“Blood Trump” by Sarah Levy.
1.
A) His face was serene and strangely childlike. His hands were small. He held them out.
B) Look at those hands. Are they small hands? And he referred to my hands, if they’re small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there’s no problem.
2.
A) Even in elementary school, I was a very aggressive, assertive kid. In the second grade I actually gave a teacher a black eye — I punched my music teacher because I didn’t think he knew anything about music and I almost got expelled.
B) He can neither read nor write and in him broods already a taste for mindless violence. All history present in that visage, the child the father of the man.
3.
A) I’m at 42 percent…You’re at 3 percent. Pretty soon you’re going to be off the end of the stage.
B) Hear me man, he said. There is room on the stage for one beast and one alone. All others are destined for a night that is eternal and without name. One by one they will step down into the darkness before the footlamps.
4.
A) When you start studying yourself too deeply, you start seeing things that maybe you don’t want to see.
B) A man’s at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there.
5.
A) If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, okay. Just knock the hell– I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.
B) There were one hundred and twenty-eight scalps and eight heads and the governor’s lieutenant and his retinue came down into the courtyard to welcome them and admire their work. They were promised full payment in gold…
6.
A) Criticism is easier to take when you realize that the only people who aren’t criticized are those who don’t take risks.
B) Only that man who has offered up himself entire to the blood of war, who has been to the floor of the pit and seen the horror in the round and learned at last that it speaks to his inmost heart, only that man can dance.
7.
A) For whoever makes a shelter of reeds and hides has joined his spirit to the common destiny of creatures and he will subside back into the primal mud with scarcely a cry. But who builds in stone seeks to alter the structure of the universe…
B) You look at the Great Wall of China, that was built 2,500 years ago — it’s 13,000 miles. And we’re really talking about something a little more than 1,000 miles… We’ll have a great wall. Actually it can be a good-looking wall, as walls go.
8.
A) The man holding this revival is an impostor. He holds no papers of divinity from any institution recognized or improvised. He is altogether devoid of the least qualification to the office he has usurped and has only committed to memory a few passages from the good book for the purpose of lending to his fraudulent sermons some flavor of the piety he despises.
B) How can Ted Cruz be an Evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest?
9.
A) The desert wind would salt their ruins and there would be nothing, nor ghost nor scribe, to tell to any pilgrim in his passing how it was that people had lived in this place and this place died.
B) I would bomb the shit out of ’em. I would just bomb those suckers. That’s right. I’d blow up the pipes. I’d blow up every single inch, and there would nothing left.
10.
A) That man there. See him. That man hatless. You know his opinion of the world. You can read it in his face, in his stance. Yet his complaint that a man’s life is no bargain masks the actual case with him. Which is that men will not do as he wishes them to. Have never done, will never do. That’s the way of things with him and his life is so balked about by difficulty and become so altered of its intended architecture that he is little more than a walking hovel hardly fit to house the human spirit at all.
B) Rosie O’Donnell is disgusting, I mean, both inside and out. You take a look at her, she’s a slob. She talks like a truck driver… Her show failed when it was a talk show, she failed on that. The ratings went very, very, very low and very bad, and she got essentially thrown off television… I mean, she’s basically a disaster.
11.
A) The world is a horrible place. Lions kill for food, but people kill for sport. People try to kill you mentally, especially if you are on top. We all have friends that want everything we have. They want our money, our business, house, car, wife and dog. Those are our friends. Our enemies are even worse! You have to protect yourself in life.
B) It makes no difference what men think of war…War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.
12.
A) With that first minute the slaughter had become general. Women were screaming and naked children and one old man tottered forth waving a pair of white pantaloon. The horsemen moved among them and slew them with clubs or knives.
B) When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives. Don’t kid yourself. But they say they don’t care about their lives. You have to take out their families.
13.
A) There’s no God in Mexico. Never will be. We are dealing with a people manifestly incapable of governing themselves. And do you know what happens with people who cannot govern themselves? That’s right. Others come in to govern for them.
B) I have a great relationship with the Mexican people.
14.
A) I have instructed my long-time doctor to issue, within two weeks, a full medical report – it will show perfection.
B) He never sleeps. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.
Answer Key
1. A) McCarthy, B) Trump
2. A) Trump, B) McCarthy
3. A) Trump, B) McCarthy
4. A) Trump, B) McCarthy
5. A) Trump, B) McCarthy
6. A) Trump, B) McCarthy
7. A) McCarthy, B) Trump
8. A) McCarthy, B) Trump
9. A) McCarthy, B) Trump
10. A) McCarthy, B) Trump
11) A) Trump, B) McCarthy
12. A) McCarthy, B) Trump
13. A) McCarthy, B) Trump
14. A) Trump, B) McCarthy
How depressingly fun!