Herman Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny" is one of my all-time favorite movies. To me, it has always been a movie that is less about a mutiny, and more about leadership.
There are a lot of parallels in the treatment of Trump by the Republican Party and the treatment of Captain Queeg by his own crew, in particular, the officers of the USS Caine.
The fictional Captain Queeg character was a flawed man, there's no doubt about that. But the truth of the matter is, history is full of flawed men who have to perform jobs under difficult conditions. Trump isn't mentally ill, which makes the disgusting turn of the backs (when they weren't openly plotting against him) by the GOP in general, both nauseating and discouraging.
In "The Caine Mutiny", the crew (including the officers) talks about Captain Queeg behind his back, makes up derogatory songs about him, offers him no support, and generally leaves him out to dry. In this treatment of Captain Queeg by his crew, we expect this behavior from the enlisted crew, in the same we expect this behavior from Democrats and the Media. But as in the fictional movie, where we don't expect this juvenile backstabbing from the Officers of the Caine, we don't expect this from the members of his own party.
In the movie, it is hard to keep and hold a grudge against LT Maryk the Executive Officer who relieved the Captain. His heart was in the right place, and his reasoning, even if flawed, had rationale to it that one can appreciate. He is an officer, a young man with only a few years experience, still learning the ropes but largely getting it right. I could take this view with some portion of his own party who opposed him on this issue or that, because I believe that is the way things should work.
An officer corps should always be able to speak their mind to their leadership. It isn't as corrosive as insubordinate officers, or as openly catastrophic as officers who work in shadows to subvert their superior officers in the military, but officers who are "Yes Men" can be every bit as dangerous to both the mission and the lives of the sailors, soldiers, or Marines under their command.
It is in this prism that I view those Republicans who opposed Trump in his various endeavors. We must have internal debates, for as General George S. Patton famously said, "If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking." there is far too much blood and treasure involved when people don't think.
So I hold a degree of contempt for those politicians who may have agreed with Trump on specific issues, but cravenly closed their office doors and shut their mouths because they were afraid of losing office.
Furthermore, those politicians in the Republican Party, Collins, Murkowski, McConnell, Graham, and most egregiously, Romney, and McCain, are deserving of every malediction we can heap on them. They have a set of values, to be sure, but their values are not those of Americans, Republicans, or even Judeo-Christians. They are Collins-Murkowski-McConnell-Graham-Romney-McCain values. They are abhorrent.
This putrid Republican Cabal, all of them, are the various equivalents to the LT Keefer in the exchange below. Their motives against Trump may not have been those of LT Keefer (played by Fred MacMurray) of hatred of all things military and a desire to get rich and marry a movie star, but their motives for betrayal are far more base, ranging from greed and personal animus, to fear of losing power or even blackmail.
It is in this frame that I appreciate the similarity between the movie and the reality of the Republican Congress between 2015 and 2022 in their dealings with President and Ex-President Trump.
I have always enjoyed and appreciated the ending of the movie, when they are celebrating their acquittal of mutiny charges, and their Marine lawyer (brilliantly played by Vince Ferrer) barges in on their celebration. The following dialogue takes place:
LT. GREENWALD: Well, well, well. The officers of the Caine in happy celebration.
LT. MARYK: You're kind of tight.
LT. GREENWALD: I've got a guilty conscience. I thought the wrong man was on trial, so I torpedoed Queeg for you. I had to torpedo him. And I feel sick about it.
LT. MARYK: Take it easy.
LT. GREENWALD: When I was studying law, and Mr Keefer was writing his stories, and Willie was tearing up the playing fields of Princeton, who was standing guard over this country of ours? Not us. we knew you couldn't make any money in the service. Who did the dirty work for us? Queeg did, and a lot of other guys. Tough guys who didn't crack up like Queeg.
LT. MARYK: Queeg endangered the lives of the men.
LT. GREENWALD: (said fiercely and venomously) He didn't endanger any lives. You did. A fine bunch of officers.
LT. MARYK: You said yourself he cracked.
LT. GREENWALD: That's a very pretty point. I left out one detail in court. It wouldn't have helped our case. At one point, Queeg came to you for help, and you turned him down.
LT. MARYK: Yes, we did.
