Professor Cobblepot’s Marvelous Final Engagement in the Freeverse Theater State

When you have two competing narratives, each hermetically sealed and intractable, about all you can do is live by your own best lights.

In April 2019, when the Mueller Report dropped and PBS NewsHour/Frontline ran a one-hour special, I began calling Trump “President Cobblepot” because of the uncanny resemblance to Batman’s nemesis, Penguin, who manages to get himself popularly elected Mayor of Gotham and then uses the position to continue building his crime empire and eliminating rivals.

This American drama is a four year series, eight if it gets renewed, and the duel between narratives is what keeps the audience.… Time will tell whether Cobblepot’s short game is as good as Mueller’s long game.

As it turns out, Cobblepot’s short game was every bit as good as Mueller’s long game, and he survived not one but two impeachments and later, the fraud conviction of his real estate company, and now is running again for President. As the January 6 Committee Report alludes, Cobblepot could be POTUS today had he been able to muster just a little more support from other gangs during and immediately after the 2020 election.