The Mad King

A traitor is everyone who does not agree with me.
-Mad King George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland, 1760-1820.

King George III was, by all accounts, not such a bad monarch... for a while. Generally fiscally responsible, a devoted husband, a father of 13 (2 more died in early childhood), educated, well-read, extremely devout, and deeply interested in science. But he fell ill at the age of 27, suffering from high fever, cognitive impairment, and insomnia. He would recover, but when he was 50, he would relapse and become fairly unhinged at times. A sustained episode of mania began. He exhibited erratic and violent behavior and experienced hallucinations. It would take months to recover. He relapsed briefly at 62 and 66 years of age. A final, permanent decline began following the death of his favorite daughter, Princess Amelia. He was blind by this point. The king became permanently incapacitated, and a regent, his eldest son, was appointed. He spent his final decade isolated and demented - spending hours crying, ranting, and talking to his dead children.

His 'madness'? He could have been bipolar, but many believe he suffered from the blood disease porphyria, which may have been triggered by exposure to arsenic (found in period cosmetics or medicine).

But the legacy of the Mad King to Americans was that of the taxing tyrant. Remember the Boston Tea Party? A protest over a tea tariff. Which turned into that whole, ugly American Revolution thingee. If you have ever seen the musical "Hamilton," George III steals the show.

Oceans rise, empires fall
We have seen each other through it all
And when push comes to shove
I will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love.

For your love, for your praise
And I'll love ya till my dying days
When you're gone, I'll go mad
So don't throw away this thing we had
'Cause when push comes to shove
I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love

Can you just anticipate what future musical directors will do with the Trump?

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

-Queen Gertrude in Shakespeare's Hamlet, and possibly, a couple of hundred U.S. military officers

A little snark/not so snark... serious question, perhaps to my LGBT readers: Is Pete Hegseth gay? No, really. He seems, more and more, the most vicious closet case in the country, happily adopting Daddy Trump's venomous behavior and language. Think about it: He assumes command of the largest military in the world, and quicky begins to purge women from the ranks and eliminates an advisory group for females in the services. He declares that combat positions will return to "the highest male standard only" and that "if that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it." All DEI goals have been struck down. He orders the US Navy to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, a move intentionally timed for Pride month. 

Denial, much?

Hegsy has installed a makeup studio in the Pentagon. While he complained about "beard-o's" (uh, men with facial hair) in the service, his own hairstyle always seems in flux. From slicked back to wavy coifs, and what many have perceived as uneven dye jobs - an attempt maybe to keep a stylish 'touch of grey' but not let it overtake his empty skull. It's a color that MSN described as "Less Salt & Pepper & More Cruella De Vil."

More telling is his obsession with jacked, pumped-up male physiques. He complained about "fat troops," and told the assembled, high-ranking officers that, "It's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon." Man, I hate it when the fatties kill the disco vibe. It was an ironic intro for 5 Deferrment Donald, the sleek, streamlined Commander-in-Chief.

Like an evangelical minister doing coke rails behind the pulpit, Hegseth paced and preached. “No more division, distraction, and gender delusions. No more debris. As I’ve said before, and will say again: We are done. With that. Shit.” And then he gave them 45 minutes of that shit. Pacing. Hectoring. Admonishing men who have more spine and character than Hegseth has mascara.

Hegseth was the lukewarm-up act. The headliner was a real show stopper that clocked in at 71 minutes.

Trump strutted out, waiting for... what? Applause? A sea of red hats and "Fuck Your Feelings" t-shirts? What he received was a wave of deafening... silence. “I’ve never walked into a room so silent before," as he tried to maintain a smile. "Just have a good time. And if you want to applaud, you applaud... And if you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank; there goes your future." There was, finally, laughter. Light, nervous laughter.

He got to the shitty-nitty-gritty when he spoke menacingly of the “enemy from within.” (That would be us. U.S. Citizens, btw, if you haven't been paying attention.) “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military...”

