Trump Is Our Caligula

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Let’s look at some news about Trump reported over the past few hours. The first example is courtesy of Heather Cox Richardson’s February 5 post:

This morning, in a rambling and often crazed speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump told attendees: “They rigged the second election. I had to win it. I had to win it. I needed it for my own ego. I would’ve had a bad ego for the rest of my life. Now I really have a big ego, though. Beating these lunatics was incredible, right? What a great feeling, winning every swing state, winning the popular vote. The first time, you know, they said I didn’t win the popular vote. I did.”

“I needed it for my own ego” is honest, at least, but who actually says that?  Then yesterday CNN reported:

President Donald Trump told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer last month that he was finally prepared to drop his freeze on billions of dollars in funding for a major New York infrastructure project.

But there was a condition: In exchange for the money, Schumer had to agree to rename New York’s Penn Station and Washington’s Dulles International Airport after Trump.

Again, not exactly normal. I haven’t heard if Chuck responded. Chuck doesn’t have the authority to rename either Penn Station in NYC or Dulles Airport — which is in bleeping Virginia — anyway.

Then Trump shared an appalling video that depicted the Obamas as monkeys. It was eventually deleted after some Republicans complained about it. Update: The White House is now blaming a staffer for the video. Sure.

Trump continues to make ridiculous claims about how he’s brought down prescription drug prices by more than 100 percent.

Trump is having, or at least allowing, a 22-foot-tall gold statue of himself to be erected in Miami on the site where the US will host a G20 summit later this year. The statue is being paid for by a bunch of crypto bros. However, the sculptor is not letting the statue out of his studio until the bros cough up the balance of what they owe him. And since crypto recently took a dive, that may be a problem. So we may be spared the embarrassment of having world leaders being greeted by “Don Colossus.”

Again, these are stories published over just the past few hours. And I say we’re looking at an increasingly deteriorated mental state. Trump is not what we might call well socialized, but there was a time in his life when he could probably fake being psychologically and socially normal. But that time is over. And I know there have been news stories about his declining mental state going back at least a couple of years, if not longer, but I say he’s getting worse. He has absolutely no filters now.

I got this from TPM:

The Trump administration is retaliating against recently freed 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his family for becoming a poster boy for the brutality of Operation Metro Surge by seeking to end their asylum claims and expedite the deportation proceedings against them, MPR reports.

In short, somebody doesn’t have enough sense to leave well enough alone. Although this might be Miller as much as Trump.

Getting back to the New York tunnel story, the project is expected to have a major effect on rail service, and not just in New York:

The project, known as Gateway, sits at the heart of the Northeast Corridor rail route that runs from Boston to Washington and is the most-used passenger line in the United States. It includes the construction of a new two-track tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey, which are linked by 116-year-old tunnels in such poor condition that trains are often delayed, creating a bottleneck.

Supporters of the project say the new tunnel would be crucial to avoiding a disruption in rail service around New York City that they believe would have drastic effects on the national economy.

So this project isn’t just about doing a favor to New Jersey-New York commuters.  Funding originally was held up because the Administration wanted to be sure there was no DEI hanky-panky going on. But holding up this project so Trump can get Penn Station re-named after him is just nuts.

Meanwhile Trump is still planning to put up some oversized European-style triumphal arch in DC and is looking to gut the Kennedy Center in ways that could ruin it as a performance venue. So what’s keeping him from ordering a nuke dropped on the next foreign leader — or U.S. governor — who pisses him off?

As I understand it, when older people have lost all filters this usually indicates a shrinking prefrontal cortex This is not something you want to see in a POTUS.

Having Trump as president really is like being tied to a chair and watching a toddler play with a loaded gun (excuse me if I’ve said that before). And in spite of his crashing poll numbers a whole lot of people are still propping him up and protecting him. In the current Congress he’s not about to be impeached and removed from office for cause. At least there could be a huge grassroots scream for removing him under the 25th Amendment.

14 thoughts on “Trump Is Our Caligula”

  1. I read a commentator note that we are now just prisoners to a dying empire, forgot who, but it was a good likeness.

    We are no longer citizens or even subjects, just suspects. The funny thing that the working class/white collar MAGAs do not understand is that when the fascists are done with their enemies on the left their repression machine will be pre-primed and turn right back on them with even more cruel violence.  

    However, Mango Man is already mirroring Nero by saying  "What an artist dies in me" with all his pre-death monuments. 

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      • Drat, I replied to this earlier but my post went missing. Let's see if I can remember… 

        Yes, you are right, let's hope the American fascists don't last long. The wingers also don't understand that fascists run crappy economies because of corruption that leads to huge inefficiencies, waste, and income inequality. Plus, the overhead of repression is a drain on the public coffers. 

