THE CARD, THE HARP, AND THE TAIL THAT WAGGED THE DOG.

DONALD TRUMP.

NAMING AND DESTINY.

*** NOMEN EST OMEN***

A Newsletter Post from the NOMENCLATURE AND DESTINY COMMITTEE

Updated Summer Solstice, 2025

“Nomen est omen.”

—Old Roman Saying, often misunderstood but rarely misplaced

Once upon a campaign trail, a man walked into America bearing a surname that was also a card trick, a joker, and a jew’s -harp. We tried not to notice. But alas, the name spoke louder than his speeches, and by the time he reached the podium, history had already begun plucking its reed.

The name was TRUMP, and like many Germanic/Scot relics it came preloaded with too many meanings and not enough warnings.

Let us count:

A Trump: A wildcard. A card that overrules others. A move made when all else fails.

A Card: Because a Trump is a playing card and slang for an eccentric or clownish person. Think vaudeville, not Versailles.

A Jew’s Harp: One of the oldest instruments in human history, capable of droning rhythmic trance-states. Used by shamans who were also members of the tribe often with mental defects. Played between the teeth. Said to open doors of altered perception. Or at least, persuasion.

We at the Council’s Naming-and-Destiny Committee took note of this metaphysical trifecta back in 2016 but decided not to publish it at the time. Perhaps it seemed too obvious. Perhaps we feared we were being played. Maybe we wanted to feel optimistic.

But time, that tireless etymologist, has caught up.

UPDATE — SUMMER SOLSTICE, 2025:

The prophecy has clarified:

The Trump was also, in fact, the Jew’s Harp—not the player, but the instrument.

And he was plucked—not by voters, but by foreign interests.

As the missiles fell on Iran, the tail wagged the dog, and the drone took on a deeper tone.

Trump played along, of course.

But the tune wasn’t ours.

As our Editor-in-Charge of the Obvious, John St. Evola, notes:

“He was made to disregard his own advisors and betray his constituency. He put America on the back burner. They didn’t just tune him. They played him.”

And when the Trump tweet came —

“NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!” (sic, all caps, and Orwell-lite) —

we understood.

How can War be Peace?

This wasn’t 1984. It was something closer to a combination of 1984 and 1595.

For those curious, the Jew’s Harp (a.k.a. the Jew’s Trump, or just Trump) is not actually Jewish, nor is it a harp in any classical sense. But it is, undeniably, an object that vibrates when struck by breath and intention. The power and significance of the name still stands.

As Gordon Frazier, editor of PLUCK, reminds us to no effect on our divination of the name Trump:

“Prior to ‘Jew’s harp,’ it was called ‘Jew’s trump’… before that simply ‘trump’ in Scotland and northern England. Its origin is likely from the Old English ‘gewgaw’ — a trinket or showy toy. Any connection to Judaism is unfounded.”

Read more at the Jew’s Harp Guild

How fitting. A gewgaw. A trinket. A sonic toy. And still, it is called a jew’s harp.

Filed by the Naming-and-Destiny Committee in collaboration with The Backward Scholar