Dipo Kehinde/

American President Donald Trump has never hidden his disdain for journalists, but in this trying times in his political life, he has found consolation in lines written by Rudyard Kipling, a journalist and Nobel Prize Winner in Literature (1865 – 1936), who was once described as the most complete man of genius.

Trump’s tenure has witnessed unprecedented hostility toward the Press as he stepped up prosecutions of news sources, interfered in the business of media owners, harassed journalists crossing U.S. borders, empowered foreign leaders to restrict their own media, made much efforts to destroy the credibility of the Press, suspended journalists from the White House when they asked questions or do stories he didn’t like; threatened and sued news organisations, including the CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post for libel.

He reportedly described media outlets as the “enemy of the people”. He said “the Press is very dishonest”; he called journalists “low life reporters”, “bad people”, “human scum”, “some of the worst human beings you’ll ever meet”, and urged Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a G20 meeting in Japan, to “Get rid of them”.

But, as the dream of a second term in office is fast turning to a mirage, Trump today retweeted a poetic and reflective audiovisual presentation that appears to mean so much to him.

The audiovisual made with verses from the poem of the legendary journalist, which is titled “If”, appears to hold a lot of meaning for Trump.

Here’s the poem and the audiovisual presentation:

If—

Rudyard Kipling – 1865-1936

If you can keep your head when all about you
   Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
   But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
   Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
   And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
   If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
   And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
   Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
   And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
   And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
   And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
   To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
   Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
   Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
   If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
   Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

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