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The Caligula Candidate
Many people have expressed concern with the remarks that Donald Trump made in the recently released videotape, demonstrating as they do the candidate’s extreme crudity and his contempt for the humanity of women. However there is another aspect of the Don’s character readily observable in the celebrated tape that should be even more alarming. This is Trump’s complete inability to restrain his primal impulses.
Trump is clearly an aspiring dictator, and so has sometimes been compared to Adolf Hitler. However, while sharing Hitler’s national socialist method of invoking the tribal instinct to mobilize mob support for a program of unlimited government, socialistic policy, and one-man rule, Trump has a very different personal character. Until he went insane late in the war, Hitler was capable of a certain amount of intellectual focus and self-discipline. Trump, on the other hand, is completely lacking in those traits. Rather, he is a man of unlimited appetites who sees no reason to control himself, even when an appearance of such control is required to achieve his own strategic ends. Instead of Hitler, the mad Roman emperor Caligula serves as much closer historical model for the dissolute Don.
Trump’s lack of self-control, repeatedly demonstrated through such self-destructive behaviors as his late night defecations into the twitterverse, has long been an annoyance to his campaign staff, who find it objectionable because it decreases his chance of winning the election. However those whose priorities center upon the good of the nation rather than merely the good of a candidate may wish to consider the implications of Trump’s infantilism in a broader context.
The nation’s founders set a Constitutional minimum age requirement of 35 years for the office of president, because they recognized that the Chief Executive of the United States and the Commander-in-Chief of its Armed Forces needs to be a mature adult. Clearly a person who says that he cannot stop himself from spontaneously grabbing and kissing attractive women cannot be described in such terms. Indeed, he would not even qualify as an acceptable adolescent, since anyone who acted in such a manner would not meet the behavior standard required to remain enrolled in a public high school.
The human mind can be described as having three levels of operation, defined by animal lust, practical reason, and moral conscience. You see a desired object. Lust urges you to steal it, reason advises otherwise to avoid prosecution, while conscience tells you not to steal because stealing is wrong. An infant is born with only the lustful part of the mind operational, but we hope over time develops the capacity to act in accord with reason, and ultimately conscience.
An examination of Donald Trump’s life shows that he has not developed well in this respect. Rather, his entire business career has been one cheat after another, swindling his investors, his lenders, his vendors, his workers, and his customers. As a result, there are currently several thousand different lawsuits being processed against him by those he has wronged. Clearly he has no interest in acting according to moral conscience. For Trump, right and wrong are not relevant categories; only winning and losing matter. Furthermore, as demonstrated by the number of suits he has incurred, his practical reason exerts only weak influence in restraining his animal lust to take whatever he wants.
This brings us back to the subject of Caligula, the exemplar of a ruler with unconstrained appetites. According to Wikipedia,
Caligula worked to increase the unconstrained personal power of the emperor, as opposed to countervailing powers within the principate … Caligula reviewed Tiberius’s records of treason trials and decided, based on their actions during these trials, that numerous senators were not trustworthy. He ordered a new set of investigations and trials. He replaced the consul and had several senators put to death. Suetonius reports that other senators were degraded by being forced to wait on him and run beside his chariot..… Philo of Alexandria and Seneca the Younger describe Caligula as an insane emperor who was self-absorbed, angry, killed on a whim, and indulged in too much spending and sex. He is accused of sleeping with other men’s wives and bragging about it, killing for mere amusement, deliberately wasting money on his bridge, causing starvation, and wanting a statue of himself erected in the Temple of Jerusalem for his worship.
Much of the above account is startlingly reminiscent of Trump. But while in Caligula’s day the Roman Empire was completely secure against all external threats, and so his lack of restraint and desire for absolute power could only wreak serious harm on the internal soundness of the commonwealth, an infantile ruler of such character today could quickly lead the nation, and indeed human civilization, to quick and total destruction.
Say what you will, Hillary Clinton is an adult. Many of her policies are mistaken, but she is demonstrably sane. The same cannot be said about Trump.
America requires a president with a mental age over 35, not under two. Trump does not meet that criterion. Accordingly, he is unfit for office.
Published in General
Situations where a comparison to Hitler is OK :
If a candidate is advocating war to gain territory, the need for a Master Race and the extermination of people who are not part of the Master Race, then comparisons to Hitler are acceptable.
Situations where comparison to Hitler is not OK:
Any other conceivable situation.
Once you bring Hitler into the conversation it does not matter what the underlying point was, even if it was a valid criticism. The entire conversation revolves around Hitler. Whether this argument violates the CoC is not as important as the fact that it is garbage and should not be something that is part of the Public face of Ricochet.
Ricochet home of Smart, Civil conversation where we call people worse than Hitler.
Is it really wise to post this tripe on the Main Feed while conducting a membership drive?
Putting aside the question of how darkly insane Trump may or may not be:
It bothers me that people think Hillary Clinton is the more rational of the two.
I cannot look at her life’s story and see a rational actor.
I’m guessing that people who have witnessed her temper tantrums think that she will settle down once she gets what she ardently and singularly seems to want: to be the first woman president. Don’t count on that. It is the height of immaturity that she has this stupid obsession, and when temper tantrums work for little kids, they simply have more of them.
Clinton puts subject-verb-predicate strings together better than Trump does. So people guess that she is the saner of the two. That is a mistake.
