Maggie's Farm

One of the reasons that Americans still like reading Huckleberry Finn is that the American identity - at least a part of it - IS Huck Finn.

In some corner of nearly every American's soul is a wild-ling that chafes under the watchful eye of the Widow Douglas and her spinster sister Miss Watson. No matter how relentless the corrective barrage - sit up straight, speak properly, don't scratch at the itchy clothes, and definitely don't voice any untoward ideas - they cannot bring themselves to like the idea of being "sivilized" by meddlesome scolds who ultimately do not comprehend who they are or where they come from.

Nor can they, as shown in this excerpt, ever completely overlook the hypocrisy inherent in these efforts:


Even though they seldom act on it, most Americans, like Huck, consider the "regular and decent" world of the Widow Douglas's parlor to be somewhat "dismal," and there are times when they'd like nothing more than to "light out" and get away from all of the self-appointed moral betters who never cease filling the world with more (and more diabolical) parlors in which to constrain their behavior and - if it were possible - their very thoughts.

Whether he turns out to be telling the truth or not, Donald Trump's message is touching a nerve with the "inner Huck Finn" of many Americans. He is no doubt helped by the fact that the entire progressive left are nothing if not meddlesome scolds.

Granted, that part of Americans' inner-selves that tries to be upstanding citizens might struggle with the idea of a Huck Finn presidency. I mean, who puts an unrefined delinquent in charge? It just isn't done.

These doubts are bolstered by the establishment's many Tom Sawyers who constantly come around with new empty promises - if only we'll "go back to the widow and be respectable."

But the part of us Americans that remembers what life was like outside of the Widow Douglas's parlor - and has watched the entrenched elites guard the parlor door ever more tightly these last eight years - shivers at the thought of the alternative. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more dismal prospect than sitting in the parlor under Hillary's watchful eye.