Wednesday, January 27, 2021

I received an email the other day from the reclusive novelist Thomas Fuller, whose work I was introduced to by the poet-painter Brooks Roddan. Fuller feigned not to recognize the identity of “Individual No. 1,” claiming that someone named Mitch McConnell had been the actual president of the United States in the second half of the past decade. I sighed, of course. “Will no one rid me of these conspiracy theories?” was my first reaction, since I have heard variants on this proposition as punchlines to an assortment of jokes. As I wrote him back, though, a very brief consideration of his assessment of the nation’s political psyche with McConnell as the actual president led me to come up with the following trifecta:

The Freudian Body Politic.

Mitch McConnell — the ego — the (GOP) self presented to the public
Donald Trump — the Id — unleashed with paramount boorishness
GOP House and Senate — the superego — the conscience that alleges to keep the id and ego in balance

We witnessed on Tuesday, the 26th, how the superego’s flotation devices are intact. I predict a salvage operation, both terminable and interminable.