Matt Latimer is a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. He is currently a co-partner in Javelin, a literary agency and communications firm based in Alexandria, and contributing editor at Politico Magazine.

Over the past few days, in a masterpiece of political self-annihilation, Donald Trump has insulted the parents of a fallen veteran, appeared to belittle Purple Heart recipients, got into a fight with America’s firefighters and allegedly tried to boot a crying baby from a campaign rally. If you’re racking your brain to figure out the last time this happened, then you are vastly underestimating the singular talent for offensiveness that is the Republican Party’s chosen nominee for the presidency of the United States.

Many pundits and advisers are now advising their candidate to dial back the insults—and maybe focus on, say, his political rival who is building a lead in the polls. Of course, the Donald Trump we all know isn’t likely to take that advice. Instead, he’ll double down—taking on even more implausible targets for scorn and derision.


And why not? If he really wants to Thelma and Louise his campaign, here are few more targets for attack–and a suggested script–while he plunges off the cliff:

Santa Claus: “A totally out-of-control fat guy with an obvious eating disorder breaks into people’s homes and give them free junk? It’s insanity. When I was a kid, Santa treated me very badly. He rarely gave me half of what I deserved. A clown with zero credibility. Should be in prison.”

Our Founders: “These people—everyone thinks they’re geniuses. They were disgusting, quite frankly. They didn’t have bathrooms. They didn’t have toilets. They’d sit around in dirty bathtubs once a week with a sponge on a stick. I’ve heard from a lot of people that their hygiene in general was not so great. So they wrote a Constitution? Big deal! Look, there’s nobody who loves the Constitution more than me—Article I, and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and right on down the line. Whatever. But it wasn’t that hard to write, let me tell you. You sit me down with my kids and we come up with the same thing in about 30 seconds, OK? Well, a couple of my kids. Some of them aren’t all that bright, if you get me.”

Mother Teresa: “One of the truly overrated people on this planet is this Mother Teresa. Here is this woman and you know I’m going to get in trouble here if I really tell you what I thought when I saw a picture of her, OK? So I’m not going to say that. I am going to say, well, you’ve seen my wife, right? And I don’t know who married this Mother Teresa person, but I’m not that guy. Look who I married, OK? Enough said. Anyway, I hear some things that really make me question why everyone’s always saying how terrific she is. Hanging out with lepers, and sick people, and sad-sack losers? Very, very dumb. And she’s practically broke. Never made an honest dollar in her life. That makes her a hero? Not in my book. And they call her ‘Mother’—but I never see any of her kids. Oh, you say she’s dead now? Well, too bad.”

Cancer Victims: “Every time I look around I hear about curing cancer this, and curing cancer that. If you’re tough and do the right things, if you aren’t sad and soft, then you don’t get cancer, OK? I mean, John Wayne never got cancer in any of the movies I saw. James Bond—he doesn’t have it. You didn’t see George Washington crying about cancer. I mean, those guys never even mentioned the word 'cancer'—not Franklin, not Jefferson, not any of them. They were tough guys, am I right? Literally the word 'cancer' was not in their vocabulary.”

Abraham Lincoln: “Probably gay. Very unsightly. Too tall. Married to one of the true mental basket cases in the history of this country. A total mess. I’m told he got some really lucky breaks to win the Civil War. One of his own generals ran against him for president. He was so beloved and great of a leader that someone goes and shoots him? And the Secret Service lets it happen? Does that compute? I don’t think so.”

Queen Elizabeth: “I kind of remember her when she was younger and thinking, ‘Not bad.’ Not great, mind you, but, eh, you could do worse. But now she’s like 100, with crazy eyes, and she is still flying all over the place and keeping this very lovely Kate Middleton—and I mean this is a lovely, lovely woman, am I right?—from being elected queen. Liz needs to wrap it up, OK? It’s enough already. Her mind is shot. She’s little respected. Just go some place with that geezer and close it down. You know what I’m saying, right? Make the monarchy hot again. Resign!”

Homeless Shelters: “My limo took a wrong turn to get out of Fifth Avenue traffic the other day, and we passed this real ugly, small, sad building on prime real estate. I mean it was grimy, with a bunch of disheveled people out front with blank looks on their faces. So I ask my chauffeur, ‘Hey, whatever your name is, what’s this pathetic waste of space we’re looking at?’ He told me it was a homeless shelter. Wow! I was amazed. I mean, why do we need those in New York? This is the greatest city in the world. You give me that space—and I’ll have 25-story gleaming towers in place there in two seconds—it will be the most beautiful, amazing building you’ve ever seen. It’s not brain surgery, folks. Enough!”

Betty White: “You know what I really hate? It’s phonies like Betty White. This dummy dope is on every third-rate game show on TV—and she’s plastered on all the magazines and shilling some piece of schlock or another. Some really smart people tell me that she’s desperate for cash. Was she in Dallas in November 1963? She hasn’t denied it, has she? Besides, she lies like you wouldn’t believe. I hear she got fired like a dog from ‘The Golden Girls’ and that Bea Arthur couldn’t stand her. BAD!”

Puppies: “I never figured why people hated the dame in that Dalmatian movie. She took useless and frankly very boring animals and turned them into something useful. I hear about people spending thousands of dollars on operations to save these dogs, and I think, ‘Are these people nuts?’ You can find a perfectly usable stray around every corner to fetch your slippers and pee all over your furniture.”

Baseball: “A total waste of time and energy. Very, very boring. Now you play golf at one of my clubs—and these are world famous, the best of the best—and you get a workout, you are outside, but you drive in a car or you walk calmly to a hole. There’s none of this running around in circles in uncomfortable uniforms under a blazing sun while someone chases you with a little ball for no good reason. There’s nobody spitting disgusting tobacco in your face or adjusting their crotch every five minutes. Baseball fans—never met a more clueless bunch. They should be forced to take IQ tests before voting.”

Moms: “The mothers love me—believe me. They love me. But what is it with the mother worship? It’s crazy. My mother did her job—she gave me to the universe. Do I owe her a cut of everything I accomplish for the rest of my life? Do I have to get all teary-eyed whenever someone mentions her name? Let’s cut out the crap about mothers—some of them are very nice people, but overall they ain’t so great. A lot of them are voting for Crooked Hillary, incidentally, which shows you that they have a few screws loose anyway.”

Apple Pie: “You pick some very ordinary fruit that’s available all over the place and pull it off of some tree that’s taking up real estate, cut a few of them up, and throw it in the oven. Big deal! Anybody can make a pie out of apples. Apple pies are the dessert of uninventive weaklings. We’ve got to stop wasting time and energy on nonsense. Make a pie that tastes good out of acorns or bark or sawdust—and then you actually are accomplishing something hard. How many people can pull that off? I’ll bet not too many. But apple pies, a dime a dozen. Please.”

Hmm. I think that’s about everything …