Even though I have a different "theory," I have not read any explanation for the behavior of President Trumpand his followersas deep and as comprehensive as Carl Gustin's in the Gloucester Daily Times of October 2, 2020.
Others may have voiced the same theory with the same consistency.
Mr. Gustin, a lifelong Republican, has told us that President Trump felt victimized from day one of his presidency. Instead of exulting that he had become President of the United States, he wallowed in the field of victimhood. He believed that he was the victim of the Left.
How can that ever possibly be?
He looked over his shoulders while swearing the oath of allegiance, saw a smaller crowd than that gathered for President Obama, and found confirmation of his suspicion: The Left was out to get him.
Hence, he wants to have final victory over the "Left" by pursuing very un-American acts: arrest President Obama, arrest Vice President Biden (who happens to be his present winning political opponent), arrest even his previous opponent, Secretary Clinton. Nice. Scorched Earth Politics; ultimate autocratic acts.
All the ensuing actions of President Trump unfurl from that suspicion: the Left is so succeeding in getting him that his standing is sinking in the polls. It is all clear now.
Mr. Gustin concludes --keep an eye on Senate Republicans--
Allow me to pick up from there. I have been for some time anxiously waiting for Five Brave Republican Senators to ask: What does it take to stop the destructive impulses of this President?
As widely recognized, Donald Trump is a bully. As I have pointed out in a book now translated in eight foreign languages, a bully is unable to stop himselfor, sadly, herself. A bully must be stopped by others.
The Framers of the Constitution foresaw the need to remove a bully, someone they called a despot and established the impeachment procedure. Last winter, we pursued this avenue, but Republican Senators, with just one partial exception, opted to favor party over nation.
A similar measure, the 25th Amendment, is unlikely to be called into action. It was designed for a physical or mental debilitation of the President, not for moral (and political) debilitation. Worse still, members of Donald Trump's Administration, for whatever good reason, have facilitated the actions of the President; they are not likely to admit their own errors.
Members of the Trump Administration are not likely to spring the 25th Amendment into action.
What is left, then? The best is leftif we recognize that President Trump, for many reasons, is a national security threat, as it can be easily demonstrated:
 · He is a menace to the existence of our Republic: He is fomenting a civil war to preserve his power; he is bankrupting our nation; he is in substantial financial debt, maybe to foreign nations and foreign nationalsto whom he may be passing national security secrets;
 · He is a menace to our foreign relations: He favors our enemies; he punishes our friends; he loses tariff wars by inflicting financial losses on farmers, fishermen, taxpayers, and consumers;
 · He is a menace to our morals: He mocks the physically impaired; he calls our fallen heroes "losers" and "suckers"; he prefers soldiers who were "not captured"; he is a draft dodger; he is a tax dodger; he does not pay his contractors; he does not pay his debts; he uses coarse language.
Most important of all, President Trump, to mention only major cases, has shown a lack of leadership on the Coronavirus pandemic, on arresting the deterioration of our infrastructure, and on taking preventive measures about the impending financial crisis.
For these and many other reasons, all it takes is five brave Republican Senators to march into the Oval Office and respectfully ask President Trump to either lead this country by doing what needs to be done or resignfor his own good, the good of the nation, the good of the Republican Party.
He is visibly shrinking the Republican Party out of existence.
Being a bargainer, Donald Trump will ask what is in it for him. The five Senators can still offer him, not pardon, because a pardon would split the country in two. They might want to offer him the opportunity to be part of a procedure established in South Africa under the leadership of President Mandela and Bishop Tutu: the opportunity to present his case to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
To make the deal acceptable to the nation, our five brave Senators might spearhead the attempt to establish a Truth, Reconciliation, and Restitution Commission. The country might want a restitution of all inappropriately gotten financial gains by people in power. The nation deserves this reward.
President Trump ought to be given the opportunity to explain, in a systematic way, the ways of his actions and thoughts. He would be receiving full attention from the nation. He ought to welcome that opportunity.
The establishment of such a Commission might reverse the slide of the nation into the nether world of negativity. It might break the vicious cycle of hate. Let us break this cycle with an exercise of deep love.
Listening to his niece Mary Trump, Donald Trump does not seem to have enjoyed one day of full, unconditional love in his life. To stop the dangerous fall into hate into which this country is lately falling, let us return to the best American tradition.
America is great, because America is good. Let us be good to Donald Trump.
No matter all the pain that he has inflicted on too many people, Donald Trump deserves a happy retirement. Not because of any of the horrible policies he has implemented, but because it is not his fault that he was elected. He was clearly a non-politician, totally unprepared to run the country. It is not the fault of the popular will either. He was elected via institutional bias of the nondemocratic Electoral College.
We can thank Donald Trump for unquestionably revealing the existence of this great political injustice, this great political error in the modern era.
After returning him to the role of private citizen, and getting rid of the Electoral College, we will regain the opportunity to build a better democracy, a political system that truly respects the dignity of every human beingwhile respecting the wonderful differences that exist among individual human beings.
Unless Donald Trump voluntarily leaves the country, this action must be taken as soon as possiblebefore or soon after the election; whether he wins or he loses the election. The country cannot take three more months of his lack of leadership.
Either he leads or he resigns. We have work to do. We must implement plans: 1. To develop a Coronavirus vaccine as soon as possible; 2. To minimize the effects of a likely collapse of Wall Street; 3. To inject money into the real economy on a just and steady basis.
Carmine Gorga was born 85 years ago in the Deep South of Southern Italy, under Mussolini, during the Great Depression. He has recently (?) been classified as a Gravatar, a Globally Recognized Avatar.
