Bodybuilders, Tarts, And Walkin' Around Money - Beating Trump At His Own Game

Arnold Schwarzenegger started off his career as a bodybuilder, then Hollywood actor, then two-time Governor of California.  There was something virile and queer about the idea of a Venice Beach muscle man that appealed to liberal Democrats.  Two-in-one, they said when thinking of the future, consolidate the gay contingent and appeal to young straight men. 

 

So they tapped Marcelo Fenn, one of the regulars on the beach for a starring role in a campaign ad aimed at consolidating a Democratic majority in the House.  No bodybuilder on Venice beach was straight, and anyone passing by would know at a glance. Queer as can be, all bulging glistening muscles, tight little bikini, and cute spotters.  The word 'muscle' comes from the Latin for 'mouse', for the Ancient Romans thought that a he-man's twitching biceps looked like a wriggling mouse.  How gay!

In any case Marcelo claimed he was straight but that was for commercial purposes, for he had the former California governor in mind as he did his sets on the beach.  Yes, being that kind of buff was an insular thing, a gay thing, not like in the old days when kids looked at Conan the Barbarian and Hercules in New York as just great action flicks.  No, Venice beach was one thing and one thing only, so if Marcelo was to pursue his political ambitions, he would have to lose the thong and the Coppertone and dress the part. 

To keep bread on the table, he continued his job as Master Trainer at Pietro's Gym in Redondo, but worked his way up the political ladder, first as a willing and tireless volunteer for Alderman Harlan Oates, then mayoral candidate, Bettina Robes, then for Patterson Ilk, aspiring Congressman from California's Thirty-Third district.  Finally, noticed by Harlan Adams, the Democratic party's outreach managers to the gay community charged with assembling an 'alternative' campaign nucleus, Marcelo was tapped to be an important Democratic operative, a 'swing' campaigner, reaching out to both sides of the gender aisle. 

The second most important and unlikely member of the newly-formed outreach team, was Wanda Fobbs, an octoroon pole dancer from Louisiana who was famous for her provocative, tarty, low-brow routines that had great appeal among the white dock workers at the Port of New Orleans.  Her sultry looks, her sinuous, raw sexuality, and almost irresistible appeal, made her one of the Quarter's biggest attractions. 

Wanda (nee Betty Barnes) was, like Marcelo, ambitious.  Turning pole dancing into higher office was not a routine affair, but someone with her brains, seductive charm, and easy companionship were made for politics, and, again like Marcelo, decided to make her way in the electoral arena.  First ward heeler, then alderman's aide, then mayoral campaign liaison to the North Ward, and finally in the train of her Congressman running for re-election, she was realizing her dream.

The reason for the success of both Marcelo and Wanda was not their sharp political insights or their agile intelligence, but their low-end personas.  They were at home in the seediest, tackiest, most disreputable places.  Venice Beach was a tourist attraction exactly because of its sideshow appeal.  These beefy queer guys in thongs and barbells were not real, they were Barnum & Bailey inventions, tarted up and tricked out for paying customers; but no one could doubt their presence.  It was hard not to look at these grotesque creatures, tiny heads on swollen, impossibly muscled bodies; and they knew it. Marcelo was a crowd pleaser par excellence. 

The clubs were Wanda appeared had the same appeal.  Wanda couldn't possibly be real, slithering up and down the pole, pussy hard by, eyes closed in ecstasy.  She had to be an invention, but what a creation! It was this innate sense of crowd appeal which lent her imagination to politics, and she was as right as rain.  

Harlan Adams knew right off that Wanda was exactly the right person to appeal to dockers, longshoremen, long-haul truckers, pipe fitters, mechanics, and crane operators.  The working class, the unvarnished, unpretentious, down the line rutters and solid Democrats who, under the DEI, race-gender-ethnicity progressive things, began to doubt their allegiance 

The final member of the select Democrat campaign team was Pharoah Jones, otherwise known as The King of Anacostia, Washington, DC's most blighted, crime-ridden, drug-addled inner city neighborhood.  Jones was a pimp, a drug dealer, a numbers runner, and a fixer.  He was smart, able, opportunistic, and without an iota of moral compunction.  He was up for anything. 

As such he attracted the attention of DC politicians who needed an operative in Ward 8, someone who could spread the generous walkin' around money they had in their personal treasuries.  Jones could buy votes like nobody's business.  He exacted promises for a generous 'emolument' but was there as an enforcer if the returns were not commensurate with his payouts. 

The black inner city community was infamous for its indifference to the vote.  Residents were happy enough to live and let live, or better put, their off-the-grid livelihoods were more than enough.  Dismissed by the white people of Ward 3, Upper Northwest's patrician elite who wished that everything in  Washington east of the Anacostia River would suddenly hive off and drift out to sea, black men could do without them, forge their own destiny. 

It was not surprising, then, that Pharoah Jones came to the attention of Harlan Adams.  He was exactly the man he was looking for - a smart, street savvy, opportunistic, ambitious black man who could work wonders with the inner city for the Democrat party. 

Now, there were many important Democrat constituencies that Harlan needed to serve, the lesbian and transgender communities to name just two; but with Marcelo, Wanda, and Pharoah he felt he had the hard core around which a truly diverse, influential team could be built. 

This would show that homophobic, racist bigot Trump! and beat him at his own game.  He was one for identity politics - what with his white, blonde air-heads, his yachts, mansions, Mar-a-Lago, golf courses and ditzy, bourgeois ballrooms and arches.  He played gutter politics and made it seem like high-class noblesse oblige.  

In contrast to Harlan's engagement of prime Democrat constituencies with respect, Trump pandered, threw red meat to his MAGA wingnuts, and made it all look like passionate leadership. Two could play that game, but Harlan's was honorable. 

It wasn't long before the triad of Marcelo, Wanda, and Pharoah began to bicker.  That's what happens when you get newly entitled bitches together, said Harlan; but he had a hard time separating them, and election time was coming up.  He needed them out their hustling, not sitting here on Capitol Hill in a cat fight. 

It didn't work of course - the diversity cabal, that is.  The Trump legions were everywhere and routing Democrat candidates who still hung on to transgender surgery, up-to-the-last-minute abortion, jungle tom-toms everywhere, the primacy of the undocumented, and all the rest. 

Harlan was undaunted.  'I did my best'.  It was just that he underestimated the feistiness of the diverse and the food fights that they seemed always to have.  

'Better luck next time', said one of Trump's advance men who was a collegial adversary of Harlan who was already planning an even more aggressive outreach into Maine of all places.