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Updated 32 minutes ago

“I am a man more sinned against than sinning.”

— William Shakespeare, “King Lear”

Scarcely a month into his presidency, Donald Trump resembles a combination of two tragic literary figures: King Lear and Capt. Queeg — a frightening combination of power and paranoia.

The British writer Colin McGinn, in his book “Shakespeare's Philosophy,” characterizes the powerful King Lear as: “arrogant, ignorant, unheeding, callous, vain, intemperate and ludicrous … he is a man in need of a complete cognitive overhaul.” Can anything more aptly describe Trump's behavior?

And Queeg, the paranoid captain in Herman Wouk's novel “The Caine Mutiny,” nearly destroys his ship before his executive officer takes over and prevents disaster. Recall Queeg's insistent search for a food-locker key that he knows doesn't exist in the famous “missing strawberries” episode — it resembles Trump's obsessive search for nonexistent massive voter fraud.

Instead, he should be looking at the Republican party's duplicitous attempts at voter suppression. Trump, like Queeg, is convinced everyone is out to undermine him: the media, NATO, all of our trading partners, federal judges — you name it.

The recent women's march in Washington and other protests indicate the “mutiny” already is in progress.

With the current mix of power and paranoia in the White House, patriotic Americans cannot simply sit and watch a “bloviating ignoramus,” as conservative columnist George Will called Trump, make our democratic republic the laughingstock of the world.

Robert Jedrzejewski

Tarentum

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