I haven’t written a blog for awhile. Mainly, it’s been because I haven’t been able to find anything new to say. As people who read my blog know, I have mostly adopted national politics as my subject of choice. There hasn’t seemed to have been much choice in subject lately. Bernie Sanders was good subject matter for awhile, as it involved a subject which thinking people could disagree about. But now that both parties’ nominees have been chosen, and Sanders is out of the race and back to “work” as Vermont’s junior Senator, filing bills that have no chance of passage and otherwise doing little for his lifetime guarantee of financial security, it is a real struggle to find something worth writing about. See, the “thinking” part has been taken out of the equation. I guess you could say that Sanders was a candidate running on emotion, but not as nakedly obvious and potentially dangerous as Donald Trump. Anyone who places country over political party will vote for Hillary. Or, possibly, not vote at all. But no thinking person in his/her right mind would vote for Trump. Those that do, I would say, are either the people who use two words to sum up their choice: Supreme Court. Fear of Hillary’s potential pick for the court. Or the white supremacists, second amendment gun nuts, right-wing Hillary-haters, etc. Not really what I would call rational, thinking people.

What I have found interesting in current presidential politics is not the behavior of the voters, but the behavior of the candidates. Particularly the Republican candidate. It has been said, and I agree, that if Trump was trying to lose, he couldn’t have been more effective than he has been over the past couple of weeks. Starting a no-win feud with a Gold Star family. Indirectly calling for the assassination of a presidential candidate and/or federal judges. Calling the United States president and the former Secretary of State founders of Isis. The man must be crazy, right? That is unless he really doesn’t want to win. He has been either consciously, or more subconsciously, trying to lose. His comments about the system being rigged seem to be a ready-made excuse for losing.

Trump, however, is caught in a conundrum. On one hand, he must know on some level that he would make a terrible president. He has a short attention span, and he would be bored crazy trying to deal with the important trivia that a president must deal with. The money and the living accommodations would be a step down. Not to mention the fact that he would be dealing with the other branches of government, which could do serious damage to his plans once in office. And even though he has shown that he knows little about the Constitution or the U.S. system of governance, he surely knows that.

I am going to go a little off the rails here, and if you aren’t familiar with the monumental TV series “Breaking Bad”, starring Bryan Cranston as Walter White, you might find this comparison uninteresting. Nevertheless, trouper that I am, I will muddle ahead. If you watched the series, you know that Walter White, as the high-school chemistry teacher turned methamphetamine cook, would never have been caught if he hadn’t left a trail of bread crumbs for the feds, in the person mainly of Hank Schrader (Dean Norris), his DEA agent brother-in-law. First, when Hank was convinced that they had caught their meth cook who was actually Walt’s assistant, Walt couldn’t let that stand. Even though, by letting Hank go on thinking that they had their man, Walt would be home free. His pride would not allow it. In a drunken fit of ego, he let Hank know that he, Walt, was sure they had the wrong man. The real genius, who was actually Walt himself, was still out there somewhere. So Walt said, and so continued the investigation. Which still would have been unsuccessful, had Walt not left a copy of “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman, on the toilet tank in his home. The book was given as a gift to Walt White by his assistant, as a token of gratitude for his tutelage. Signed, sealed, and delivered. As was the fate of Walter White.

The comparison isn’t so much that Trump was breaking bad. He was never all that good to begin with. Of course, he has shown himself to be more of a scoundrel than most people thought. So in a way that comparison fits. But to me, the drama is what appears to be going on in Trump’s mind. A very dangerous territory, and I can only speculate, along with the rest of the country. Donald Trump seems to be genuinely torn. On one hand, of course he doesn’t want the job of president. The enormous workload and responsibility, the limitations on his movements, the restrictions on his power, the (to him) meager financial compensation. What, are you crazy? But on the other hand, the presidency of the United States of America is one of the most important and consequential jobs in the world. It would be the most important job he has ever had, if not the most lucrative. And above all else, Donald Trump is a winner. Not a Charlie Sheen “winning” winner. A WINNER at all things attempted and competed for. To put the scarlet “L” on his forehead would be an unimaginable humiliation. Hence the “rigging” allegations. And, like Cranston’s character Walt White, Trump is conflicted between his ego and reality. Like Walter White and his “accidental” giveaways, Trump just can’t seem to control his mouth. On the face of it, it seems very simple. Just act presidential for a few months. That’s all. Just shut your mouth every time you feel temptation to insult somebody or revive an unwinnable argument. Shut your damn mouth, and read the teleprompters. There’s one on your right. There’s another on your left. And I’m sure that your new campaign manager, the very adept Kellyanne Conway, would shove a teleprompter right up your nose if she thought it would help you to stick to it. It’s swing time, two terms into a Democratic administration. A lot of people are antsy, looking for a miracle worker, who they had originally seen as Barack Obama. Alas, Obama turned out to be mortal. He did incredibly well, considering what he was up against. If Trump really tried, I think he would have an excellent chance of becoming number 45.

But Donald Trump, like Walter White, is ultimately a sad figure. He is consumed by ego, which of course has at its base low self-esteem. A secure person knows he or she is okay. They don’t need the adulation of the masses to prove it. Right now, with a few months before the general election and about half that before early voting starts, Donald’s self-destruction has been tamed, probably temporarily. It is without a doubt due to the expertise of his new campaign manager, Republican pollster Conway. Who knows how long his new manners will last. If past behavior is any indication, not long.