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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
Say what you want about the tenants of Trumpism, at least its an ethos.
“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.”
It can be described as such, perhaps by a Phrenologist or traveling Mountebank from the 19th century selling elixirs guaranteed to grow back teeth and hair,
This blend of false-Freudian and behaviorism is exactly why neophytes to psychology need to stay far away from cognitive analysis. As an infant, the only instinct you are born with is the suckling musculature needed to nurse from your mother. After that behavior is learned. As in, I’m not a fan of Trump, but as a member of Ricochet who loves this community, using the same old tired hyperbolic analysis to napalm our internet village is a great way to get attention with no consideration for what we try to cultivate here.
I want a similar one, “NO ONE FOR PRESIDENT”
I say suspend the office the next 4 years ;-) I think we might just be better served.
The ones living in his buildings?
I don’t think it holds much weight. If Trump truly had no built-in checks (including self-interests) on his lusts — there is a high likelihood he would currently be institutionalized, incarcerated or interred. But Trump is not any of these things. Therefore I conclude author’s basic point is at best erroneous resulting from flawed reasoning, or at worst libel.
You want a toe? I can get you a toe.
When you’re rich you aren’t crazy, you’re eccentric.
Never Go Full Caligula
Since this is a running series/bad joke from this “Contributor”, is there ever a consequence? Inquiring, fee-paying, minds would like to know.
You just reminded I need new towels.
And maybe a rug…
If it is, the future of Ricochet — due to its attraction to Zubrin’s ilk and or his rants — is in question.
“Give the Never Trumpers their due: Most do not shy away from the implication that anyone who would vote for Mr. Trump is as low and base as he is. Their problem is that the argument doesn’t seem to be having much traction with Republican voters. A Rasmussen poll released Monday found that while Mrs. Clinton enjoys the support of 78% of Democrats, Mr. Trump is supported by 74% of Republicans.”
Trumpists “support him because they fear political correctness is making vital discussions about the country impossible—and conclude that any candidate who’s going to take this on (and has any possibility of winning) is not going to be Miss Manners.”
“In the end, the strongest argument for a Trump vote has always been this: The alternative is a president who lies, whose public life has been a series of scandals from cattle futures to the destruction of documents under subpoena, who would be a third term for disastrous Obama policies at home and abroad, and who has never taken a position that wasn’t done from naked political expediency” and who looks like she is going to get National Enquirer bombed on October 19th.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-cheap-moralizing-of-never-trump-1476745922
Ah Ricochet’s finest adherent to Godwin’s Law is back.
Actually it’s more like Trump is to Clinton like
Marc Antony is to Caligula.
Apparently, when Donald went down to Jeffrey Epstein’s island, of “Lolita Express” fame. According to the NY Daily News, for what that’s worth:
“A woman’s lawsuit alleging Donald Trump raped her when she was 13 will soon get a hearing before a judge — but not until after the presidential election.”
I have no idea how credible the claim is, though just on the face of it, it doesn’t seem IN-credible. (There are many men whose characters are such that it would be difficult if not impossible to persuade me they’d done something like this, but DT isn’t one of them.)
It doesn’t seem to be persuading anyone else on our side.
Uh yeah, file a lawsuit that can’t be heard until after the election and then there will be a quiet settlement after the election. McCain had one of those with the New York Times if I recall correctly.
Rumors have been moving for months that they would file with less than 30 days to go so they couldn’t be heard until after.
It doesn’t seem to be persuading anyone else on our site.
Hello how are you. Nice to meet you. I prefer votary to adherent which sounds so much like a glue.
He seems to be welded to the idea.
Well, like, that’s just your opinion, man.
I am not voting third party!
I wouldn’t even go there. There’s simply no way, at this point, to say anything about the subject that isn’t pure speculation.
Impure speculation, surely. And don’t call me Shirley.
Sorry, Shirl. I take it back.
I apologize for the flippant tone in my remarks. I’m sure the author is very intelligent, more than I. Off-handed remarks about cognitive processes in political diatribes is a pet-peeve. But it was mild and not deserving of the reaction I gave. Of many terrible things this election has produced, political writers handing out DSM diagnoses is to me, a cardinal sin. One the author did not commit. So, I apologize again for my Howard Beale-esque response.
Writer: Trump is an aspiring dictator.
Trump: That’s a lie! And when I’m president, newspapers are not going to be allowed to publish this kind of crap.
Trumpists: That’s right! This article should never have been allowed to be published!