I wonder if Vance thinks about Capt. Queeg and how his 2nd in command Lt. Maryk used Article 184, and Trump and the 25th Amendment. By Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

AI Image from Perchance

I rarely think of something to write about that is unique in the sense that it s totally a new idea or perspective which nobody else has expressed. Such it was when I thought about the well know strawberries episode in "The Caine Mutiny" when Captain Queeg, played by Humphrey Bogart, in the 1954 Oscar-nominated movie "The Caine Mutiny" was overcome by the insanity we see in Donald Trump.

I wrote about this on Nov. 8, 2023 here:

“The Strawberries, the strawberries” – Trump will crash and burn if he goes full-bore Capt. Queeg. He will crash and burn once enough Republicans say what Claire McCaskel said: Trump’s “got mental illness, for gosh sake!” She was mild. Many may say “holly sh*t he really is crazy.”

I never get tired of watching this classic scene:

It occurred to me again that Trump's losing it in recent appearances was even more similar to Queeg becoming clinically paranoid than he was even a few months ago.  In the "Caine Mutiny" his crew realized he was endangering them so they decided to invoke Article 184.

I did a web search and discovered the following: 

How 'The Caine Mutiny' influenced the debate over the 25th Amendment

It was published in The Washington Post in Sept, 2018 but you can read it without a subscription here.

If you somehow missed seeing the movie based on a Herman Wouk novel:

The crew, as of late, believed the captain was out of his mind. He had recently ordered a sweeping investigation into who ate a missing quart of strawberries from the kitchen, believing the apprehension of this strawberry thief was of singular importance. In a second fit of paranoia, Queeg ordered the sailors to search for a nonexistent secret key to the icebox, believing it would lead to the thief. Now the captain was frozen in fear — believing he had everything under control.

This is a long article but the points it makes aren't what I want to focus on. 

Many others have compared Trump to Queeg as this Google search shows,  click here for search and below to enlarge image. 

We are now faced with a situation where we could have a president who, like Queeg,  becomes irrational and dangerous enough to lead to his second in command, his vice president, starting the process by calling in the Cabinet so they vote to use 25th Amendment. If they voted for this it would then go to the Congress.

Unless people are familiar with the novel or movie they wouldn't compare  Lt. Stephen Maryk, the ship’s executive officer, who finally takes over command of the vessel, to J.D. Vance. In effect Vance could be use the law like Maryk did to remove his superior and take over the ship, in this instance, the ship of state. 

For this to happen Trump's decompensation has to be public enough so 2/3rd of the members of Congress were willing to permanently remove the president. Then of course we'd have Vance as president.

Voters must realize that a vote for Trump is very possibly a vote for someone so unbalanced they could be removed through the 25th and they are really voting for J.D. Vance. It is possible, perhaps even likely, that enough people would prefer Vance to Harris as president that Trump still would win despite this.

Trump cannot win unless all members of his cult vote for him. There is a way this could change. His cult members view him as a Jesus like figure. If they realized that their Jesus was very human and had dementia some of them might, just might, feel sorry for him if they could believe it. As unlikely as this is there's a chance it could happen in the few weeks until the election.

They'd have to be convinced that when Trump says his fragmented speaking is an example of his masterful ability to do something he proudly calls "the weave" (see article) is really like a family member with dementia saying that their garbled mixed up speaking is meant to be avant-garde poetry.

If these voters could be convinced that Vance would be like Judas, while they might not vote for Harris, they might decide not to vote at all. 

These votes could make the difference between a win for Trump and a win for Harris.

What a President Vance would mean for the country isn't the point here. We can all imagine a sane version of Trump who also wants to be a dictator but understands Project 2025 and is intend on implementing it.

I think the Harris team has finally realized that Trump's cognitive decline can be a major, perhaps a deciding, issue in the election. This is evidenced by her using his unhinged words against him.

Read article and watch video.

On Oct. 2, I posted this blog:

“On the initiative of the vice president” should be on the top of the page story today. I just added Trump and strawberries to the image I made using AI:

Read previous blogs here.

