Every day the naked American emperor stalks us, hollering in the hallways, screeching from the screen, demanding attention, and who can avert their eyes from him, his enormous hairy hindquarters, his baggy pectorals and jowls, his tiny privates squiggled up under his protuberant belly, his bared teeth, the glare of his stare, the shouts of “Deranged!” and “Leftist!” and “Weaponization of Witches!” and how can other Republican candidates compete against this Enormity, this Never Before Seen, this Once in a Lifetime Solar Eclipse and Monsoon of a Man?

They can’t. They talk to six customers in a café in Grover’s Corners or address a couple dozen loafers in a Legion club or appear at a Pumpkin Fest in Plimptonville, meanwhile the World’s Greatest American commands millions of eyeballs every time he belches, his every twitch and tremor is discussed by a hundred columnists, he is in our dreams, every time we hit a bump or feel a lump or take a dump, we think of him.

I feel sorry for Nikki Haley. She has dignity, she often states facts (“Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber,” she said to the smarmy Ramaswamy), she has a fine up-from-the-basement life story, she is not under indictment anywhere in the land, but now she is being talked about as the Behemoth’s possible running mate. Think of it, the prospect of being hitched to this landslide of a man, listening to him snarkle and blather and chortle hour after hour, like taking a job as cleaning lady in the Elephant Pavilion.