I rewatched the great Humphrey Bogart movie last night - "The Caine Mutiny". Bogart played the part or Captain Queeg who had spiraled down into a mental state of paranoia and life threatening delusion. Over two years ago I wrote that Trump's mental state was Queeg's. It has become worse now that he is unable to accept his loss of the 2020 election.
The climactic scene of the movie was watching Queeg unravel before the eyes of the military jury when pressed to explain some of his crazier acts. We are all seeing that unraveling now as Trump rails against the fair and accurate counts of elections in key states, insisting that they are fraudulent, and having his deluded accusations repeatedly proven false.
Some think that all he is doing is priming his loyal base to follow him as he builds a right wing media empire to replace Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. Some think he is preparing his base for a run for president in 2024. Some think he is trying to rouse his base for a military coup on January 20th to refuse to leave office. Some think he is bluffing (with an powerless hand) to make a deal to become free of prosecutions of his lifetime of crime after he leaves office. Some think he is doing something rational in preparation for his post presidential life.
Or, he could just be bat shit crazy and unraveling before our eyes just as Humphrey Bogart did so brilliantly as Captain Queeg in the movie.
I think that not only has he lost, but that he is lost, lost in a fantasy world that he cannot impose on the real world. He has a long history of conning people into believing delusional worlds that he constructs - from giving him money for charities that aren't charities but are just ways to line his greedy pockets, to getting people to invest in his Trump University where there is no teaching or learning at all, to getting people to work on his real estate projects and find out that he refuses to pay for their work, to getting people to vote for him for building a wall to keep brown people out that never gets built, to getting people to buy into the deadly fantasy that COVID-19 is just a harmless illness so they dutifully refuse to wear masks and socially distance - and end up in hospitals - and some end up dead.
In the movie we have compassion for Queeg who has been at war too long and has been battle shocked into fear and paranoia and delusion. And I suppose it is possible to have some compassion for this terrible president who has been responsible for many scores of thousands of needless COVID-19 deaths if we consider the terrible effect his heartless father had on him and on his brother - who died of alcoholism as his way to escape the sickness of that terrible man. I feel sorry for Trump's lost soul, but the amount of damage he has done to the country and the world is too great for legal pardons.
I hope and pray that his final act of paranoid delusion does not include war against Iran. If it does, his cabinet will be in the same spot that the officers on the deck of the Caine during the typhoon that was about to sink the ship and kill all on board - they will have to mutiny, to relieve him of command, declare the 25th amendment and pronounce him incapable of rational thought and incapable of carrying out his constitutional duties.
I don't think that will be necessary, but I will bet that there are people in the White House right now who are thinking about this.
