Would Jail Time Get Trump’s Creative Juices Flowing?

Maybe he’ll write his version of Mein Kampf while under lock and key

Would prison time bring out Trump’s literary genius? (Photo by Larry Farr on Unsplash)

Barely a day goes by that someone, somewhere doesn’t draw a parallel between Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1932 Germany and Donald Trump’s splash into political history with his 2016 election as President of the United States.

Both used the media to create an image bigger than themselves. Both tried an attack on their nation’s legislature. Both are characterized as genius, crazy, or both.

For those who are historically challenged, in November 1923 Adolf Hitler launched a failed coup attempt in Munich resulting in him being sentenced to a five-year prison term for high treason. While there, he wrote his infamous Mein Kampf — “My Struggle”, an autobiography of his early rise to leadership of the German Workers’ Party. Not only did he describe his own version of his meteoric rise to fame, but his writing also foreshadowed the notorious and fantastical events that were to shape the next two and a half decades.

Now, with so many prosecutors chasing Donald Trump, it’s hard not to imagine that sooner or later, he too might be convicted. While it’s questionable whether Trump will ever spend a day in jail for his crimes, but it’s interesting to speculate on the idea that a stint behind bars would get his creative juices flowing and see him writing his own Mein Kampf.

In the latest court battle, a Miami court made Donald Trump the first former president in history to be arraigned on federal criminal charges. Some would say he deserves it.

Trump has faced literally thousands of lawsuits over his lifetime relating to his business dealings resulting in all sorts of outcomes, perhaps most notable being the $ 1.6 million dollar fine earlier this year for tax fraud levied by New York prosecutors against the Trump Organization for a decade-long tax fraud scheme.

But Don Trump has never spent a moment behind bars, even though any of us ordinary Americans would find ourselves as long-term guests of the prison system for doing the same things he has. Trump’s talent for avoiding jail time makes him a modern-day version of 1960s mobster John Gotti, who was notorious for escaping prosecution and dubbed the “Teflon Don.”

It’s easy to see how Trump deserves this moniker.

Earlier this year, the April 4th Manhattan court arraignment on 34 counts of business fraud got Democrats’ hearts pumping. But the issue pretty much fell off the front pages on news sites almost as quickly as it started, washed away by the next wave of legal challenges.

Most recently, the Miami court is adding 37 counts of unauthorized retention of national security information to the list of felony prosecutions. Some would say this latter is a pleasant way of charging him with treason.

It seems almost impossible that he’s going to get away with this one. But even if that doesn’t work, next up at bat are Alabama prosecutors who are licking their chops over Trump’s meddling with their secretary of state’s approval of the 2020 election results.

No matter what, it’s hard to believe that Alabama is where the chickens might come home to roost and that it might mean serving time for the new Teflon Don. It is, after all, Alabama.

But whatever crime finally gets him jail time, it is hard to envision Trump stretched on his jail cell cot dictating his own version of Mein Kampf to one of his minions.

Hitler originally wanted to title the book “Four and a Half Years [of Struggle] Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice.”

Adolf’s publishers thought the title a bit too long.

But it sounds like an apt title for Trump to steal. Would the “Teflon Donald” use his time in the klink to document his own version of struggle? He could call it “Four and a Half Years of Struggle Caused by My Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice.”

There is, however, a minor problem with this fantasy. I’m not sure Donald Trump can write.

Evidence suggests that many of the infamous tweets that so excited the masses were never in fact, written by him. Instead, a little-known, virtually anonymous Trump fanatic created most of them.

And, he didn’t actually write “The Art of the Deal,” his first autobiography that served time on the New York Times bestseller list. It was authored by a ghostwriter.

The problem Trump faces is that if you listen to him even for a minute, you’ll find that he can barely put two complete sentences together coherently. Consequently, it seems unlikely that we’ll see a brilliant manifesto coming out of him any time soon.

It may be a disappointment to his followers, but the rest of us can just thank God for small favors.