Tom Nichols of The Atlantic noted:

This farrago of fantasy, menace, and autocratic peacocking is the kind of thing that the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan evocatively called “boob bait for the Bubbas” and that George Orwell might have called “prolefeed.” It’s one thing to serve it up to an adoring MAGA crowd: They know that most of it is nonsense and only some of it is real. They find it entertaining, and they can take or leave as much of Trump’s rhetorical junk-food buffet as they would like. It is another thing entirely to aim this kind of sludge at military officers, who are trained and acculturated to treat every word from the president with respect, and to regard his thoughts as policy.

In his last term, career officers were known to slow-walk most of his absurd orders or let them get lost in bureaucracy. You often heard this referred to as the guardrails that kept us from losing the country. Those officers have mostly been purged or retired. Loyalists replaced them at every level, in every service branch.

It may have meant something that the audience that day DID remain stoic, that they didn't kiss his ass by breaking military protocol and hooting and hollering. It's something, but not much. The test will be how many follow the unlawful orders that are sure to come.

Did anyone see the movie "Valkyrie"?
Don't know why it just popped into my head. Nevermind.

It was bad enough for our very own "Führer" to appear before US troops. A week earlier, he had taken the liberty of making an appearance before the UN General Assembly to barf up a dog's breakfast of insane pronouncements.

He complained that the teleprompter was broken and it was the UN's fault (it was his staff at the controls), at one point comparing it to the 'broken' UN itself. He bragged about his tariffs, which the rest of the world (and most of us here) consider to be economic war. He boasted about blowing up small speedboats that he claims were terrorist drug smugglers from <checks notes> Venezuela. (He has not produced a shred of proof.) He boasted that he's “ended seven un-endable wars,” which “were raging, with countless thousands of people being killed.” Uh-huh. There were his poll numbers, "the highest they've ever been." Inflation has been "defeated." Climate change was "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world." blah, blah, blah.

He predictably whined about not having the Nobel Peace Prize, while unironically bragging about the attack he ordered on Iran, and you know, the drug boats. When he finally got around to his greatest hit, immigration, he let 'em have it. After outlining how he alone saved the USA from Biden's immigration failures, he dressed down the rest of the world. "It’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders. You have to end it now,” to which he added,“I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell.”

It was 57 minutes of The Mad King Trump. Pure lunacy. And everyone knows.

I was going to pull-quote a bunch of stuff from both speeches to illustrate his madness. But you know. Everyone knows. Take a moment when you get a chance and just put yourself in the place of those officers and world leaders, sitting there, being insulted for over an hour. Read it aloud. They would haul you out the back door if you spoke like this at the quarterly meeting.

The speech before the military leadership is here.
The UN transcript is here.

After Trump’s 70-minute rambling blather in front of the military brass, Representative Madeleine Dean (D-PA) confronted House Speaker Mike Johnson. It was caught on camera:
Dean: “The president is unhinged. He is unwell.”
Speaker Johnson: “A lot of folks on your side are, too. I don’t control him.”
Dean: “Oh my God, please. That performance in front of the generals?"
Johnson: “I didn’t see it.”

This is known as the PeeWee Herman confession. "I know you are, but what am I?"
Yes, the Speaker of the House knows. Everyone knows.

Heather Cox Richardson, in her popular Substack, noted that Trump's UN speech

"was a dark fantasy of narcissism and Christian nationalism that struck at the heart of the very concept of the United Nations. In its wake, some journalists demolished Trump’s wild claims, while others bemoaned his destruction of diplomacy by berating our friends and allies while they were guests in our country. But it was foreign affairs journalist Ishaan Tharoor who captured the larger story of Trump’s speech. “A senior foreign diplomat posted at the U.N. texts me,” Tharoor wrote, “‘This man is stark, raving mad. Do Americans not see how embarrassing this is?’”

Everyone knows.

Perhaps unfairly, George III is remembered more for his mental illness and the loss of the American colonies than for Britain’s triumph over Napoleon at Waterloo. He is known as the Mad King Who Lost America.

Donald Trump seems determined to claim the same Royal title.