, don’t allow Trumpicans to run for tribal council. Instead, have them perform on Broadway. They’re very good at make-believe and singing pretty songs that don’t really mean anything.

8. Trumpicans suffer from the most acute instances of memory loss ever observed in any species on the planet.

This topic-specific mental degeneration strangely seems to cycle along with presidential elections, with Trumpicans accusing non-Trumpicans of performing acts that past Trumpicans have also done, blaming non-Trumpicans for something they didn’t do but that Trumpicans are responsible for, and completely forgetting that we live in an age of video cameras capturing Trumpicans saying something they claim they never said.

Recommended reaction: If a Trumpican is speaking, change the channel. He’ll deny whatever he’s saying in a few days anyway, so why bother listening.

9. Trumpicans have a very strong drive to get at the top of the pecking order.

They will do anything to win. Anything. Even if it means millions of people lose their jobs, millions can’t get a decent education, and millions suffer from legislated poverty. This is why the other animals run away when the Trumpicans come to drink at the watering hole on the game preserve. Who wants to share anything that’s been tongued by that?

Recommended reaction: Don’t vote for them. Ever.

10. Trumpicans are on the Endangered Species List.

The glory of it all is that society always, eventually, moves forward. The Trumpicans have degenerated into a writhing, biting, swamp of inhumanity that has no morals and serves no purpose other than the growth and retention of obscene, ill-got wealth. Natural selection, the will of the common people, and human decency will prevail at some point, the cancer will eat itself, and history will look back at this current time as a moment when certain people coalesced into a monster of greed that was finally slain, forced back into the primordial ooze that Trumpicans swear never even existed.

Recommended reaction: Smile. It will happen. Stay strong.

Peace.

Originally published in “The Sound and the Fury” on 10/28/11. Interestingly enough, I only had to make one mass change on a single word, and this piece was instantly up-to-date. Go figure. Some birds try to fly, others refuse to leave the cave.

Housekeeping note: I show that I still have two remaining entries for the 3-Word Challenge, one from Lynette and one from Barb Taub. Aside from those two lovely ladies, if you have entered the challenge but haven’t yet been featured, please berate me gently in the comments. It’s very possible that I have misplaced or overlooked something, not the first time I have done such in my life. And for those of you who may still be tinkering with your creations, please don’t feel rushed. All in good time.