Politics as Metafiction: Reading Robert Coover's Political Fable in the Age of Trump

It would not be hard to write an essay that treats The Cat in the Hat as a fable for the United States in the age of President Donald Trump. An unpredictable and charismatic figure in a trademark red and white hat (the Cat) blasts onto the stage, upending the unwritten rules of decorum with his wild antics to the simultaneous delight and befuddlement of his constituency (“Sally and I”) all while hectoring nay-sayers (the fish) fret and declare that this is quite irregular and should not be tolerated until things get out of hand and order is reestablished, but not without a sneaking sense that allowing this to have happened at all is a frightening transgression (“Now, what should we do? What would you do if your mother asked you?”). Thankfully, one of America's most influential experimental writers already did it for us, in 1968, when Robert Coover published The Cat in the Hat for President: A Political Fable .