We use the language ability too often as an indication of sanity. There was quite the writer’s group that met weekly at McLean’s mental hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, of whom Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath were two, and we know they both committed suicide.
I would say that her installing a server in her bathroom in Chappaqua was insane, for many reasons.
Fair enough, but the main point made when discussing his lack of a filter is that he is somewhat naive and just blurts out whatever he thinks. That may not be politically expedient, but it does give us some confidence that our insight in to his nature isn’t based on a manufactured image or a false facade. He gives us an uncommon level of honesty in a politician, and we just aren’t used to any- so it makes him appear unsophisticated or crude when in my estimation he is no more so than all the others, they just are practiced at the art of deception and image maintenance.
He just doesn’t care about creating a false image, he pretty clearly says take me as I am. Some can’t, OK, but I don’t believe that if the same man just put up a better facade, he would be a better president.
Gotcha! I wondered about the question mark at the end. Makes sense now.?
I respectfully disagree. I don’t think that Trump blurts out whatever he thinks is true. I think that Trump blurts out whatever he thinks will get people to cheer for him, whether it is honest or not. I find his comments to be a completely false facade. Very low-level example: Last year he hosted SNL. But when SNL runs a parody he doesn’t like, he demands that it be taken off the air. That isn’t “honesty.” That’s just: “I want you to cheer for me. If you do, I’ll say whatever you like. If you don’t, I’ll attack you.”
Real honesty is reflected in some phrases that you’ll never hear from Trump. Like, “I was wrong.”
Spot on? Did Hitler have impulse control and lack a filter or did Hitler bide his time and succeed in selling different messages to different people?
You are really insulting the late Fuhrer by comparing him to Trump in these areas. However, you are insulting Trump by other aspects of that comparison.
You, Tom, the
CathyCandy Crowley of Ricochet, are also letting your own biases interfere with what the proper role of an editor (as editor or moderator) should be (unless the official editorial policy of Ricochet is #NeverTrump by any means necessary).In the first place, it’s Candy Crowley. More to the point, I would urge you to read the comment again, because you really did misunderstand “the point” that was under discussion. It wasn’t about the comparison with Hitler.
OK, the word honesty is a bit over broad. But it isn’t dishonest to be on the show, and support the show, up until they make you mad, then attack. That is exactly honesty, he acts how he feels at the moment.
Granted, we all know that his momentary feelings are subject to radical change at the drop of a hat. I’m not saying lack of a filter makes him consistent, just transparent.
Godwin’s law strikes again. I’m paying money for this crap?
Perhaps the Beer Hall putsch is code named Member Meet Up somewhere in New York City this week. The fiendish cunning.
Think of it as a tax and it makes it less painful.
I believe the author only mentions others comparing Trump to Hilter, while the author is comparing Trump to Caligula.
Perhaps we start calling the first one in an argument to invoke Caligula: Zubrin’s Law.
I support lower taxes. So lets lower the amount of Hitler comparisons on the Main Feed.
This almost made iced tea come out my nose. Man, you can’t just spring those on me.
As for the OP, you guys are on the wrong track. Without him to inspire our resident comedic geniuses the comments would be boring. I say encourage Mr Zubrin. Might want to change his title from Contributor to something more descriptive though.
The point that Larry and I agreed with was the illustration of Trump’s poor impulse control. Neither of us, so far as I gather, agree with Zubrin’s analogy.
Oh, please. I disagree with Zubrin on this piece and I think it was wholly counterproductive to NeverTrumpism.
Initial reaction. “Oh, come on, that can’t be true. Let me Google it.”
Second reaction: HAHAHAHA!
UPDATE: As @skipsul points out, this is hardly “Demanding it be taken off the air.”
‘Others’ including him?
http://ricochet.com/329871/donald-trump-national-socialist/
Larry3435:
No, collusion with the media is a good policy, with whatever part of the media that will go along. Anyone who has seen Trump’s nightly appearances on Hannity, who then has the gumption to complain about “collusion with the media,” has an impressive capacity for irony.
You might be right. I don’t watch cable news, so I haven’t seen the Hannity stuff. My collusion remark was aimed more at the presstitutes who released stories on timing approved by the campaign, altered emphasis at the campaign’s bidding, submitted sections of their work for the campaign’s approval, etc. The stuff where journalistic ethics in news reporting were compromised. If Hannity is guilty along with the AP and others, I’m all for naming names.
What’s done in print or broadcast is available for everyone to see. But the collusion I refer to is the stuff that requires a Wikileaks dump to discover. There’s a reason it’s done in secret.
Adult.
Her “mistaken” policies are illustrated on this obscure website known as the Ricochet Member Feed, here.
But I suppose the author of the OP can’t afford to spare 16 minutes away from moral preening to actually watch the video.
Don’t take my comment as disagreeing with your Zubrin’s Law suggestion, I very much like it, just didn’t want it to go unnoticed that today it is only ‘others’ who compare Trump to Hitler, but not so long ago, he was among them.
That is not at all “Demand[ing] that it be taken off the air.” To say that it is is to either engage in hyperbole or mild dishonesty.
He’s been quite direct in calling Trump a National Socialist in past posts.
One could even say … Zubrin could hurt Ricochet’s reputation and membership for decades …
^Entirely correct. I’ll add an addendum.
Proof that CaligulaTrumpHitlerTrajanPontiusPilate is rigging the election.