A classic movie full of dark images of lives destroyed by mental torment and illness. The story centers on a Vietnam veteran, DeNiro’s character, who is having difficulty reassimilating to life outside the military while dealing with a descent into mental illness probably exacerbated by PTSD.

He clings to a semblance of military discipline by rigorously exercising and toning his body. This, however, cannot ease his mind. He turns to pornography and frequents sex clubs. He is a soul lost but searching. Anger becomes his greatest motivator.

In the midst of his personal anguish another character emerges, a child prostitute, Foster’s role. He both wants her and wants to save her. Confusing, no?

So how is this relevant to current affairs.

We are a country consumed with anger, but more importantly, we are lost. Of the many ways humans can cope with anguish, anger can be a strong aphrodisiac. It can also cloud one’s mind to rational thought and perhaps lead one to search for solutions that allow blame to be focused outside oneself, so that the anger can be legitimized. It is also a way to remove personal responsibility rendering a person willing to listen and be guided by narratives that feed a need to regain control over the uncontrollable. So there can be no satisfactory outcome, only a desperate journey.

Throw in a healthy dose of sexual titillation and that’s a great movie. But it’s a crap way to live.

Cue the messiah. It’s not a religious metaphor. It’s more the 12 step AA approach of turning over one’s problems to a higher power. No need for guilt or taking responsibility. It’s a recipe for recovery that works. For addicts and drunks.

The nation is in need of a good slap to snap out of it. What a great and fertile environment for the entrepreneurs of the sex trade to flourish. Pimps are now savvy businessmen. We are simultaneously being pimped and punked and somehow that’s okay with a once fringe segment of the population. Not only is it okay, it’s being embraced like the last lifeline to make America great. Again.

“Are you talking to me?”

DJT doesn’t understand gambling. If he did, his casinos would not have bankrupted out of business. So confident in his ability for bullshit, what he figured he didn’t know he could just bluff his way through. You know, the way he ran the country.

Now he is betting on a few more things to go his way. But beware the steaming divots. For starters, he has been eerily quiet, publicly speaking. Like crocs swimming just below the muddy surface, there’s danger there. Speculation is floating about that he is planning a 2024 run. Or that he is planning starting a media outlet to rival Fox News. Or that he will continue to Tweet his way to political prominence.

This is all bullshit. The money being collected aggressively for his Election Defense Fund is a PT Barnum, sucker born every minute, scam to gather money for the DJT Legal Defense Fund. But really, it’s just a scam. He will take the money and run.

He will fade into the shadows of the Kremlin. He cannot remain here without facing a myriad of legal challenges which will find him in the unprecedented situation of being a former president faced with jail time. That’s incentive. We are already witnessing his going out of business bargain basement sale.

He is in a position to sell many baubles of valuable information. And we would be wise to consider that nothing is off the table. Moving is expensive after all. It remains to be seen how many sand traps are being dug for the new resident president, but it’s a really good bet the nuclear briefcase or “football” will be buried in one of them. Right next to the pee tapes.

Among his many failures, the one that may ultimately bite him in the ass, is the failure to address issues of voting irregularities. Recall after 2016 which saw Trump’s ascension amid his many claims of voter fraud during the campaign, how all was forgiven and forgotten once he gained ownership of the country and the Republicans. Four years is a long time to do nothing to improve voting systems throughout the country. What seems true is that what was accomplished for DJT by foreign intrusions into the voting process was deemed sufficient to carry the day four years into the future. As it turned out, a pandemic put a monkey into the wrench at what only a devoted gambler would recognize as a bad beat. Timing damn it.

So now we can see why DJT is so verklept about voting by mail in ballot. The opportunity for nefarious intrusion at the voting machine is negated. And the window of opportunity for casting a ballot was not only expanded but could happen much earlier providing far less opportunities for foreign influence peddling. Oh the humanity.

People who blindly follow a cult hero used to be called Mansonites. What they lacked in numbers they made up for in unspeakable violence. Why we humans are doomed to repeat our mistakes of the past cannot be easily explained but can be reduced to a simple equation: gullible equals danger.

It has come down to Marquis of Queensberry vs. street thug. If only Obama had recognized early on that old traditions of decency were no longer in play, we may have avoided this lemming mentality.

All bets are down. No more bets. Good luck.