A close friend's spouse was in his final years afflicted with "sundowner syndrome," a condition in which as the day wears on and the individual wears out, some of the worst manifestations of senility come to the fore.
By late afternoon, this person would become agitated, often concerned at the prospect of missing an important call or message from a key person in his life, who was supposedly due to make contact that afternoon. The problem was: That other person had been dead for many years and estranged long before that.
That memory has been replaying itself as I've watched former president Trump exhibit ever more bizarre behavior this summer. His tendency to ramble and inability to follow a conversation or stick to the point should be worrisome to anyone who understands the enormous power that can be wielded by a US president. And it seems to get worse in the afternoon and evening, based on news reports and television interviews.
It was painfully if amusingly clear in the recent Pennsylvania rally, hosted by SD Gov. Kristi Noem, who was obliged to accede to his increasingly odd requests to play music of past decades and centuries and to forego the questions from the audience that had been the ostensible purpose of the gathering. She literally had to appease and calm him. The growing incredulity of the small group of spectators seated on benches behind Trump was palpable, as they began to show their discomfort and to start fidgeting, looking at phones and scanning the crowd. Trump kept calling on the stage manager to play more music, but the wrong tracks got played to Trump's consternation; I find myself wondering what part of Siberia that poor man is in today.
This is all coupled with his interview this week with John Micklethwaite of Bloomberg News. Ostensibly a discussion of economics, Trump's comments revealed his lack of understanding about the impact of tariffs on national economies. His approach to international trade is all stick and no carrot, which corresponds to his "get off my lawn!" approach to any person or any idea he does not favor.
Forgive the distraction, but the parallel between Trump and George III leaps off the historic page. The Boston Tea Party that we all study in school was in fact a revolt against a tariff! King George and his ministers imposed the tax to keep out tea that was not delivered by their favored sellers, whose tea was accumulating in British warehouses while colonists bought from other sources, the very definition of a tariff. The Tea Tax was levied to force the price of that alternate supply above the tolerance of the colonists, in order to increase revenue to the king and his military, which revenue could be used to enforce other even more punitive laws. Trump apparently wants to return to the pre-Tea Party world. That goal is at best uneconomical and at worst un-American.
One notes that the play and movie "The Madness of George III" was about the monarch's decline into insanity. George III was 38 at the time of the Declaration of Independence and later actually recovered from a period of dementia caused by a medical condition, after which he lived on to age 81. Would-be King Donald is 78, and he is unlikely to be 38 again, or even 78.
(Here endeth the history lesson. Amen.)
Of course, I'm only a lay observer, but by a quirk of fate I've been around more than my fair share of senior citizens, and I've read my share of history. This is a pattern I recognize.
Donald John Trump is not a person whose late night tweeting, anger, incivility and vitriol should inspire confidence in his stewardship of the US or its 330 million residents.
Like Gov. Noem, we are called upon to help him go gently.
There's more in the linked video; judge for yourself. (PS: This site is not responsible for the advertising that accompanies the linked material.)
