The Acting President

"It ain't no myst'ry ... If it's politics or hist'ry... The thing you gotta know is ... Ev'rything is show biz."

During a scene in “The Producers,” the original Mel Brooks film from the late 1960s, the comic actor playing Hitler is distressed about losing World War II. So he asks chief Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels for some good news.

Hitler: Hey, baby, what’s happenin’?

Goebbels: I just laid the morning propaganda broadcasts on the people.

Hitler: You’re puttin’ me on. What did they say?

Goebbels: I told the people we invaded England.

Hitler: Hey, that’s a groove, Daddy. How did we come out?

Goebbels: We beat ‘em, baby!

It’s all a lie, of course, intended to accomplish two things — convince the German people that Hitler is an effective leader with a winning strategy and feed Hitler’s delusions of grandeur and global supremacy.

Mel Brooks’ satirical black comedy lampooned the Third Reich. But it’s useful all these years later as a commentary on the Trump Regime, and it came freshly to mind on Saturday with news of the attack on Venezuela and the seizure of Maduro and his wife.

Democrats weighed in on the lawlessness of the action. Analysts tried to explain it. Pundits prognosticated on its political, economic and diplomatic ramifications.

On my ledger, however, it goes down as just another Trump performance, another episode from a nightmarish reality television show with two sets — the White House and Mar-a-Lago.

Gore Vidal famously called Ronald Reagan “the acting president,” a reference to his background in movies and his skillful role-play as the nation’s chief executive.

I accord Trump the same title, but for different reasons. To him, the presidency is merely a means of making himself, his family and friends even richer. While that happens, he distracts the public with outrageous rhetoric, attacks on the news media and executive actions that seem purely performative — lights, cameras, lies and illusions.

As the Hitler character in the 2001 musical adaptation of “The Producers” puts it in song:

It ain’t no myst’ry

If it’s politics or hist’ry

The thing you gotta know is

Ev’rything is show biz

Please understand my refusal to accept the Maduro capture as part of a grand strategy, prosecutorial process, or even some sinister plan to abscond with oil from Venezuelan fields.

I long ago reached a promontory, along with loads of fellow Americans, where nothing Trump says or does can be believed or trusted.

Worse than that, I am convinced that he suffers from a kind of scorched-earth nihilism; he believes in nothing, acts impulsively, and, like some bratty child, needs to constantly draw attention to himself.

It isn’t enough to be president and carry out the formal duties of the nation’s chief executive. Easily bored, Trump needs to always be doing something, however ill-advised or legally dubious, to garner six to 10 headlines a day in The Times. And the more outrageous the better.

As an entertainer with long experience in television, Trump is deeply conscious of ratings, and these days his ratings are terrible. So there should be no surprise that we woke up to news of an attack on Venezuela and the capture of its dictator. Trump likely believes this makes him look decisive and tough, and that’s what he thinks will give his ratings a boost.

That’s all this is about, friends.

There’s no long-term goal. There’s no long-range hemispheric plan. There isn’t even a principle at play in this matter since, only last month, Trump pardoned a former Central American dictator who had been convicted of the same kind of drug-related corruption that prompted the capture of Maduro. Trump is oblivious to hypocrisy.

Of course, a lot of what Trump does — and what he has authorized others to do — will have real-life consequences for Americans and our allies. There’s no doubt that 2025 was the most destructive single year of any presidency in modern history, and the regime’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development has already resulted in thousands of deaths overseas due to disease and malnutrition.

There are good efforts to stop him and those fighting Trump in court need our support. But it will be a while before we can elect a president who respects the Constitution and a Congress willing to check the executive. It will be a while before we can make the necessary repairs.

In the meantime, Trump will continue to play president in this American horror show. All we can do is see the show for what it is, resist and protest, keep track of the damages and vote in the next two elections as if democracy depends on it, because it will.