 

Trump wants you to believe Kamala has a "migrant phone app" to help drug cartels. Is this schtick or does he believe it? By Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

You can watch the video of him saying this here.

 

I read about this in 

Trump’s lie-industrial complex by Lucian Truscott, IV in Salon today.

Excerpt:

He tells this lie at every one of his rallies, accusing President Biden and Vice President Harris of “letting in criminals from “insane asylums which are mental institutions on steroids” using what he calls “Kamala’s migrant phone app. She’s got a phone app. It’s meant for the cartel heads. The cartel heads call the app and they tell them where to drop the illegal migrants…It’s not even believable.” 

Here's an another excerpt from the article:

Trump spreads one vicious lie after another about immigrants, alleging that tens of thousands of “illegal” immigrants descended on the town of Springfield, Ohio, population 58,000, taking people’s jobs, eating their cats and committing crimes such as murder and rape. He tells lies about other towns such as Aurora, Colorado, where immigrant “gangs” are taking over entire apartment complexes “with AK-47s and they’re going to take over the whole damn state by the time they finish, unless I become president.”  He has even ginned up a whole new lie, that immigrants are crossing the border with Mexico “from the Congo in Africa. Many people from the Congo. I don’t know what that is, but they come out of jails in the Congo.” 

Whether Trump is doing schtick when he says things like this or whether he believes them is important. If he wanted to employ a metaphor he should be writing something like this about Kamala, the phone app, and migrants:

It's like Kamala has a migrant phone app. It's as if she’s got a phone app meant for the cartel heads, as if cartel heads call the app and they tell them where to drop the illegal migrants....

He doesn't write this. He concludes what he did write with "It’s not even believable” which is telling because it shouldn't be believable for any rational person because it is ludicrous.

If Trump just wants you to believe it he's a psychopathic manipulative liar, but if he believes it he is clincally delusional. This tells us that he gets information from others that supports his narrative, or that he makes things up with some semblence of creativity, or has them pop up from the fevered recesses of his unconscious. Wherever they come from if he ends up believing they are true he is experiencing delusions.

Along with the prospect that if Trump becomes president we will end up with what Chauncey DeVega called "The Age of Trump: MAGAVerse 2.0" in yesterday's Salon column (here). DeVega, ever the consumate wordsmith, wrote the following words that I hope against hope won't turn out to be prescient:

With less than a month to go until Election Day, the American people and the world will soon find out if the epic that is the Age of Trump is about to be over or if they will be forced to suffer through a sequel featuring the various characters and spin-offs that the MAGAverse 2.0 may spawn. In these final weeks, the story that is the Age of Trump most closely resembles some type of crime novel, one in which the crimes are announced and planned in public and then committed in plain sight.

With Trump we will also have a president with worsening dementia and a delusional psychosis. As I was quoted in the DeVega column this would mean that there would be a very good chance Trump's condition would deteriorate to the point he'd be removed through the 25th Amendment and Vance would become president. Vance would be a president with intact mental capacity who would be more capable than an unhinged president of implementing Project 2025. 

Vance wouldn't be doing schtick. He'd be be as serious a a heart attack for democracy.

I wrote about this in yesterday's blog:

Other previous blogs.

If "they" knew what we in Chauncey DeVega's Salon column know, would "they" still vote for Trump? Probably... By Hal M. Brown, MSW

Trump from Perchance Image AI

 With less than a month to go until Election Day  the American people and the world will soon find out if the epic that is the  Age of Trump is about to be over or if they will be forced to suffer through a sequel featuring the various characters and spin-offs that the MAGAVerse 2.0 may spawn. In these final weeks, the story that is the Age of Trump most closely resembles some type of crime novel, one in which the crimes are announced and planned in public and then committed in plain sight.  Chauncey DeVega

This was the main story on Salon this morning. It is a column by Chauncey DeVega .

(About Salon from Wikipedia.) 

It is a series of interviews with several people he interviews about politics on a regular basis. It happens that I am one of them. The quote about Vance in the title comes from what I said.

