Special Edition – The Battle for Democracy
The Last Castle
If you haven’t seen Robert Redford’s movie The Last Castle, you should watch this entertaining film. It’s the story of a top Army General (Redford) who pleads guilty of contravening a presidential order and going into an African war zone in order to rescue some of his otherwise abandoned men. He is set up as a man who acted on conscience, a primary sense that his first loyalty was to the men under his command rather than a president who he felt was allowing political considerations to stand between him and the safety of his troops. Consequently the action he led went sideways and he lost several men in the crossfire. He honorably pleads guilty and humbles himself to immediate incarceration in a military prison. There he is confronted by a prison leadership under the charge of an Army Colonel (James Gandolfini), who is the antagonist to him in that he is an administrative officer who has never had a tour in combat and has a penchant for military and battle history, aggrandizing war in a way that the professional combat soldier in Redford cannot abide. Redford’s character hates war for the human suffering it causes and sees nothing honorable in memorializing that suffering. In many ways, the characters embody the divide that exists in our country at his very moment. Redford is the righteousness of social democracy that holds humanity as the highest standard while Gandolfini symbolizes authoritarianism for whom command and control is a theoretical law and order priority that places power over humanity and righteousness. Gandolfini is brash and venal. Redford is calm and sympathetic. Gandolfini is proven heinous in his manic actions and his personal and narcissistic ways. Redford is honorable and brave, placing others, in his loneliness, ahead of himself. Redford is the martyr and Gandolfini is the tragic figure of the failure of corrupted power. The analogies are stark on this, the day after the assault on democracy we all witnessed yesterday at the United States Capitol.
I have been wondering how to write about the events of yesterday and there is no easy way to add to the dialogue without repeating everything that the pundits and the recognized authorities are saying this morning. As I pondered the events themselves, rather than what they represent, it struck me how one of the rioters reacted and the things she said directly into the camera. This was a woman who had been tear gassed and was crying wildly with the stinging reaction anyone who has taken a dose of tear gas recognizes. She was asked by the reporter outside of the Capitol that stopped her, what had happened. She screamed at the camera that she had been gassed, expressing hurt shock and awe that this would happen to her. When she was asked why this happened to her she said she was storming the Capitol because this was a revolution. She responded as though it was a stupid question with an obvious answer. It was a striking vignette for all the obvious reasons. She thought everyone knew or should have known that we are in a revolutionary mode, a justifiable revolutionary mode. She thought that everyone should understand that in a revolution one storms the seat of power like the Capitol and that violence is a totally justified reaction to this degree of upset (even though she mentioned no specific grievances). And then, when she got the mildest of rioter countermeasures, a dose of tear gas in her eyes, she was horrified that her actions should lead to that sort of repercussion. This was an assault on her personally and was simply not right. She has a right to storm the castle and a right to use violence to express her displeasure and absolutely no reason to expect retaliation from anyone for her action. She has every right to be the center of the universe and the universe has no right to fight her about it. Amazing and telling.
The visage of the Gandolfini character in The Last Castle is equally telling. He is painted in the light of absolute power that corrupts. It is the power that likes to play soldier, but has no idea what war really means. He is a perfect replica of the tin soldier boy that Donald Trump became when he was trundled off to military school for remedial discipline when he became unmanageable at home. Rather than being chastised and taking a lesson in humility by the relegation to military school, he went the other way. In the common terms used every day with this man, he doubled down and became the most soldier-like tin soldier imaginable. The stories told by his niece Mary Trump suggest that he became the worst of the senior cadets in terms of inflicting harm on underclassmen through hazing. He was the hurt soldier boy who rather than being contrite, became belligerent. But his belligerence did not leave room for any personal risk of harm. That would never happen to him. He was the instrument of pain, not the recipient. Gandolfini is shocked and appalled that he is being fought against by Redford and his ragtag band of prisoners. He has the power and he would show Redford who is boss. When he starts to take on damage, Gandolfini is taken aback and horrified like that woman outside the Capitol. He is even more horrified and angered when his troops decide not to follow his unwarranted and illegal orders. Think about Trump railing yesterday about the betrayal of Mike Pence. So Gandolfini takes actions into his own hands….but not directly. He takes out his own gun when his troops will not fire as ordered and with the distant action of pulling a trigger, imposes pain on his assailant. Think about Trump inciting the rioters to action yesterday, pulling the distant trigger to unleash the bullet of the mob on the Capitol, on the Congressional antagonist that was meeting to unseat him from his one source of strength, his position of power.
This morning I see all the recriminations pointed at Trump and I think of a crazed Gandolfini, shocked and awed that his power is not allowing him to escape the inevitable pain headed in his direction. Twitter and Facebook, the instruments of his power have been shut off for him. His prime lieutenant, ex-AG Barr has condemned him. He is a lonely man, standing all alone screaming about his insistence that everyone pay heed that he is the President, he is in charge, he can do whatever he wants, no one can stop him. Everyone needs to do his bidding regardless of whether his actions and commands are righteous or self-serving.
In the end, Redford is the hero and Gandolfini is the pathetic shell of a man. There are few times in history when power abused does not corrupt. And when power gets a hold and starts to invade the corpus and source of its abuse, it becomes like a powerful virus. It takes over and destroys its host, leaving a mere shell. Power never treats people who abuse it well. The last castle always falls.