LT. GREENWALD: He wasn't worthy of your loyalty. So you turned on him. You made up songs about him. If you'd been loyal to Queeg, do you think all this would have come up? I'm asking you, Steve. Would it have been necessary to take over?
LT. MARYK: It probably wouldn't have been necessary. If that's true, we were guilty.
LT. GREENWALD: You're learning. You don't work with the captain because of his hairstyle, but because he's got the job, or you're no good. The case is over. You're all safe. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Now we come to the man who should have stood trial. The Shakespeare whose testimony nearly sunk us all. Tell them, Keefer.
LT. KEEFER: You're telling it better.
LT. GREENWALD: You should read his testimony. He never even heard of Queeg.
LT. MARYK: Let's forget it.
LT. GREENWALD: Queeg was sick. But you're real healthy. You didn't have one tenth the guts he had.
LT. KEEFER: Except I never fooled myself.
LT. GREENWALD: I want to drink a toast to you. You always hated the Navy. Then you thought up this idea. You managed to keep your skirts nice and clean even in the court martial. Maryk will be remembered as a mutineer...you'll publish your novel, make a million bucks, marry a movie star, and live with your conscience. If you have any. Here's to the real author of "The Caine Mutiny". Here's to you. (throws drink in LT Keefer's face) I'll be outside. I'm drunker than you are, so it'll be a fair fight.
Excellent summary.
Worth reading slowly!
You should read the book. Queeg was a jerk.
We must NEVER forget that McCain, and after he went to hell, his people - DELIBERATELY gave the Democrats TWO US Senate seats in Arizona.
And it looks like that is in perpetuity.
I don’t view Trump as flawed. That’s just a meme being pushed by the RINOs, the deep state and the MSM. Given what Trump accomplished against all odds in four years I’m not seeing the flaws. Its a bunch of BS.
Great post. BTW - ignore Vermouth LT. For it is nothing more than a never-Trump troll with an acute case of pretentious moral superiority.
‘There are a lot of parallels in the treatment of Trump by the Republican Party and the treatment of Captain Queeg by his own crew, in particular, the officers of the USS Caine.’
to begin with, yeslthe Caine Mutiny was a remarkable movie, even though it was almost not made because the Navy refused to acknowledge even a fictitious mutiny;) and yes there could be parallels to Trump, if we look hard enough...I think Hanson’s allusion to Queeg was rearding his downfall, his obdurate belief that everyone was plotting to get him, to toss him aside, leading to that memorable scene with the strawberries(the strawberries, that’s where I had them), and the inevitable clicking of the balls in his hand, signifying his descent into unreality...
as far as the identifying the Caine officers with recalcitrant party members, yes, the duplicitous Keefer (a bang up performance by MacMurry) fits the bill, except that in politics, unlike the Navy, all things are fair game, and to think that blind faith and loyalty is a political trope is pure lunacy...I don’t think the party members you singled out for derision resemble Keefer so much as Willie Keith, who seemed happy enough to come out on whichever side he felt had the upper hand...Keefer at least had a cause (revolting as it may have been, but Keith wobbled in between adulation and repudiation of Queeg, and seeing the wounded captain, cast his lot with the despicable Keefer...all of this could have been brought out in the movie had Robert Francis not been such a limited actor (brutal seems too harsh, but truer) and for that matter, Van Johnson could have fleshed out Maryk’s character much better, he was perfecly capable of portraying a man who’s attempting to discern truth among shifting points of view and events...
whatever, it is interesting to apply fictitious occurences to true happenings, a societal mirror, so to speak, which topnotch writers like Wouk could hold up to us so we can use our brains to think more clearly...
Quite an essay. Well done.
Three thoughts:
1) Nixon was treated in a similar manner as Trump.
Nixon obsessed about his low upbringing and raged against the left wing media and the Harvard commies who hated him. It was a class thing.
2) Establishment Republicans treated the Tea Party the same way that they treated MAGA. They are Vichy Republicans. They are not on our side. (I coined the phrase “Vichy Republicans in the 80s. I wish I copyrighted it.)
3) Trump deserves an opportunity to exact revenge on the deep state. He would be doing it for us. I want revenge.
Great lines from a great book. THE coming of age story of the twentieth century.