Wretched Cur - A Tale of Two Men - Based on Book, The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

 

The President of the United States Is a Wretched Cur!

Trump’s Insults Toward Rob Reiner and Hardy’s Henchard

A few weeks ago, I penned a piece in which I described the United States President as a “wretched cur!” It was a reference from a novel I was required to read as a high school senior, titled The Mayor of Casterbridge, written by Thomas Hardy, about a once very popular mayor, Michael Henchard, who had fallen out of office and was on hard times. He sold his wife at the town fair. This act is akin to a 21st-century American President burying his first wife on his golf course so he can receive a tax break on the golf course property.

The tragic deaths of Rob and Michele Reiner on December 14, 2025, allegedly at the hands of their son Nick, shocked Hollywood and the wider public. Yet what compounded grief was Donald Trump’s response. Instead of offering condolences, Trump used the moment to berate Reiner in death, attributing his murder to “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and later doubling down by calling him “deranged” and “bad for our country.”

When I wrote that piece, I felt compelled to turn Henchard’s words, therefore, Trump’s words, back on him. “Out of my sight, wretched cur!” Trump is alive, but if I were to pen an Obit at his demise, I think that line from Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge would sum up the sentiment of many people worldwide.

Let’s compare Henchard and Trump.

As Henchard’s public life declines, his protégé, an Irishman named Donald Farfrae, rises in the world of business and politics. Henchard, like Trump, can’t abide the rise of someone he once thought was beneath him, so he latches out at Farfrae with the vilest of language.

This rhetorical move exemplifies Trump’s tendency to weaponize insults, even in contexts that demand compassion. His words sought not only to dismiss Reiner’s political opposition but to destroy his persona in death, reframing a family tragedy as political theater.

What can we learn from Hardy’s overarching theme in The Mayor of Casterbridge?

Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge offers a literary parallel. Michael Henchard, once a respected mayor, descends into bitterness and jealousy. His insult— “Out of my sight, wretched cur!”—directed at his rival Donald Farfrae, is not strategic but impulsive. Hardy shows how Henchard’s vindictive language overreaches: it does not merely wound Farfrae, it corrodes Henchard himself. The insult becomes a mirror, reflecting Henchard’s unraveling character and accelerating his downfall.

Hardy’s theme is clear: vindictive language destroys not only the target’s dignity but also the speaker’s moral standing. The overreach lies in the attempt to annihilate another’s persona, which inevitably exposes the speaker’s own flaws.

Both Trump and Henchard demonstrate the destructive overreach of vindictive language. Trump’s berating of Rob Reiner in death shows how insult can corrode the dignity of leadership, while Hardy’s Henchard illustrates how insult corrodes the dignity of the self. In both cases, the attempt to destroy another’s persona ultimately diminishes the speaker most of all.

Given the “wretched cur’s” remarks at the killing of beloved actor and producer Rob Reiner, is it appropriate to write about how snarled and knotted the mind of the “wretched cur” is when he sleeps? Should journalists who describe the “wretched cur” in death as the miserable facsimile of a human that he is lose their jobs, as many did on reporting on the assassination of Charlie Kirk?

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that in death as in life, there is no good way to describe Trump. Any attempt to do so at his demise would torture the English language to the point of making it unrecognizable. How can the country mourn and honor a life full of bombast, manure, and self-loathing without defining itself as bombastic, full of manure, and stuck on itself? Why bother to lower the flag or give a 21-gun salute?

Without malice or vindictiveness, “Out of my sight, wretched cur!”

!!!!

Thank you Michael,

'Nuf Said!

Gabby

It was in the Early 1960s that Records and Book Security Became Part of My Life... Looking at Today's Disregard of National Security by Former US President

 

For whatever reason, I was hired into positions, from the very first, of dealing with secure and confidential issues for a major land-grant university. My first job was to handle the employee records, which included, the introduction of all benefits and financial matters that needed to be addressed upon employment. 

All of those important employment documents were immediately delivered by me to the Payroll Office, to ensure that each employee would begin to be paid...

Of course, I appreciated the element of trust that was placed upon my first position, and, later, as I gained more and more access to what are considered confidential, highly secured records. For instance, I was involved in creating options for annual pay raises to be explored by central administrators. As you probably can guess, that was a bit of information that would be important to all employees if they could gain awareness of the amount, or that there would be no increases...which did happen from time to time. By that time, my mother was also employed on campus and she and I specifically talked about my involvement and inability to discuss such matters...

Later, I received budgetary responsibility for repairs and renovations for general-purpose classrooms across the campus, and ensuring funds were requested and used... and later, managing the creation and maintenance of the complete facilities inventory, including land, buildings and individuals rooms information to provide for basic information for budgetary planning for federal reporting, senior administration fiscal planning, as well as day-to-day use of each and every space available and allocated to deans and directors of university activities...

Taking on the, first, audit of the university's capital budget, which showed a deficit of over $1M was due to the university by the Board of Regents, and then creating a project budget management process to ensure budgeting and management of a multi-million dollar capital budget and that no further financial errors could occur, was what moved me into the position of Associate Director for facilities planning and management, as well as overall continuation of all previous duties...

It is the last major project that I want to spotlight. I directed the creation, data gathering from physical plant employees, and the data base upon which a multi-million deferred maintenance budgetary assessment need was created. It including a comprehensive submission report which was used by the director of physical plant to make a major budget request for an ongoing deferred maintenance budget allocation. Unfortunately, it was not accepted by that administration. Seeing the political climate that had evolved there, I decided to retire, since I had sufficient years of employment to do so. It is sad to note, that the reason that major repairs would again be postponed was in order to build a new building, which would be much more "showy..." for the officials at that time. Yes, power seekers can be found at every level in every institution.

At that time, there was nobody in higher management involved in anything I did... Yet I did it.  The report, I presented to the appropriate director-level individual. I gave all of the computer-access information on the individual data elements, estimates, et. al., to the assistant director who would be most interested, since it included a complete new, generated, land asset inventory, together with cost estimates, to the assistant director. Finally, I pulled together all of the basic data gathering, including individual cost estimates, per building, or specific land location... and provided it to the supervisor of the unit which would be able to use it for daily activities, even though the overall budget project had been denied.

And, of course, it goes without saying that I have dedicated my time for over a decade helping writers improve their efforts in one way or another--doing what I can to make their work the best it can be and/or telling as many people as possible why I would, or would not, recommend that they read their books.

As far as I am concerned...and, I hope, all Americans who are concerned about the security of our Nation, there is NO justification for ANY records to have ever left government facilities!

Please allow the Department of Justice to complete their investigation. We need accountability and action on those laws that have been violated, of course, as a direct result of his continuation of The Big Lie that the election was not "real."

All I hope is, that this guy who was elected into a position he never should have had, "for real" in any aspect of his interaction with Americans be indicted for all of the damage he has caused.

The matter of integrity, honesty, truth, and perseverance to basic moral character traits is failing greatly in these days when those who claim to be christian nationalists think nothing about stealing, lying, cheating and more in order to gain sought-after power, no matter who is hurt... All of us must act diligently to ensure that, in all ways, the needs of America are placed above the needs of those who seek office purely for power... We must do better!

God Bless,

Gabbie