  2. shrinking prefrontal cortex?
      I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

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  3. I hope he erects "Don Collossus". USAans need to wake up to how sick this is. Massive vanity project while the rest of the country rots.

    The NY tunnel project will eventually get done, because eventually sane hands are going to prevail. There may not be any $ in the treasury, but nutso Trump won't last forever.

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  4. Trump is still declining in the polls, which he knows about because he's threatening to sue pollsters. The perception of voters is that the economy is worse, not better, and Trump is not engaged in fixing it. He's all over the map on vanity projects like the Epstein Ballroom, the JFK Center, the Arch (does it have anything to do with McDonalds? They can do cheaper arches.)  Oh, and a couple of golf courses he's nationalized.  Unemployment ticked up and I wonder if the numbers are real. Most people do NOT approve of how Ice is murdering citizens or sweeping up immigrants with no criminal records. Minneapolis was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. (That's got to sting.) There's plenty of time before November, but I don't see things turning around mostly because Trump sees his sinking popularity as a PR problem, not a policy problem. I don't think Trump will DO anything dramtic – he might fire a few people and hang out their scalps when the net result is only moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. (I know, I've used that metaphor before.) 

    The thing is – I don't think the election will be something Trump can steal by sending ICE into fifteen blue cities. He's losing special elections in 'safe' areas. Trump will claim he was cheated everywhere but it's gonna be decided in court based on evidence. I'm concerned about the November election – so is Trump. I don't think he's prepared for the magnitude of the dissatisfaction, nor does Trump have a plan for dealing with the root causes of the ecomomic problems. 

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  5. If Caligula was analogous to our present plight, much sympathy for those in his circles. I understand the Empire developed quite a skill set for removal from office possibly due to his reign, but it did not stop the fall. A fall of an empire possibly linked directly to Caligula's bent for hedonism. Parallels do seem to exist.  Need we mention the Epstein matter spanning multiple administrations?  Taboo levels of pleasure-seeking abounding in elite classes are quite well documented.  

    Borderdenizen says it well.  Suspects at best, not even citizens or subjects, in our own country is our present status.  Less than that even, with certain variations in garb or pigmentation.  We are all guilty unless proven innocent…to he who was born on third base and is convinced he constantly hits homers.  If we are challenged in pigmentation then worthy only of deportation, incarceration, or extermination especially if entertaining to "select audiences".

    The Obamas exist as a prime threat.  Not only did they rise to status by merit and talent they did so with the "wrong" pigmentation.  They exist as living and historical proof of the fallacy of white supremacy.  Like the old Charley the Tuna ads they example he is just not good enough.  He is old and aging fast.  His skill set is in decline and was never much of a match for the Obama's.  His recent childish post just more evidence of his standing in comparison. Each shovel-full out of his hole adding to his problem which has become our problem.  He is just too old to develop respect for true talent, yet he extorts and begs for symbols of recognition and grandiose deeds.  He has only his duels with windmills and his loyal Sancho Ponza's as his legacy for sure.  The quest for the validation of his and the cult’s fallacy.  Sorry Charley. Poor us.

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  6. As far as the video goes I'm not sure why the media would even report on it. If you haven't figured out that diaper don and his supporters are irredeemable racists then you just haven't been paying attention. He told us that the day he and the paid escort descended the escalator. Stump pulls these stunts so the attention deficit media will talk about that all weekend instead of Renee Good, Alex Pretti and the Epstein files. It's an old game he been playing it for decades. At least the Obama's figured it out!

    https://www.newsweek.com/obamas-ignore-trump-ape-post-in-first-comments-since-backlash-11482555

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    • Caligula was Nero's uncle on his mother's side. I never got over John Hurt's portrayal of Caligula in I, Claudius, which is probably why I think of Caligula as bat guano crazy. I understand that a lot of the stories about him may be exaggerated. He probably didn't really kill his sister to eat her fetus. And he probably didn't really appoint a horse to the Senate, although he thought about it. He may have really declared war on Neptune and sent soldiers to attack the sea, though. IMO in the contest of who was nuttier, Caligula or Nero, I think the money's on Caligula. 

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      • No disagreement with you, that's why I said both rolled into one.  No problem with putting Caligula in the driver's seat, but I kinda like Nero in the passenger seat, due to his propensity to build a new palace and assassinating his political rivals. Also this in the section of "Residences": 
        "Outside of Rome, Nero had several villas or palaces built, the ruins of which can still be seen today. These included the Villa of Nero at Antium, his place of birth, where he razed the villa on the site to rebuild it on a more massive and imperial scale and including a theatre."  
        … sound familiar?  cheeky

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  8. Caligula is an apt analogy, given Trump's incestuous lust for his daughter.  I can't get out of my head the images of John Hurt in the BBC 'I Claudius' series.

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