“Lately, the words Donald Trump trigger two syllables.” We had sat down for dinner.
“Yeah.” My wife dislikes it when I frame a question as a declarative sentence.
“Rosebud.” I expect her to say, “Oh, okay” or “That’s silly.”
“What?”
“Rosebud.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
My allusion to Orson Welles’s movie Citizen Kane was wasted. After 50 years of marriage, I didn’t know she hadn’t seen the movie. I explain the plot.
“How about watching it tonight?” She’s a bit hesitant, knowing that I rarely watch a movie more than once. I agree to watch, in part, for her and, in part, to understand why I made the connection.
The camera slides along the base of a mountain. The black and white image is fuzzy and eerie. We’ll come to know it as Xanadu in decline. The camera zooms inside the mausoleum of the living dead with crates of unopened works of art and sculpture.
Charles Foster Kane lay on his deathbed holding a snow globe. He says, “Rosebud.” The globe slips from his hand and crashes on the floor. Kane is dead.
In a newsroom, an editor talks to reporters. Kane’s death is national news. The editor hunts for an angle. He assigns a reporter to find out what Rosebud means. The camera follows the reporter as he interviews the various individuals whom Kane helped, loved, and destroyed. The reporter discovers nothing.
In the final scene, an incinerator burns the debris of Kane’s estate. The camera closes in on the fire. A worker throws in a wooden snow sled. The paint on the sled bubbles, and the name Rosebud desolves. It marks the loss of innocence, which he clung to even as he became an increasingly ruthless newspaper publisher, industrialist, and maritime leader. His Xanadu crumbles atop an artificial mountain, as do the illusions of Kane’s life. In death, he’s a nobody.
He modeled his Xanadu on the opulent summer residence of Kubla Khan, an artifice of self-indulgence and hubris. It was a more luxurious version of Mar-a-Lago. The 19th-century Romantic poet Samuel Coleridge immortalized the original Xanadu in his poem entitled “Kubla Khan.” Here’s the last stanza:
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air [Xanadu],
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
The narrator, inspired by song, plans to build a dome in the sky. There’s no cheers of joy, but others cry out, Beware because his eyes flash and hair floats. Unlike most critics, I hear terror of a man who drinks of “the milk of Paradise” not for his love of others but for his desire to be loved. Khan, Kane, and Trump emerge, solipsists three, each inspiring dread. They mount their wishes, ambitions, and desire for control on pedestals for sycophants to cheer. Their desire for power alchemizes fear and hate, disguising the concoction as a celebration of themselves. They are children at their own birthday parties, gluttonously craving their ice cream, cake, and gifts.
A few days before we watched the demise of Kane, there was a Trumpian It’s-All-about-Me event. Cabinet members of the Trump Administration sat around an oval table for a mandatory meeting. The televised event turned into a round of ass-kissing. One cabinet member after another wallowed in pathetic adjectival and adverbial adulations of the President and his policies.
Attorney General Pam Bondi stated: “Since you have been in office, President Trump, your DOJ agencies have seized more than 22 million fentanyl pills, 3,400 kilos of fentanyl … which saved — are you ready for this media — 258 million lives.” I fell to my knees and praised the almighty for the roundup. Without the roundup, fentanyl addiction would have killed two-thirds of the nation’s population in one year. Now that’s a Hollywood blockbuster dystopian movie script.[1]
Call-outs, no matter how sincere, can’t quench the solipsist’s thirst. He needs more to sustain a sense of love and power. So, the leader of a wealthy and powerful nation re-posted an AI-generated image of himself as Pontiff. When Catholics, still grieving the death of Pope Francis, complained, Trump callously disregarded their grief and chided them for not being able to take a joke.
Maybe, just maybe, Trump doesn’t know how to tell a joke, at least without offending some individual or group. He does know how to crash a birthday party, and he certainly likes gifts, whether he’s entitled to them or not.
