Heading For A Fall? Will the reign of “Mad King Donald”, the 45th American President, end as tragically as that of Ludwig II, the "Mad King of Bavaria"? Over the Christmas period, newspaper articles and blog postings have appeared in the US media alleging that President Trump’s increasingly erratic behaviour and his refusal to accept professional guidance is placing the Republic in danger.
IT RISES like a piece of romantic confectionary from the fir
trees that crowd around its base. The conical rooftops and soaring white-stone
towers epitomising the fairy-tale castle. So much so that a scaled-down version
became the centrepiece of Walt Disney’s “Fantasyland”. It is called
“Neuschwanstein” – the new swanstone castle – and it is the most enduring
legacy of Ludwig II: the “Mad King of Bavaria”.
So erratic, so spendthrift, so megalomaniacal, had Ludwig II
become that in the early hours of 10 June 1886 a Bavarian Government Commission
arrived at the gates of Neuschwanstein bearing a document officially deposing
the King, and under orders to take the allegedly “insane” Ludwig into custody.
At first, the King resisted. Police officers loyal to Ludwig
drove the Commissioners from the castle gates at gunpoint. For a few hours, the
opportunity existed for the King to rouse the Bavarian people against his
enemies. But, Ludwig hesitated and the moment was lost. A new detachment of
Bavarian police soon relieved the King’s defenders and Neuschwanstein was
sealed off. By 12 June a second Commission had taken the King into custody and
Ludwig’s uncle, Luitpold, was proclaimed Regent. A day later, Ludwig’s body
(and that of his psychiatrist, Dr Bernhard von Gudden) was found in Lake
Starnberg, 11kms south of the Bavarian capital. Officially, Ludwig had committed
suicide. Unofficially …. ?
Ludwig II's spectacular legacy - Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria.
Will the reign of “Mad King Donald”, the 45th American
President, end in such tragic circumstances? Over the Christmas period,
newspaper articles and blog postings have appeared in the US media alleging
that President Trump’s increasingly erratic behaviour and his refusal to accept
professional guidance is placing the Republic in danger.
It was Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops from Syria
against the advice of his Secretary of Defence, General James Mattis, that
constituted the final straw for Pulitzer-Prize winning NY Times columnist, Thomas Friedman:
“It was the moment when you had to ask whether we really can
survive two more years of Trump as president, whether this man and his demented
behaviour — which will get only worse as the Mueller investigation concludes —
are going to destabilize our country, our markets, our key institutions and, by
extension, the world. And therefore his removal from office now has to be on
the table.”
Accordingly, Friedman is calling upon the Republican Party
to stage an “intervention”. Essentially, what he and a growing number of
like-minded American opinion formers are demanding is that, for the remaining
two years of his presidency, Trump becomes a mere figurehead – guided by a responsible
Cabinet of the Republican Party’s own choosing. If Trump refuses, then
Republicans and Democrats must join forces and impeach him.
All of which raises the question: Can Mad King Donald be
removed from office (and this world) as expeditiously and bloodlessly as Mad
King Ludwig?
Twitter was not available in 1886, which meant that the
Bavarian Government could control the flow of information concerning Ludwig’s
deposition. Such scattered resistance as did occur when rumours of the King’s
predicament eventually filtered out to his faithful peasant subjects was easily
dispersed. In 2019, by contrast, any attempted Republican Party “intervention”
would be revealed instantly in a Presidential “tweet” – thereby mobilising
tens-of-millions of Trump’s loyal followers. How easily these “peasants” could
be dispersed is an interesting question. They would not be carrying pitchforks.
Much now hinges on how determined the American ruling-class
is to “fire” its rogue CEO. Trump has initiated a trade war with the Chinese
that is unnerving the world’s free-traders. He has openly attacked the US
Federal Reserve – prime defender of the global neoliberal order. Wall Street is
not impressed. Not since 1931 has the stockmarket fallen so precipitously in a
single week. Bad enough, one would think, but include the strategic signal
contained in the Syrian withdrawal and everything gets much worse. American
markets are secured by American arms: weaken one and you weaken the other.
Weaken both, and you become a “clear and present danger” to the national
security of the United States.
And all those Trump loyalists bearing arms? One suspects the
American military is just itching to give them a Napoleonic “whiff of
grapeshot”. The Second Amendment notwithstanding, there is room for only one
army in the USA.
And Mad King Donald’s legacy? Not a Neuschwanstein,
certainly. Just possibly, a half-constructed Mexican border wall.
This essay was
originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday,
28 December 2018.
