From Jessie Seigel/December 24, 2023

"Decisions, decisions. So many choices! What shall I wear today?"
The following piece of fiction, "The Apologia of a Demagogue," is a departure from My Washington Whispers' usually factual opinion columns. But often a more essential truth can be expressed in fiction than in bare facts found on the front page of some newspapers.
This piece was first published inThe Insider in July 2021, during the ongoing investigation of the January 6 coup. But it was written in 2018, while Donald Trump was in the middle of his presidential term and the current indictments were not even a gleam in any prosecutor's eye.
The story is, some might say, an exercise in satirical wish fulfillment. But it is also meant to portray the quintessential corrupt leader to be found in many nations in many eras. History, unfortunately, does repeat itself.
With what the nation is going through now, I think this short story is worth reprinting. So, here, as a sort of cynic's Christmas present, I give you:
The Apologia of a Demagogue
My enemies said I did not know how to govern. They said that I don’t read; questioned whether I could read—whether I could even speak coherently. They said that I lie constantly, and contradict myself within the same sentence—when I actually finish sentences—which, half the time, I do not.
But, no true genius is understood in his own time. I owe no explanation—especially now, sitting in this prison’s intolerable solitary confinement. But, for posterity, I will stoop to explain to minds more pedestrian than my own.
Their charge of incompetence was based on a false premise: that my goals for governance were the same as theirs. But my goal was chaos to usher in one-man rule and consolidation of the nation’s wealth in the hands of myself and my associates. I knew enough to do what I wanted to do, and no one can say that I did not move steadily toward my goal. There were, of course, competitors and opponents. That is why I am sitting in this isolated cell.
But, look at what I achieved: pliable judges placed on courts; captains of industry installed to head agencies meant to regulate them; the emptying of the Treasury into our bank accounts, the replacement of military leaders with others loyal to me, and the jailing of enemies. I did not hide my agenda. In fact, I took action so openly that only a fool could miss it. This in itself was brilliance since conspiracies, by definition, involve secret plans. Thus, the openness of my actions negated such charge.
And reading? Of course I read. Clearly, my critics did not, or they would have seen my influences: Orwell; Goebbels (the Big Lie); McCarthy (Joseph, not Eugene); and his acolyte, Cohen (Roy, not Michael); the Caesars’ bread and circuses. (I may not have provided the bread but, certainly, I provided the circus.) And Machiavelli: if you would be king, stir the people; keep them on your side. And Louis XIV: Létat, c’est moi.
As for my lies, contradictions, and half-finished sentences—
When I failed to complete a sentence, it was not because I could not articulate. Rather, I gave my audience the first half of a declaration, knowing it would lead them to complete the sentence themselves, and knowing with what they would complete it.
When I told a crowd, “I’m not saying you should beat so-and-so—some dissenter in the throng—and toss him out of here—,” I knew it would rouse them to action. But since I had said I was not saying it, I had plausible deniability. Likewise, when I made some bizarre claim, I added, “I don’t know, but it could be,” so I was not stating a lie. I had merely planted an idea in the listeners’ minds. Surely, this linguistic sophistication, along with its strategic simplicity, must be acknowledged.
When I contradicted myself within the same sentence, it kept the public—and our media—running in circles. With two opposing statements, they couldn’t pin down the lie, but ran themselves ragged trying to parse my meaning.
But truly, in all my contradictions, there was no contradiction, no inconsistency. For, like the universe, I contain all things: the good, the bad, the sane, the mad, the lies and the truth. I am like the sun, its gases boiling and overflowing, its solar storms erupting. I am a force of nature.
My enemies call me a narcissist, but does the sun pay any mind to the planets? After all, who revolves around whom?
I am only in this prison cell now as the victim of a great hypocrisy. Everything I have done has been merely business: value given for value. If I want to do business in a foreign country, I give them influence here in exchange. If foreign officials want to curry favor here, they will patronize my business. You wish to head a government agency? Or obtain a government contract? Then you give me something in exchange. And the competition? You crush them. That’s how the world works, how it has always worked. Who would not take whatever business advantage is available to them? After all, as Calvin Coolidge said, “The business of America is business.”
Our country has a longstanding tradition: in through the doors of government from industry, and out again through those doors back to industry, after an illustrious career in public service to industry. Presidents and vice-presidents—and not too long ago either—have been known to start wars and give private contracts for supplies and mercenaries to companies they came from and will return to. It is a quietly understood principle that anyone—certainly anyone with a head for business—will come out of office richer than when he went in.
Given these principles, how can anyone doubt that I was singled out for persecution? It is because my enemies come from a line of “civilized gentlemen,” while I am bold and brash and—yes, I will say it—loud. The “gentlemen” were afraid of me, but when I finally fell, they scurried like the rats they are.
My enemies think they have won, that in the end, sitting in this prison, I am a failure. But Napoleon met his Waterloo. Hitler ended in a bunker. The Borgias and Medici rose and fell. As did Caligula and Nero. Nothing lasts forever. The brighter the star burns, the faster it burns out.
You who have labeled me a narcissist declare that, in my amorality, my obsession with self, I am an empty vessel, a container with nothing inside of it. A void. But you are wrong. You enabled me by your weakness and craven lack of spine—from the competitors who shrank from my attacks, to the media that refused to call a lie a lie, to my die-hard followers. I am not an empty vessel. In all that I am, in all that I have done, I am, rather, a mirror. A mirror that reflects all of you.
Is it more frightening that Trump at one point said he didn't know or didn't read Hitler-- or that he may well have read him? As you say, Trump is a mirror for the hideous aspects of our personalities.
Thanks for funny drawings and story, and best for a better 2024!
How appropriate today . . . and to think you wrote it in 2018. I can only pray that history doesn't repeat itself in 2024.
You writing is wonderful and your observations are incredibly true.
very good--only wish that it would come true...too many autocrats everywhere...but we should know better.....Better New Year...Ann