For example, the Trump administration may accept a Xanadu in the sky, courtesy of Qatar. It’s a remodeled 747 palatially tricked out by the Qatar government. It would replace the old Air Force One. I hear him bragging, “Oh, the people of Qatar love me. They’re my people. They love me.” There’s a hitch. After his term in office, ownership of the plane transfers to the Trump Presidential Library, giving the then former president access to the airplane 24-7-365. Sounds like a gift to me. Did he earn it? No. Did our President feel special? Yes. Would other Presidents accept such a personally oriented gift? No. It possibly violates the emolument clause of the U.S. Constitution. Even if it does not, it does appear Trump has pitched a sign on the White House lawn: “Foreign Policy For Sale, First Come, First Served. (Deal not available in Canada and Mexico).”
The political dandy wants to suck out more love. He deserves it. The people owe him. He has done so much for them. In repayment, he’s holding a parade on his birthday supposedly to celebrate the U.S. Armed Forces. It will cost almost four times more than the festival the U.S. Army had planned on the Capitol Mall to celebrate its 250th anniversary. He’s concerned about our military so long as it’s “his” military.
Veterans, well, another story. Commander Bone Spurs disliked the sound of Veterans Day. He proclaimed it Victory Day, marking the truce for World War I, forgetting the name was changed so the nation would annually thank the men and women, who in all our conflicts and in the maintenance of the nation’s defense, have sacrificed so much for the rights of every American. To Trump, it was the job of ordinary Americans to sacrifice for the well-being of mega-million-dollar coxcombs (the good gene people) strolling Fifth Avenue. He called these men and women suckers. (Probably, said in jest.)
He wants them to sacrifice even more. His administration has cut funding for veteran hospitals. He refused to attend a ceremony on the anniversary of the invasion of Normandy because there were veterans in wheelchairs. He called the late, great Sen. John McCain a loser because his jet was shot down and he was captured and tortured. Unlike Trump, who didn’t serve, Sen. McCain was awarded the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, and 13 other medals and decorations.
General Mark Milley, who had served more than four decades, selected Captain Louis Avila to sing “God Bless America” at the general’s installation ceremony. Avila, after five combat tours, lost a leg to an IED while serving in Afghanistan. As he proceeded to the microphone, his wheelchair almost turned over in the mud. He recovered with help from his wife and Vice President Mike Pence. He sang, and “after Avila’s performance, Trump walked over to congratulate him, but then said to Milley, within earshot of several witnesses, ‘Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.’ Never let Avila appear in public again, Trump told Milley [whom Trump stated should be shot for treason],” as reported in The Atlantic. Avila’s story is not a singularity.
In June, he will salute thousands of soldiers who in a few years will be the nation’s new veterans. Like a young lad who tosses out toy soldiers that break, he will forget those injured or dead serving Americans and upholding the Constitution.
He doesn’t want to celebrate the Army’s anniversary or to honor the fallen. The Sith-in-Charge wants to celebrate himself. He has sulked while witnessing a military parade in France. “It was one of the greatest parades I have ever seen,” the President said. “It was two hours on the button, and was military might, and I think a tremendous thing for France and the spirit of France. And to a large extent, because of what I witnessed, we may do something like that on July 4th in Washington, down Pennsylvania Avenue. We’re going to have to try and top it,” reported CBS News. Military advisors and local politicians indicated that it was not practical. He backed down, but didn’t forget.
When he sees the men, women (maybe), tanks, helicopters, and whatever else, he thinks of them as his. He feels powerful, great, special, rather than as a servant to Americans and the people in the armed services. He can’t equate himself with soldiers and veterans as defenders of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Think of the megalomaniacal Emperor Commodus in the movie Gladiator, who reopens the gladiatorial games to commemorate his father’s death, whom he murdered. At the opening games, he absorbs the cheers of the crowd, never mentioning his father.
When asked about the cost of the lavish and unnecessary military parade, Trump said it was worth it. Compared to what? Federal employees laid off? Programs cut? Diseases spreading in the U.S. and the world because of funding cuts? He would probably make the same argument to justify the $249 million spent to cover the costs associated with his golf outings from his inauguration until March 29, according to the Huffington Post.
