In 2005, British director Neil Marshall created a movie called The Descent, in which a group of friends become trapped in a cave with what they eventually realize are eyeless subterranean humanoids with a desperate craving for their terrified flesh. But what the ruthless ghouls lack in sight, they make up for in sense of smell, meaning they’re more than worthy adversaries for the women who have mistakenly stumbled into their turf.
I bring this up now because Donald Trump today made clear that he is indeed of the same species as the slimy blind goblins, a fact he confirmed after confusing two Finnish journalists who happened to be sitting next to each other during a press conference with President Sauli Niinistö. At the conclusion of the conference, Niinistö took a final question from a reporter. Trump, ever the arbiter of fairness and equality, expressed concern that Niinistö was calling upon one of the women for a second time:
“Again? You’re going to give her the same one?” Trump said accusingly.
“No, she is not the same lady,” Niinistö answered. “They are sitting side by side.”
“We have a lot of blonde women in Finland,” the journalist asking the question said as she took the mic for the first time.
Some have passed off Trump’s inability to distinguish the women as eclipse blindness or idiocy, but the truth is that, like most troglodytic beings, he has simply lost his ability to see thanks to thousands of years of evolution. Like his celluloid brethren, he relies instead on a highly discerning nose and sensitivity to movement to capture his prey. [Warning: I may have a childlike threshold for terror, but this is legit harrowing.]
If you’re thinking that these creatures appear much more svelte and agile than Trump, that’s due simply to his distaste for physical exertion. Trust me, if you planted one of them in a chair in front of Fox News and kept it on a steady diet of KFC and overcooked steaks for 20 years or so, I promise you they’d be virtually indistinguishable.