Captain Trump hits the rocks
By
Dana Milbank
Columnist
Well blow me down and shiver me timbers.
As our ship of state founders in tempest-tossed seas, our captain has just likened himself to one of the most reviled villains in maritime history.
President Trump, disappointed that governors rejected his assertion that his “authority is total,” called them insurrectionists. “Tell the Democrat Governors that ‘Mutiny On The Bounty’ was one of my all time favorite movies,” he tweeted Tuesday. Operating from his customary position of near-total ignorance, he continued: “A good old fashioned mutiny every now and then is an exciting and invigorating thing to watch, especially when the mutineers need so much from the Captain. Too easy!”
Thus did the president find common cause with Captain William Bligh of the HMS Bounty, whose crew forced him off the ship in the South Pacific in 1789 because of his cruel and tyrannical ways. The real Bligh narrowly survived, but literature and Hollywood made him into a legendary antihero.
“I’ve never known a better seaman, but as a man, he’s a snake,” says Clark Gable as mutineer Fletcher Christian in the 1935 version. “He doesn’t punish for discipline. He likes to see men crawl.”
In the 1962 film, a court-martial judge says: “Justice and decency are carried in the heart of the captain, or they be not aboard. It is for this reason that the Admiralty has always sought to appoint its officers from the ranks of gentlemen. The court regrets to note that the appointment of Captain William Bligh was, in that respect, a failure.”
Is it possible Trump is more self-aware than we thought?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/captain-trump-hits-the-rocks/2020/04/15/e7643c32-7f57-11ea-9040-68981f488eed_story.html
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