The "they" I refer to are those who people who believe another Trump term won't destroy democracy. They do believe Trump will fulfill all his promises to make their lives and the country better. They are among the good, moral, ethical, and caring people I wrote about in my blog the other day.

To quote myself from that blog:

Everyone voting for Trump isn't a believer in white nationalism, isn't a racist, and certainly not a violence prone sadist who thinks it's a good idea to separate migrant children from their parents and lock them in cages let alone put alligators in the Rio Grande or shoot those attempting to cross it in the legs.

First and foremost they believe that a Trump presidency will be good for them, their families, and for the country. Second, they believe that Kalama Harris will not be good for them, their families, and for the country. Many of them say that they just don't trust Kamala Harris but they are unable to explain why. 

When confronted with all the reasons not  to vote for Trump they either counter by saying this is fake news or dismissing these reasons by saying that his various strengths as a leader outweigh his shortcomings. They don't think children are being sent to school where, against their parents will, they will have their gender changed. They don't think Kamala Harris will turn the country into a communist or Marxist state.

What do Chauncey DeVega and those quoted in his column know?

Chauncey DeVega knows that Trump is an enemy of democracy. He has clearly made a case for this in his numerous columns.  Chauncey DeVega is a senior politics writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com. He also hosts two weekly podcasts, The Chauncey DeVega Show and The Truth Report. Chauncey can be followed on Twitter and Facebook.

Scholar and best-selling author Norm Ornstein knows that if Trump wins there's a good chance he will fulfill his pledge "to invoke the Insurrection Act, provoke political violence, focus on retribution, pardon the January 6 criminals, blow up our alliances and form a new one with dictators."

Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University and author, thinks that "if Trump were to lose, it’s virtually impossible to envision him accepting the election results; he is likely to accuse his enemies of stealing the election and urge his most passionate followers to take to the streets."

Lawyer, writer, political activist David Pepper knows that there is a very real chance Project 2025 will be implemented and could mean the "privatizing weather forecasts to attacks on public education, unions and workers, to bans on abortion and IVF, everyday Americans will quickly see how long-sought right-wing priorities will quickly upend their own lives, their communities and the nation as a whole."

As the only psychotherapist interviewed for this column what I know is that Trump is in cognitive decline. Therefore there is a very good chance that if Trump wins he would eventually be removed through the 25th Amendment. This would happen if his condition deteriorated into advanced dementia that was impossible to hide from the public. This would make a J.D. Vance, a clincially sane authoritarian, president. 

My impression is that Trump voters would miss their "dear leader" and turn him into some kind of god. They would engage in massive denial that people like us addressed the signs he had early dementia for months if not years.  Chris Christie noted this yesterday: 'I Saw': Chris Christie Describes 'Significant Declines' In Trump's Cognitive Skills (read article).

For people to change their minds about Trump (and Vance) they need to open them. This is not only incredibly difficult for those who have deeply held or core beliefs to do. These are beliefs that are part of their identity and how they view the world. Signficantly, it is even harder to radically change a belief that is central to one's identity when doing this means admitting you were gullible. Consider this entry from my online therausus for gullible:

 the swindler preyed upon gullible people. credulous, over-trusting, over-trustful, trustful, easily deceived/led, easily taken in, exploitable, ripe for the picking, dupable, deceivable, impressionable, unsuspecting, unsuspicious, unwary, unguarded, unskeptical, ingenuous, naive, innocent, simple, inexperienced, unworldly, green, as green as grass, childlike, ignorant; foolish, silly; informal wet behind the ears, born yesterday.

Considering the malevolent vengeance driven personalities of both Trump and Vance my suggestion to everyone should they win is that there's both strength and solace when you join with like minded people.

This is my quote from the DeVega column:

I want to share some advice, and hopefully some wisdom, from my 40 years as a psychotherapist and from the insights I gained from both my own clients and from my own therapists. In addition to what I said above, I would remind everyone who feels overwhelmed that no matter how horrific things get you are not alone in the resistance. The most insidious feeling during times of stress is loneliness. If you feel this and want to hide your head under a blanket force yourself to rally whatever strength you can muster and reach out to like-minded people.

