“A new level of unhinged”

From the latest installment of Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American :

Today the social media account of President Donald J. Trump posted an AI-generated image of Trump as if he were Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore from the 1979 film Apocalypse Now in front of the Chicago skyline with military helicopters and flames and the caption “Chipocalypse Now.” Kilgore loved the war in Vietnam in which he was engaged; his most famous line was “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

Over the image, Trump’s social media post read: “‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning...’ Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.” The words were followed by three helicopter emojis, symbols the right wing uses to represent former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s goons’ disappearing political opponents by pushing them out of helicopters.

Although it has become trite to speculate about what Republicans would say if a Democratic president engaged in the behavior Trump exhibits daily, this open attack of the president on an American city is a new level of unhinged.

There’s always a new level. And a new level not only for the current occupant but for all those who support and enable him. Rahsaan Roland Kirk said it well:

Clickety clack, clickety clack,
Somebody’s mind done gone off the goddam track.

[One problem with the AI-generated image: it omits the bruises on his hands.]