As I contemplate the nefarious career of Donald Trump, the greatest con man in human history, I keep thinking of the movie, "The Man Who Would Be King," sharing Michael Caine and Sean Connery, based on the 1888 novel by Rudyard Kipling. Set in Afghanistan during the British colonial period, it depicts two rogues who decide to seek their fortunes in a remote part of Afghanistan that has not been open to Europeans. Using their cunning, they manage to con their way into becoming kings. They do this by convincing the natives that they are gods. This happens by accident. One of them is shot by an arrow and unharmed because unbeknownst to the natives, he is wearing body armor. The natives believe that this rogue cannot be harmed, and hence is a god. When they are installed as kings, the two rogues find out that the natives possess immense treasure and gloat over becoming rich beyond their imagining. But one of them makes a fatal mistake: he falls for a native girl and tries to have his way with her. She resists, bites him on the check, and he bleeds. The natives realize he is a fraud, turn on him, and make him walk over a cliff, where he is impaled, crucified, but survives. He returns to "civilization" as a crippled beggar.
The parallel with Trump is the belief among his followers that he is invincible, beyond the law. Repeatedly, he is charged with crimes that would ordinarily destroy a politician or a mere mortal, but he emerges unscathed. The more often this happens, the more willing his followers are to believe his lies. He is, after all, above the law, with god-like power. Therefore, he alone can fix our country.
What will stop Trump, and hopefully deflate Trumpism? If he is not only charged with a crime, but found guilty and forced to accept consequences. These could include some kind of confinement (maybe at home), community service (I'd love to see Trump serving meals in a homeless shelter) and being disqualified from running for office. His crimes deserve much harsher punishment, but what I propose should be enough to prevent him from further mischief.
Once his followers see that Trump is human, and not above the law, many will likely turn on him, as the Italians turned on Mussolini after he was defeated. I don't want to see Trump shot, but I do want to see him punished in a way that convinces his followers that he is a con man, not a would-be king.
The only risk I see is that some of his followers will be seen as a martyr. They will continue to worship him till the day he dies. This will be a passionate minority who will continue to cause mischief with their crack-pot conspiracy theories. It will take more than punishing Trump to cure the disease of Trumpism. It will take a generation or more to undo the damage that Trump and his ilk have done to the body politic of America. But punishing Trump is a necessary first step.
That's why I want the Select Committee to send criminal charges to the Justice Department, and pray that Merritt Garland will have the courage to bring this con man to justice. If Garland fails to do so, there is a chance that Trump could be elected and rig the system so he could be president for life, in other words, America's first king. This may seem outlandish, but who would have imagined that a con man could take over the Republican party and convince a majority of Republicans that he won an election that he clearly lost. Who would have imagined that tens of millions of Americans would succumb to the Big Lie and the Big Rip off? Trump wants to be America's first king. If he is allowed to break the law with impunity, there is a chance that his dream will become America's nightmare.
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