Another way to put it is that it is better to hang together than to hang alone.

.............

This was posted on Oct. 14. This is the blog from Oct. 15th.

Read previous blogs here. 

If Trump wins Trumpism will be like Naziism but have it's own unique chilling definition , by Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

Trump spoke in Aurora, CO where he says Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs while standing in front of signs that said "Occupied America" showing photos of purported gang members. He not only wants to deport criminals, he wants to deport legal immigrants. As if this isn't fascistic enough, he wants to prosecute his political enemies. This may sound like Naziism but while it may be similar it is a new brutal authoritarianism. It won't be fully defined as Trumpism unless he wins the election.

Here's how a Colorado newspaper covered what he calls "Operation Aurora":

In speech, Trump paints violent picture of immigration in Colorado, says he’ll call his mass deportation efforts ‘Operation Aurora’

Excerpt:

In his remarks, Trump declared, “I love this state. This state has to flip Republican,” to raucous cheers. 

He said he could be spending time on the most beautiful beaches in the world but instead, he came to Colorado to figure out what “the hell happened to Aurora.” 

He blasted Gov. Jared Polis, referring to him as a coward, a fraud and pathetic. He also blamed Vice-President Kamala Harris for the surge in new immigrants arriving in the country in the past two years. 

“Kamala has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world,” said Trump. “And she has had them resettled, beautifully, into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens, that’s what they’re doing. And no place is it more evident than right here.”

He has also claimed numerous times that illegal immigrants take jobs from Blacks and Hispanics. The term "illegal" is irrelevant because to his base even legal immigrants aren't real Americans and should be deported. Of course this is a ploy to get votes but it isn't true. Consider the following:

Data shows migrants aren’t taking jobs from Black or Hispanic people, despite what Trump says (read AP article)

Excerpt:

What has Trump said?

Trump, who often uses anti-immigrant rhetoric, has referred during his campaign to immigrants he says are taking “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs.”

At a recent rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, Trump said, “You have an invasion of people into our country.”

“They’re going to be attacking — and they already are — Black population jobs, the Hispanic population jobs, and they’re attacking union jobs too,” Trump said. “So when you see the border, it’s not just the crime. Your jobs are being taken away too.”

Trump's rhetoric about jobs has been widely condemned by Democrats and Black leaders who have called it a racist and insulting way of implying that Black and Hispanic Americans take menial jobs.

Janiyah Thomas, the director of Team Trump Black Media, told The Associated Press that Democrats “continue to prioritize the interests of illegal immigrants over our own Black Americans who were born in this country” and that Biden-era job gains in the labor market were primarily due to illegal immigration.

None of what Trump says is true. This doesn't matter to him. Whether or not he knows this only matters when you want to make a differential diagnosis of him to determine whether he is mentally challenged, a manipulative psychopath, or clincially delusional. I'd go primarily with manipulative psychopath since demonizing a segment of nation's population is chapter one in the dictator's handbook.

Here's a glimpse of how our European allies view this. It is from the English version of France 24. Of course France was occupied by the Nazis during World War II and of the 340,000 Jews living in metropolitan/ continental France in 1940, more than 75,000 were deported to death camps, where about 72,500 were murdered. (Wikipedia)

'Occupied America': Trump further demonizes immigrants in Colorado campaign speech

If Trump wins it doesn't take any imagination to think about how our allies will react as they watch the United States turned from a democracy into a ruthless dictatorship where "undesirables" are rounded up and deported, or in the case of political rivals, imprisioned. 

Just yestereday Gen. Michael Flynn, who may very well end up with a high position in a Trump administration said some chilling things. He recently escalated violent rhetoric against Vice President Kamala Harris by calling her "an enemy of America" and saying we're at "war," was reportedly asked if he would consider "executing the swamp." 

"General Michael Flynn was asked at the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival Friday night if he'd 'sit at the head of a military tribunal to not only drain the swamp, but imprison the swamp, and on a few occasions, execute the swamp.' General Flynn says 'What your sentiment is about is accountability' and that 'I definitely believe we need accountability,'" he reported Saturday.

