While we are reluctant to compare Donald Trump to the fictional characters of Shakespeare given the Bard’s skill, subtlety and wit, the ex-president’s rambling Tuesday night seethe-a-thon from the Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom at Mar-a-Lago had all the elements of King Lear’s Act III rage on the hearth. If Lear’s deep flaw is his vanity and how he values appearances above reality, what better tribute to that highly theatrical moment than Trump blasting the world from his gilded stage in Florida?
Whatever history was made this week in the New York arraignment of the ex-president on 34 felony charges stemming form a hush money scheme to cover up his alleged affair with a porn star prior to the 2016 presidential campaign, there was nothing original in Trump’s response. To describe it as over-the-top is wholly inadequate. It was a solid “11″ on a 1 to 10 scale of crazy.
Trump didn’t just lash out at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg but at every prosecutor and investigator looking into his suspect behavior whether it involved Stormy Daniels or classified documents stashed at Mar-a-Lago or efforts to overturn the last election or the Trump Organization’s alleged misrepresentations about financial matters to lenders and insurers. And that’s not even considering his apocalyptic views of Joe Biden’s performance in the White House and Democrats generally. “Our country is going to hell,” was his general assessment.
