I got out a bit of a kick out of this article (My First Big Boy Trip), at Slate. Trump is quite like a spoiled child. It got me to thinking.
Back during Nixon’s downfall I was a law student, living at home in Hartford. On many an evening I would trek to a friend’s house a few blocks away. We would get stoned and almost inevitably talk about Nixon. He was an endlessly fascinating character. We weren’t the only ones, I’m sure, who spent endless hours trying to plumb his depths. There are no depths there when it comes to Trump.
The Trump phenomenon poses a far greater threat to the Republic than Nixon ever did, but Trump himself holds no fascination. Assuming the republic survives, it will be hard for anyone to make a movie about him without turning it into a dark comedy. Both Anthony Hopkins and Rip Torn, among others, brilliantly portrayed the complicated Nixon. It’s hard to believe anyone could improve, or would want to try to improve, on Alec Baldwin when it comes to Trump. There’s nothing Shakespearean about him, as there was about Nixon. Nixon seemed to struggle Macbeth-like, with his demons. Trump lashes out like a spoiled child.
I guess it’s true that history repeats itself, once as Greek tragedy, and once as farce.
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