Tuesday
Though I’ve compared Donald Trump several times to Dr. Frankenstein’s monster (for instance, here), New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has compared the Trump saga to another monster story that I hadn’t considered. Michael Cohen, she writes, is Renfield to Trump’s Dracula.
Renfield is a Dracula acolyte who has been imprisoned as a madman, and psychologist John Seward witnesses him feasting on flies, spiders, and birds. Applying Dowd’s parallel, Trump sycophants may attempt to imitate the president but come across as pathetic rather than imposing. Cohen would be exhibit #1 in this regard, what with his multiple attempts to bully on behalf of his boss (at least 200 by his tally), but I think also of other Trump idolaters.
Among them are those who rail at people for speaking other languages or who call 9-1-1 when people of color make them uncomfortable. They’ve drunk at the same source as their leader and feel intoxicated. To capture the sordidness of such behavior, I quote from Dr. Seward’s notes:
[Renfield] disgusted me much while with him, for when a horrid blow-fly, bloated with some carrion food, buzzed into the room, he caught it, held it exultantly for a few moments between his finger and thumb, and, before I knew what he was going to do, put it in his mouth and ate it. I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that it was very good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him.
Renfield has the same worshipful regard for his master as his modern-day descendants:
I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave, and You will reward me, for I shall be faithful. I have worshipped You long and afar off. Now that You are near, I await Your commands, and You will not pass me by, will You, dear Master, in Your distribution of good things?”
Like the adulation of any autocrat, Trump worship is intoxicating because it pumps up those who otherwise feel small. Seward records Renfield’s sudden rush of self-confidence once Dracula arrives in town:
Strange and sudden change in Renfield last night. About eight o’clock he began to get excited and sniff about as a dog does when setting. The attendant was struck by his manner, and knowing my interest in him, encouraged him to talk. He is usually respectful to the attendant and at times servile; but to-night, the man tells me, he was quite haughty. Would not condescend to talk with him at all. All he would say was:—
“I don’t want to talk to you: you don’t count now; the Master is at hand.”
The attendant thinks it is some sudden form of religious mania which has seized him. If so, we must look out for squalls, for a strong man with homicidal and religious mania at once might be dangerous. The combination is a dreadful one. At nine o’clock I visited him myself. His attitude to me was the same as that to the attendant; in his sublime self-feeling the difference between myself and attendant seemed to him as nothing.
If Cohen and other Trump enthusiasts are Renfield, then Trump himself is Dracula. Like the vampire lord, Trump leeches off of other people, including his father, the marks of his various scams, various banks, and now coal miners, steel workers, and others voters who bought his promises. If Dracula subsists on other people’s blood, Trump subsists on “other people’s money,” as he has more than once proudly proclaimed. “I am the king of debt,” he crowed during his campaign.
Actually, Trump is only Dracula to his American followers. When he suddenly comes up against an autocrat like Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un, he becomes more of a Renfield.
So how does our Dracula get taken down? Is Robert Mueller the vampire-slaying Professor Van Helsing who will track the villain to his lair and put a stake in his heart. Or is that the job of the House investigations? How much suspense will there be?
In the climactic ending of Stoker’s novel, for a few moments it appears that Dracula will evade justice. Accompanied by his faithful gypsies and a pack of wolves, the cart carrying his coffin is hurtling towards his castle as the sun sets. All would be lost but for the fierce resistance of the heroic band, one of whom loses his life in the struggle.
Braving the gypsies’ weapons, Jonathan Harker and Quincey Morris leap on the cart and wrench the lid off the coffin, revealing a deathly pale Dracula. Mina, Harker’s wife who has been bitten by the vampire so that she carries the mark of his curse on her forehead, records what happens next:
As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph.
But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan’s great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris’s bowie knife plunged into the heart.
It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight…
The Castle of Dracula now stood out against the red sky, and every stone of its broken battlements was articulated against the light of the setting sun.
Purity has been restored and peace returns to the land, as we see when Mina flies to the wounded and dying Morris:
“I am only too happy to have been of any service! Oh, God!” he cried suddenly, struggling up to a sitting posture and pointing to me, “It was worth for this to die! Look! look!”
The sun was now right down upon the mountain top, and the red gleams fell upon my face, so that it was bathed in rosy light. With one impulse the men sank on their knees and a deep and earnest “Amen” broke from all as their eyes followed the pointing of his finger. The dying man spoke:—
“Now God be thanked that all has not been in vain! See! the snow is not more stainless than her forehead! The curse has passed away!”
I look to Constitutionally-approved measures, including the rule of law, impeachment provisions, and free and fair elections, to stop our own vampire, not knives to the throat and heart. Nor should resistance require the ultimate sacrifice. As in the novel, however, sunshine has an important role to play. We need as much transparency as is possible.
Look forward to a new day when the curse shall pass away.