Is Donald Trump the real-life Manchurian candidate?
Internet speculation may be off the mark, but his tilt towards Moscow will enable Putin to prevail over Europe and regain leverage over China
People often confuse the monster with Dr Frankenstein, his creator, from Mary Shelley’s gothic novel. Many have now taken to calling Donald Trump “the Manchurian candidate”, after the classic 1960s Cold War movie based on the novel of the same name by Richard Condon. That’s wrong. I will ignore, in the following, the more recent and forgettable Hollywood remake.
The original Manchurian candidate was the victim. He was brainwashed under a psychological warfare programme jointly run by Soviet Russians and Chinese communists to become their unwitting agent and assassin. In fact, the word “brainwash” was then new in the English language, a literal translation of the Chinese phrase.
Rather – spoiler alert – the candidate’s mother was the real villain. Conservative and anti-communist, narcissistic and incestuous, she was ready to use her son to achieve her political ambitions at the expense of her country, thus presenting a clear and present danger to America and the whole world. Does that sound familiar?
A quick search combining “Trump” and “Manchurian candidate” on Microsoft Bing yielded 350,000 results. But please, in the interest of literary and cinematic accuracy, stop calling him that because Trump is really not the candidate, but more like his mother.