The Last Days of Donald Trump’s Presidency: As Reality Draws Near to Me, I Run Screaming.

— Janis Ian, “Then Tangles of My Mind”

Actually, the week following the election of Joe Biden to the presidency, Donald Trump’s behavior is reminiscent of one of the greatest scenes in one of the funniest movies ever made: Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles”.

If you saw the movie, you will never forget the scene. All the residents of an old Wild West town, oppressed by bad guys, are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new sheriff, sent by the governor to save them.

He arrives on his golden horse, and walks up to the stage in the center of town, a hush fall over the entire city. As he gets to the podium, the sheriff, played by Black actor Cleavon Little, realizes the racist crowd is horrified and about to turn on him.

So he pulls out his gun, and aims it at head, threatening to shoot himself, and shouts to the crowd, “Nobody make a move or the (hostage) gets it!”. (He didn’t actually say hostage, but today I can’t repeat the word he used, which starts with an “N”.)

“I think he means it,” says the stunned Mayor, and the crowd backs down and watches in horror. They are shocked, but don’t know what to say. So he talks them down and takes over. Sound familiar?

Donald Trump has used the past week to prove to America that it made the right decision voting him out. His behavior during this period has been entirely predictable and an extreme reminder of the Narcissism and lack of class that have plagued the White House for four years. He cannot and will not accept defeat. He claims, with no evidence, that the election was fixed and filled with fraud. No one in his inner circle will argue with him.

As we approached the election, Trump said, more than once, in public, that the only way he could lose was if there was fraud, which he said was guaranteed because there would have be “tens of millions” of fraudulent mail ballots. He knew this, he said, because he had been the greatest president in the history of the nation. Just ask him.

This reminds of a scene in another classic movie, the great Citizen Kane by Orsen Wells. Newspaper mogul Charles Foster Kane is running for mayor of New York City. On election night he comes down to the newsroom to check on the results and is told by his editors that they are ready two announce the results quickly with two different front pages. The first: “Kane Wins”. The alternate front page: “Fraud at the Polls”.

Now, faced with the fact that the electorate through him out, Trump is behaving like a petulant pre-teen. He has not conceded to the man who defeated him, because, as all of those who serve him know, he cannot and will not, accept defeat or responsibility.

Because he has strong armed his way into total control of the Republican Party, and because he will crush anyone who he disagrees with, no one in his own party has stood up to him to convince him he needs to consider the people he supposedly serves. But then again, he has never embraced the critical part of the presidency that requires a president to represent all Americans. He has no time to govern this nation because he has never stopped running for office. So the country, in his mind, is divided between people who like him and people who don’t. He serves the first group and disdains the second.

Meanwhile, the nation — made up of both groups — is in pain. We have 10 million unemployed Americans, millions of people in danger of losing their homes, and nearly 250,000 who have lost their life to a pandemic he has surrendered to. In fact, more than 10 million Americans have been infected, and the ongoing daily death toll is now more than 1,500 — close to matching the entire death toll on 9/11 EVERY DAY. So much for his claim to be a “War-time President.”

The least he could do is allow the new President to start fighting the pandemic — rather than watch another 100,000 die by the time Biden can officially take office. He could also acknowledge the victory and allow Biden to move quickly to solve some of America’s problems, including the pandemic and the deep devisiveness.

One of the great ironies is that he won’t even allow Biden to be shown the daily news and intelligence reports given to the White House, which have always been provided to presidents-elect as a matter of courtesy. The ironic part is that Trump himself hasn’t attended the intelligence briefing since Oct. 2.

And now, in a week that the Coronavirus has registered it’s worst numbers since it first struck us, Trump has done absolutely nothing but play golf. He has abdicated his job, and is actively preventing his successor from preparing to take over.

Treason?

At least give someone competent a chance to save the lives of your citizens.