House of Trumpenstein by Geoff Carter

Artwork by Michael DiMilo

By Geoff Carter

In Mary Woolstencraft Shelley’s class horror novel Frankenstein, a demented mad scientist seeks to kindle life in a body assembled from body parts of the recent dead. In the film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, the nefarious Dr. Evil created an exact miniature duplicate of himself, his Mini-Me. Both are the products of delusional egomania.

On a somewhat different plane concerning another delusional egomaniac, Donald Trump sought to inject life into his dead political career by maintaining that—despite all empirical evidence to the contrary—he had really won the 2020 presidential election. He continued crowing the lie and keeping it alive until this mass delusion finally resulted in a rally that culminated in the January 6^thattack on the Capitol, which was his demented attempt to steal the presidency.

Trump could not have done this alone—and he didn’t. Republican representatives, eager to further their own careers, held on tight to the coattails of this would-be king. In an effort to court the MAGA Republican voting base, Josh Hawley, Matt Gaetz, Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Green, Ron Johnson, and 142 more Republican representatives, following the insane lead of their evil leader, voted to overturn the election results. But then, like the cowards they were, fled after the rioters entered their stronghold and threatened their safety (see Josh Hawley running down the corridor—Run, Josh, run). When the insurrection was quelled and Trump exiled himself to the swamps of Florida, his minions, his Mini-Me—like rats—retreated into the woodwork. It seemed as if the horror story had ended.

Joe Biden had won the presidency fair and square, and the demagogue Trump could no longer terrify the people with the prospect of losing—or using—the launch codes, bungling his way through international conflicts –and possible war, or teargassing a crowd of protestors to have a photo op of himself holding a Bible in front of a church. He was gone. We could sleep nights.

But wait. Like Frankenstein’s monster, Trump and his terrible lie live on, even though the ex-president is presently under investigation by the Department of Justice and the States of New York and Georgia. And others. The January 6^thCongressional Committee’s report on the riot left little doubt as the ex-president’s culpability for the riot. He may soon be indicted for conspiracy, election tampering, and more. But that doesn’t seem to matter. The lie won’t die, and Trump will not go away.

After losing the Arizona gubernatorial election, Republican candidate Kari Lake cried foul, maintaining that the election had been stolen. Sound familiar? Others also echo Trump’s distrust of government while displaying the same ineptitude in governing shown by their disgraced president. When the 2020 midterms were over, and most of Trump’s hand-picked candidates have been beaten, we heaved a sigh of relief. Even then, it seemed to be over.

But no. They live. Almost two years to the day after the Capitol was attacked, the House of Representatives of the 118^th Congress met to choose a speaker, a process usually completed within hours. The last time there was more than one vote for a Speaker of the House was in 1923—until last week when it took fifteen ballots to elect Kevin McCarthy, who was—most ironically—yet another Trump minion.

During its first congressional meeting, a small group of hard-core right-wing Republicans refused to support Kevin McCarthy. Since the margin for the majority was so small, an almost unanimous vote was required—but it didn’t happen. A short roll call of those who voted no reveals luminaries like Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and Paul Gosar, all disciples of Donald Trump and reps who—ironically—had been mentored by Mr. McCarthy himself—another one of Trump’s sychophants.

If these twenty dissenters disagreed on policy, the traditional thing to do would be to negotiate, to sit down with the candidate and discuss your misgivings. But it appeared that Gaetz and company didn’t really want to settle anything. They had no specific objections to policy. They just wanted to stir things up, make a fuss, and improve their brands. Which they did.

And McCarthy, desperate for the position, pretty much sold the farm for it. He promised these extremists plum committee positions, a measure that would allow one member to instigate a vote that would ouster the speaker, and another that would allow open debate on spending bills. (NewYorkTimes).

The hard-liners weren’t stonewalling for the greater good. They were doing it, like a thirteen-year-old pushing his parents to the edge, because they could. And they were following the lead of the mad scientist who had created them—the mad Dr. Trumpenstein. The holdouts, Florida’s Matt Gaetz and Colorado’s Lauren Boebert, stood firm in the face of party pressure. It was not until Donald Trump himself stepped in to persuade these two recalitrants that McCarthy was finally elected. Only the mad scientist that created these monsters could finally bring his unholy minions into line.

Those of us who thought the MAGA reign of terror was over when the January 6^th insurrection was quelled or when Trump’s handpicked candidates lost miserably in the 2022 midterms are sadly mistaken. Like the never-ending sequels in the Frankenstein film saga or the Austin Powers franchise, our real-life Dr. Evil just won’t go away. Indictments in Georgia, New York, and federal court have not yet materialized; nothing seems to stand in his way. The wily Mr. Trump, like Dr. Evil, always seems to find a way to escape.

In the meantime, his monsters, the Mini-Mes like Gaetz and Green and Hawley and Boebert and Cruz are threatening to—at the very least—disrupt the levers of power in The House of Representatives, but one has to wonder if that’s truly their goal or, like the man that molded them, they are after complete and total control of our government. That is, after all, what the former president wanted.

Thanks to the January 6^th Committee, we know he called his followers to a meeting in D.C. on January 6^th, the day Congress was to certify the presidential election, whipped them into a fury, and told them to march on the Capitol Building. We know he wanted to participate but was prevented by his Secret Service agents. We know he tried to get Mike Pence to stop the certification process. He wanted to take control of the government. He wanted a coup d’etat.

We had hoped this nightmare was over, that this horror story was finally resolved, but it’s not. The spirit of Trump exists in the House of Representatives in the tiny hearts of his soulless minions. If their purpose is to merely disrupt the government, they might be controlled. If they have deeper and darker ambitions, we have to steel ourselves for the worst. The nightmare is back. In truth, it never left.