Reading that former presidential adviser John Bolton plans to run for president in 2024 to ensure that his former boss, President Donald Trump, does not regain his former position, I am reminded of the century-old question: if a dog were to catch a car he was chasing, what then?

That question brings to mind the 1972 movie The Candidate, starring Robert Redford. Redford's character, Bill McKay, as a candidate for the U.S. Senate.  McKay is young, leftist, good-looking, charismatic, and the possessor of a great haircut, all very Gavin Newsom–like.  After much political intrigue, candidate McKay wins the election.  With that face and haircut, how could McKay/Redford lose?  But in what was to be the defining, as well as last moment of the film, the newly elected senator asks an aide, "What do we do now?"

Redford, as McKay, was a dog that caught the car, and like most politicians, and certainly all dogs, he had no idea what to do.  The car, you see, is the Deep State, that thoroughly entrenched bureaucracy that controls every move our country makes.  It controls every citizen in one way or another, telling the citizen whom he is allowed to vote for and how he might cast that vote, and then telling the chosen electees what they may legislate into law.

The Democrat party, representing the self-proclaimed left of the country, as well as a large number of Republicans, representing the sell-outs of conservatism-light, are all in that car.  Who is driving the runaway vehicle varies from time to time, but the destination is the same.  It is heading for the cliff with a thousand-foot drop, allowing for no survivors among the citizenry dragged behind.

The driver and passengers in the car are seemingly oblivious to their impending doom, arguing that they are taking the car (our nation) in the right direction.  Some of those car occupants have no real idea of where the car is headed, but most do and continue to lie to anyone listening.

In my lifetime, only one man has set out after that car, caught it, and had some idea what to do with it.  Donald Trump caught and sank his teeth into it.  He was not the slightest bit interested in being a well-compensated passenger.  He was in the process of destroying the vehicle when some of the occupants were able to enlist the Chinese in a plot to distract him from gnawing at the upholstery and threatening to force the malignant machine off the road.

The Chinese COVID virus destroyed Trump's presidency.  As a result, the car of the Deep State continues on its resolute route to our nation's destruction.  So when I see something as laughable as John Bolton's announcement that he is running for president, I can't help wondering, to what end?  To get us into more foreign wars and further depletion of our treasury for the sake of some macho chest-beating?  To be another highly paid passenger in that Deep State car?  Both of those prospects are Bolton's style.  He belongs on the movie screen with Dr. Strangelove or seated beside Burt Lancaster in Seven Days in May.  He certainly has no place running our country.  He would surely take us closer to, or even over that cliff.

We badly need leaders who will tackle the Deep State.  We don't need our leaders to have great haircuts.  We do need them to have great courage and resolve.  They need to be dogs capable of catching the car and then knowing where to sink their teeth — that is, unless we are content to have that runaway Deep State car keep rolling toward our doom.

Bill Hansmann is a dentist and dental educator with over fifty years in the profession.  He continues to teach and write political blogs and semi-mediocre novels while living with his wife and cats in Florida.

Image: Pexels.