What is liberty to the perfidious? Confusing, apparently. During a Meet the Press interview, he admitted that he didn’t know if the President of the U.S. must protect the Constitution, even though he swore to do so twice during his Inauguration. He didn’t know if he was obliged to honor the right of every person in the United States to the right of due process, a guarantee of the Fifth Amendment. He had to ask his expensive lawyers. He even wants the Supreme Court to clarify the word facilitate regarding the false imprisonment of Kilmar Garcia. Recently, the administration indicated that it may suspend habeas corpus. Why? Due process and habeas corpus will slow his mass deportation process. Why worry about the innocent? Why worry about the rights of people, whether citizens or undocumented immigrants? Their lives and liberty are stumbling blocks to his regality. He is borrowing from the playbook of King George III, who suspended habeas corpus in the colonies in 1776.
Donald Trump believes he’s smart. He once claimed to have an IQ higher than 190, which makes him smarter than Einstein. He also threatened any school he attended with lawsuits if one revealed his grades or performance on tests such as the SAT.
Why doesn’t a supposed genius not understand that people escaping from the crushing economies and treacherous conditions, especially in Latin and South America, are not armies, and they aren’t invading? They are escaping. Why does he not understand the simplicity of the U.S. Constitution? Why doesn’t he understand how tariffs work? Why can’t he quote the favorite passage from his Bible, which he claims to have read several times? Why can’t he see photo-shopped tattoos in a photograph? Why can’t he speak in complete sentences without non-sequiturs?
Is it all a part of his brilliance? Or is it because he cannot hold more than one idea in his mind at a time? There’s nothing brilliant in his messaging, his language, or his notion of the world. His thoughts work towards one goal: How to shift the topic back to him, always to him, as if his ego needs constant inflating. He gets a thrill at reposting memes of himself as Rambo, a superhero, king, pope, and a Sith (red lightsaber). There’s never enough adulation. It’s his crack. Pass the pipe of preposterous claims. The high of worship humps his hubris, enabling him to proclaim that he runs America and the world?
Should he have such power, why has he deported U.S. citizens, immigrants who are legally living in the U.S., and individuals without criminal records? Why can he not understand that he, along with other elected officials and government appointees, is responsible for upholding the U.S. Constitution? Why can he not comprehend the meaning of due process? After all, he “owes his continued freedom — and very likely his second term as president — to the fact that he was allowed to exploit the fundamental American right and hard-won tradition of due process, which is designed to protect an individual from arbitrary, weaponized prosecution and state terror,” wrote Asawin Suebsaeng in Rolling Stone Magazine. I’m essentially saying he is full of shit.
He has pulled governance into the realm of the scatological. It’s where he wades before and after his drip-drip-drip showers.
If he cannot fathom the matter of due process, he cannot empathically relate to the average American. He is cutting support for programs that many Americans need to create healthy lives for themselves and their children. He is destroying education on various fronts. He refers to African Americans as “his Bl-acks,” as if black is a two-syllable word. He labels undocumented aliens as felons who are destroying the country. He paints a picture of America overrun by crime. He disrespects people who differ from him in thought and looks. He hates being in the same room as individuals with disabilities. He is even reported as having his casino floor cleaned of all African American workers when he walked in. How can such a man uphold the rights of due process, which has protected thousands of minorities wrongfully detained?
There’s a place for Trump. It’s Cocytus, the Ninth Circle of Hell in Dante’s Inferno. It rests above the home of Satin. It is the level reserved for sinners guilty of treachery against family, community, guests, and servants of a country. He checks all the boxes.
Renowned poet and translator of Dante’s work John Ciardi summed up the situation:
The treacheries of these souls were denials of love (which is God) and of all human warmth. Only the remorseless, dead center of the ice will serve to express their natures. As they denied God’s love, so are they furthest removed from the light and warmth of His Sun. As they denied all human ties, so are they bound only by the unyielding ice. This final, deepest level of hell is reserved for traitors, betrayers, and oathbreakers.
[1] To provide some context, a single seizure of 2.7 million fentanyl pills [in late April] equates to nearly 1.5 million potentially [italics inserted] deadly doses of Fentanyl taken out of circulation. In total, DEA seized more than three million fentanyl pills and 11.5 kilograms of fentanyl powder, according to a DEA press release. Do the math. The AG’s numbers don’t make sense.
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For a Dignity Deserved 