That “Canterbury” contains “Cant-“, and that “cant” shares a precarious assonance with another word, suggests that one of our most 
literate bards and bawds, Chaucer, might have anticipated Trump’s latest perversion. This possibility was recently illuminated by Constance Grady at Vox. Or, less likely, Trump might have been paying tribute in his comment to some of his favorite poesy. If so, then he is in every sense of the word medieval, but classicist in delivery, combining with his own thumping demagoguery the Roman art of declamation. The most famous of these rhetoricians was Quintillian, whom in addition to Trump, Chaucer might have been alewding while brooding the following lines.
And prively he caught hire by the queynte,
And seyde, Ywis, but if ich have my wille,
For deerne love of thee, lemman, I spille.
Suprisingly, wille is not willy, and spille is not spilly. In modern English, which translates roughly into Trump, it would read:
And discretely he caught her by the pleasing thing,
And said, Oh, but if I have my will,
For secret love of you, darling, Ill die.
This was from Nicholas, a puerile bibliophile, to the beautiful Alison, who today, willy-nilly, would probably not have given her number, or vote. “This kind of violent, domineering act is not acceptable. It has been around for centuries, and it has never been acceptable. If Trumps words emerge, as Drimmer and Fleming argue, from our cultural legacy, then it is our responsibility to come to terms with that legacy. It is our responsibility to show the Nicholases and Don Drapers and Trumps of the world that their actions are reprehensible,” and pusillanimous.
Read Grady’sfull post at Vox.