"There's a way to get after this, but we have to win first," Flynn further said, according to the weekend report. "These people are already up to no good, so we gotta win first. We win, and then [Katy] Bar the door. Believe me, the gates of hell, my hell will be unleashed." (reference)

This is what another general said, only this was about Trump:

“He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country.”

These are the words of Gen. Mark Milley who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents Trump and Biden. Read article.

From demonizing and getting rid of undesirables to taking away women's right to chose with the consequenses of climate change denial to making up "facts" to suit a political agenda it is Scream inducing to think what Trump will turn this country into if he wins. 

Trump won't bring in Naziism which is defined in the dictionary here.

He will have his own noun, Trumpism. We won't know exactly how it will be defined years from now, but we do know it will be horrific.

Update from Politico:

The article concludes as follows:

Vivid imagery, such as telling crowds of rally attendees that migrants will “cut your throat,” are now a staple of Trump’s speeches. He cites cases of U.S. women and girls allegedly murdered by immigrants in the country illegally, even as studies have shown that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans.

But Trump says they are — because they are inherently worse people. He’s told nearly all-white crowds in the past that they have “good genes,” even before his explicit suggestion this week that non-white immigrants are genetically inferior — when he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that migrants have “bad genes.”

“What is so jarring to me is these are not just Nazi-like statements. These are actual Nazi sentiments,” said Robert Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute, the author of “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy” and a vocal critic of Trump’s rhetoric. “Hitler used the word vermin and rats multiple times in Mein Kampf to talk about Jews. These are not accidental or coincidental references. We have clear, 20th century historical precedent with this kind of political language, and we see where it leads.”

You can see why I wrote yesterday's blog:

Friday blog: A message to good people, those who are caring, moral, and ethical, and who believe in democracy, and still are voting for Trump

Other recent blogs:

Cats

Watch Kamala's "60 Minutes" interview here and see why Trump wants to say it was incoherent and illegal

This is an important blog: Trump and his malignant narcissim revisited

If Trump ends up going to trial and is convicted is he capable of saying he's sorry?

Will the drip-drip-drip of Trump being Trump overflow his bucket and ruin his chance of winning?

Read previous blogs.

 

My name tags, from Dali's melting clocks to Munch's The Scream, By Hal M. Brown, MSW

I live in a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) which has about 450 residents. Almost all of them are liberal and although there are a few who are never-Trump Republicans nobody who is pro-Trump has made this known. 

A few residents, most of whom have recently moved in, wear lanyards which also have a key card chip in them with their names on them. 

Hey, we're old and sometimes we don't always remember the names of people we don't know that well. It also helps start conversations when we meet people for the first time.

Not too long ago a resident got the idea of helping residents order plastic name tags which, if they like, can be personalized with symbols. Here's an example.

I decided to order my own name badge from Zazzle which was even more personalized. I uploaded an image which had as its background a portion of Dali's well known painting The Persistence of Memory, often referred to as his melting clock painting. I felt this expressed my existential view of memory as an 80 year old. Here's how it looks on me:

It has been something of a conversation starter.

I got to thinking about another feeling I have much of the time and how I used another very famous painting to illustrate this blog:

 It is of course "The Scream" by Edvard Munch. 

My badge is due to arrive on October. 25th.  This means that by the time I recieve it the election will be two weeks away. 

I won't be screaming on the outside during this period. This will come if Trump wins. However, I will be screaming on the inside whenever I think of the possiblity that he will win. 

I am wondering what kind of conversations my wearing this badge will prompt.

Yesterday's blog:

Other recent blogs:

Cats

Watch Kamala's "60 Minutes" interview here and see why Trump wants to say it was incoherent and illegal

This is an important blog: Trump and his malignant narcissim revisited

If Trump ends up going to trial and is convicted is he capable of saying he's sorry?

Will the drip-drip-drip of Trump being Trump overflow his bucket and ruin his chance of winning?

Read previous blogs.