#1,037: Thumbs Down on Thumbs Up

As you, my dear faithful readers know. for the past year or so, I’ve gone out of my way not to mention the 47th POTUS by name . . . .but rather by a couple of non-4 letter word epithets. It’s not that my vocabulary is bereft on nasty curse words or imprecations; rather it is something I learned from my father. To wit, that the best way of expressing disgust and/or condemnation is through what one might call “linguistic misdirection." I learned it from my Dad, who, rather than call a thoroughly disgusting person a momser (Yiddish for “bastard”), would likely refer to him (never her) as “an acquired taste.” That is why I have intermittently used the terms IT and "Felon 47”) to identify the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Try as I may, I just don’t have an easy time with terms of abuse or foul invective. Nonetheless, I have decided to add yet another identifier: “Pumpkin Punum” The first word (pumpkin) is obviously descriptive of the shade of tanning solution he wears; the second word, (punum) is the Yiddish way of pronouncing a Hebrew word (pah-NEEM) which means, simply, “face.” And so, Pumpkin Punum, is yet another non-4 letter epithet we will be using from time to time.

Having brought you up to date on monikers that can be used in public, let’s move on to a particular hand gesture: the omnipresent “thumbs-up” sign used both by pumpkin punum and his most fervent followers . . . whether inside Congress or outside on the rope line. To me, it has become about as disgusting, omnipresent and emblematic of his regime as the Roman Salute was to both Mussolini and der Führer. Starting a couple of months ago, I went against my natural instinct and, whenever an idea, event, or statement might be worthy of a “thumbs-up” of agreement, began using the "A-OK” sign (often referred to as the "OK gesture”) made by joining the thumb and index finger to form a circle, with the other fingers held straight. In medicine, if the circle formed by one hand appears more pinched or less round than the other, it may indicate weakness in the nerve. A similar medical test, known as Froment's Sign, is used to test for palsy on the ulnar nerve, a major nerve in the arm that runs from the neck all the way to the hand. But for me, (and hopefully one day soon for you) it will have two meanings: “I agree,” and “I refuse to use the Pumpkin Punum’s favorite hand gesture.”

Yes, it is a rather simple - perhaps even trivial or symbolic - gesture. Nonetheless it serves in a small - hopefully self-satisfying way - to remind us and others that IT’s reality is not our reality; that his Weltanschauung (world view) is not ours; that his egomaniacal mien sickens us.

Of course, as with just about everything these days, even the “A-OK” gesture has come in for a cultural shellacking. Back in 2017, the Anti Defamation League (ADL) website ran a piece questioning whether or not the ages-old hand sign had in fact been highjacked by white supremacists. 2 years later, National Public Radio aired an article on the ADL’s “Hate Symbols Data Base” which had grown exponentially. Turns out, the original “A-OK sign as White Supremacist Rallying Symbol” turned out to have originally been a hoax perpetrated by an anonymous English-language imageboard website called “4Chan,” created by a 16-year old known online as “moot” (Christopher Poole). But the original 4-Chan thread struck a chord with teenage boys, and over the years, the A-OK symbol took on a life of its own. As P.T. Barnum supposedly said a long time ago, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

For those who may fear that the use of the A-OK sign may be misconstrued as a symbol for hatred and bigotry, there is always the 2-finger salute that was popular both in the 1940s and again in the 1960s and 70s. In the 40’s it stood for victory over fascism; in the 60s and 70s it stood for peace and understanding. To use either the A-OK or the peace sign in today’s troubled world instead of Pumpkin Punum’s “thumbs up” requires a bit of rewiring (albeit minor and doable) of an old habit. It also recognizes that just as we we will no longer speak his name, we won’t even imitate his meaningless gesture.

Let the movement grow . . .