Hogarth Channels MAGA

F-Art of Trump

The Humours of an Election is a series of four oil paintings and later engravings by William Hogarth that illustrate the election of a member of parliament in Oxfordshire in 1754. The oil paintings were created in 1755. The first three paintings, An Election Entertainment, Canvassing for Votes and The Polling, demonstrate the corruption endemic in parliamentary elections in the 18th century, before the Great Reform Act. The last painting, Chairing the Member, shows the celebrations of the victorious Tory candidates and their supporters.  The following are the painted panel names:

An Election Entertainment: The painting depicts a tavern dinner organized by the Whig candidates, while the Tories protest outside.

Canvassing for Votes: This scene depicts Tory and Whig agents, both attempting to bribe an innkeeper to vote for them.

The Polling: Voters are shown declaring their support for the Whigs (orange) or Tories (blue). Agents from both sides are using unscrupulous tactics to increase their votes or challenge opposing voters.

Chairing the Member: One of the victorious Tory candidates is being carried through the streets on a chair in a traditional ceremony. He is about to tumble down because one of his carriers has just been accidentally hit on the head by a flail carried by a Tory-supporting rural labourer who is attempting to fight off a Whig supporter.

Besides the confluence of election fraud of Britain in the 18th Century and the USA in the 21st Century, the relevance for today is three-fold.

First, Hogarth’s much beloved dog.  According to Wikipedia, Trump (c. 1730 – c. 1745) was a pug owned by Hogarth. He included the dog in several works, including his 1745 self-portrait Painter and his Pug, held by the Tate Gallery. In the words of the Tate's display caption, "Hogarth's pug dog, Trump, serves as an emblem of the artist's own pugnacious character."

A second relevance is that a “trump” is a playing card which is elevated above its usual rank in trick-taking games. In other contexts, the terms” trump” card or “to trump” refers to any sort of action, authority or policy which automatically prevails over all others. (The Donald certainly has a lot of tricks to denigrate and humiliate other people.)

And finally, what does the word “trump” mean in other languages? 

In Norwegian, apparently Trump (or trumpa) is translated as “a smelly substance picked up in the street that one cannot easily scrape off the bottom of a shoe.”

In Turkish, apparently it is a 19th century addition to the language, with the similar word trumpogan being  used to indicate “a weird or offbeat hairstyle.”

And the most common British slang terms for flatulence are “fart”, “trump,” “parp” or “toot” with the verb “to trump” having been used extensively in slang across Britain to refer to the breaking of wind audibly.

Credit to Wikipedia