After reviewing some tidbits from tRump’s March 5th cavalcade of misdirected, nonfactual malarkey, I began to ponder, in hopes of some sanity, where history has revealed the same type of personality attempting to guide a country. I chose Trump, King George III, and William McKinley to bear some semblance of traits.

With regard to “Mad” King George, he was the longest living King of England to date. His six decades of leadership created the British Empire through imperialism around the world. This included India, Pakistan, parts of Africa, Australia, and many other assorted parts of the globe; and of course he ratcheted up the oversight and domination over the Americas including Canada and the American Colonies. His disregard for cultures other than Protestant Englanders allowed his ego such breadth that he even entered into the Seven Years War with France. It is the cost of this tumult that forced him to tax the American Colonies which resulted in the Boston Tea Party of 1773. England, to this day, is considered both a wealth of power derived from their past imperialism, but more so now, a pariah that robbed societies of their cultures, beliefs, norms, and homelands. Those independence driven realms have only now begun to expand from third-world status and into functioning parts of the global economy.

The madness of King George has long been debated, but facts dictate that stress exacerbated whatever physiological illness he had that led to mental and emotional instability. He was also left extremely paranoid after an assassination attempt while at the theater. He never visited Scotland, Ireland or Wales and ensconced himself into his personally picked castles and homes, having been unhappy with the traditional royal enclaves. (Can you say Mar-a-Lago?) He died a reclusive madman.

A little more than seventy years later, enter President William McKinley. Among many similarities to the Imperialism of King George, McKinley had another element that was becoming well established: Yellow Journalism. Much like current Conservative radio and TV, along with Fox News and its cadre of misinformation/disinformation alternatives, Hearst and Pulitzer began crafting sensationalism into their work so that the American public could be brought to a froth over issues like Cuba and other Spanish holdings. The catapult being the explosion and perceived terrorist plot to sink the USS Maine in Havana Harbor.  History would later record the incident as an “internal explosion” having nothing to do with a terrorist plot; yet, McKinley used the mishap to begin the territorial grab. In the limelight of the day, it was looked upon as the freeing of oppressed people, but in reality, McKinley had no regard for these people anymore than he did for the indigenous people across his own states, including Alaska, where the Missionaries and regulations began stripping cultural beliefs and norms which are only now being recovered across the United States.

President McKinley also enacted the highest tariffs in United States history believing they would enrich the American public. Only later was he able to see the error of his ways and begin to understand, even in 1900, that the global economy was a greater benefit.

McKinley, driven by the popularity in the press, won a second term but was assassinated by an aggrieved anarchist who was unhappy with economic and living standards among the lower classes. As McKinley touted his imperialism and tariffs, Leon Czolgosz was laid off and began to join a growing number of laborers who were very aware of the growing income gap encouraged by monopolies, oligarchs, and the wealthy. Interestingly, he was an immigrant but lived and worked in the Detroit area where even now, the tRump tariffs would have the most detrimental of effects.

Enter Donald tRump. Doesn’t everything I’ve already written sound familiar? Trump, King George, and William McKinley. Yup. We already know Mr. tRunmp is a paranoid, narcasisitc, racist who happens to own a rabid personality disorder. Greenland? Panama? Canada? Tariffs? Ignoring the diversity of the United States? Two of the greatest symptoms of a madman’s personality disorder are lack of empathy and projection. My favorite projection is how he calls for the need to rid our country of “unelected bureaucrats” running the government while in the same breath touting his new partner, Elon “Nazi Salute” Musk, an unelected bureaucrat. With regard to lack of empathy, as I noted in a January blog, tRump could care less about the hardships faced by millions of Americans in their daily lives. His entire walk through government halls firing staff and wanting to close entire departments is, along with the tariffs, a way to fund his tax cuts. Those tax cuts only assist the most wealthy in the hopes of the now debunked “trickle-down” effect also known as the Laffer Curve. Folks, greed takes over and corporations become richer along with stock holders and the already wealthy who do not shovel those gains to the public.

Last, but not least, is tRump’s paranoia. His firing staff and dismembering of agencies who were not and are not loyal to his agrandizment is a sure sign of someone who demands a paranoid, authoritarian rule. I have no doubt, along with some other authors, that tRump believes he will continue to be the target of people wanting him dead. He also knows midterms do not favor the party in power, so he has less than two years to make his mark before he may lose the House – or somebody “McKinley’s” him.  Today, surprisingly,  his pals in the Supreme Court  backed a step away from their horrid ruling of his immunity, showing him his time may be limited to continue his chaos, when they responded favorably to a lower court ruling asking for reinstatement of USAID monies to be paid out.

There is the famous song by Dion, “Abraham, Martin and John” that speaks to the memory of great statesmen and men who cared for the equality of humankind. I wonder if at some point we will have a song, “George, William, and Donald,” memorializing the decrepit nature and the brutality of greed, racism, and kleptocracy.