The Manchurian Candidate

The other day, a guy told me he thought Trump was the Manchurian Candidate. For those of you who are too young to remember, The Manchurian Candidate was a great, old 1962 spy thriller that starred Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey and was adapted from a novel by Richard Condon. The premise of the story is, communist China brainwashes a Korean War POW to influence the outcome of an American presidential election. So, is Trump the Manchurian Candidate, a Vladimir Putin plant sent to do the Kremlin’s bidding? Is this something we need to be concerned about?  You must be joking! First off, Trump can’t keep a secret, he’d tell Fox News and brag about it. Trump is the personality type Ernest Hemingway had in mind when he said, “I’m the perfect person to tell a secret to, it goes in one ear and straight out of my mouth…” Secondly, Trump’s motivations are not that complex, he has an almost childlike need of recognition and adoration, and nothing supplies that like the Presidency. Thirdly and most importantly, if he’s president, he can pardon himself, or just have his chosen AG toss all the felony cases he’s charged in. If he doesn’t get elected, it’s Vaya Con Dios, Amigos and his ass is headed down the river over January 6th.  Will this scheme of his work? I guess it’s possible, but so is winning the lottery, or breaking the bank at Monte Carlo, but I don’t see it happening. In the Republican primary he is playing to his core supporters and having a good time. In a general election, it gets a little dicey when he’s got to deal with that other pesky 70%-- all those black folks, pissed-off women, liberals, suburbanites, and anybody with a Latin surname. I still doubt he even makes it to November; I hear music in the distance, it’s the Eagles doing “Already Gone”….