In 1992, then Vice President Dan Quayle became an object of ridicule when he famously told an elementary school class that “potato” was spelled “potatoe.”

Today, we are constantly entertained — if you can call it entertainment — by Donald Trump’s steady flow of nonsense, both verbal and written.

Who doesn’t remember “yo-semite” (for Yosemite)? Or renaming the entire nation of Namibia “Nambia?” And the next generation of history books will be sure to record the unforgettable “covfefe.”

When I hear or read these incomprehensible utterances from the self-anointed stable genius, one other word immediately comes to mind.

In 1871, Lewis Carroll published a novel titled “Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.” And contained within that novel was a poem he called“Jabberwocky” — seven stanzas of pure nonsense about slithy toves and borogoves and mome raths outgrabe.

And that is what Donald Trump’s speeches have increasingly become: an endless stream of Jabberwocky.

Oddly — and a little frighteningly — one verse of the original poem in particular actually seems to make sense in the context of today’s world. It’s almost as though the author had peered forward through 155 years of mist, across the Atlantic Ocean, and into the building at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., in Washington, D.C., where he was inspired by a large orange-faced man furiously spewing forth totally incomprehensible word salad in a language only slightly resembling English.

Then I visualized Carroll sitting down and issuing this warning to the American people of the future:

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

But apparently I’m not the first to have made the connection, because I also found this on the internet:

And I thought: “Beware the Frumious Bandersnatch”

“Beware,” indeed!

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
10/31/26