Right now. On television. Second in command, where are you?

President Trump today tweeted “Tell the Democratic Governors that ‘Mutiny On The Bounty’ was one of my all time favorite movies. A good old fashioned mutiny every now and then is an exciting and invigorating thing to watch, especially when the mutineers need so much from the Captain. Too easy!” The not-even-slightly-veiled threat was meant to tell Democratic Governors that he, Trump, would withhold Federal resources from Governors if they held the position that the Governors of the states will themselves control the ‘reopening’ of their respective states’ economies, rather than be influenced by any uninformed and cavalier declaration by the President. Trump’s tone says bring it on!

So much to unpack here. In short, Trump has heretofore attempted to shed responsibility for his inaction during the coronavirus onset and subsequent devastation by pointing to states’ rights in mitigation decisions within their states. (In the glaring absence of unified coordination from the top, Governors are acting as best they can to protect their constituents from the pandemic by imposing various social distancing and business shut-down measures.) Consequently, and unavoidably, the economy has since crashed. In an obvious effort to resuscitate the stock-market, and to keep his own reelection bid off of a ventilator, Trump is now saying that states must adhere to his ‘total authority’ as President, and his notion of when to reopen the economy–which he is wanting to do ahead of science, data, and Governors. Trump then will presumably reap the credit for ‘saving’ the economy. Of course, beside the garish hypocrisy leaping out of his trying to have it both ways, Trump is constitutionally, ethically, and morally incorrect and his pronouncements will not induce Governors to sacrifice their citizens’ lives at the altar of Trump’s transparently juvenile political machinations.

But, let’s get to the mutiny movies! First: Mutiny on the Bounty. Trump is either shockingly ignorant as to what the movie is all about and is arrogantly trotting out that ignorance while addressing a nation during a horrific disaster, or he is publicly confessing to his own inadequacies by way of a brilliantly apt metaphor. Captain Bligh, the Commander of the H.M.S. Bounty, was high-handed, imperious, and demanded that his subordinates obey his every command. He was tempestuous, he regarded subordinates as disposable, and his name has become synonymous with paranoia and despotism. Captain Bligh is, in short, a loser and the villain of the movie. His men eventually mutinied. But, Trump purports to love the movie, publicly invoked its dynamic as a threat, and I guess he either 1.) lied about seeing the movie and/or is too stupid to understand or remember its implications or 2.) he is confessing, by way of brilliant analogy, to his horrible character flaws by identifying with Captain Bligh. I’m betting on 1.): lying and stupid. We’ve seen plenty of that, daily, and we haven’t yet seen even trace amounts of humility or integrity. It’s been three years.

Interestingly, the only other ‘mutiny’ movie that the public might remember is The Caine Mutiny. In this movie, Captain Queeg, commander of an obsolete WWI era destroyer, loses the respect of the crew and loyalty of his staff through a series of incidents that expose him as cowardly and unworthy of his position. (Don’t get ahead of me.) Queeg slowly comes undone in plain sight as the movie progresses, and key staff begin to question his mental health. Finally, at the height of a storm, Queeg’s paralysis of action leads his second in command to relieve him of his position in order to save the ship.

I don’t care what movies Trump watches. But I do wish Pence would watch The Caine Mutiny.

We are born on this ship called Earth. This is one of many planets that colonize space as we know it, and it sails through the deep black ocean quiet and slow, as day turns to night, night to day, and things live and they die. That is the way. It never docks. We stand on the deck and watch with wonder the lights in the sky.

We live in the United States. This is one of the many countries that colonize Earth as it sails through space, quiet and slow, as day turns to night, night to day, and things live and they die. It is the aggregate of all the states within its boundaries. We are in some of the better rooms of the ship, and enjoy a comfortable life while other countries change our linen, serve us food, and provide entertainment. We can afford to indulge the many activites of the ship, but still, sometimes, at night, we watch the lights in the sky and wonder when we’ll die.

We live in Massachusetts. This is one of the many states that colonize our United States as it sails through space, quiet and slow, as day turns to night, night to day, and things live and they die. It is the aggregate of everything within our boundaries and Massachusetts has its own room onboard the ship. Everything is arranged just so: birth, friends, college, jobs, marriage, and kids. And in retirement, we sit on the porch, look at the lights in the sky and wonder why.

We are people. We are one of the many things that colonize this state as it sails through space, quiet and slow, as day turns to night, night to day, and things live and they die. Within our bodily boundaries, we are the aggregate of all the microbiota that reside on or within our human tissues and biofluids along with the corresponding anatomical sites in which they reside. Types of human microbiota include bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Microorganisms are unaware of lights, or the sky, or the lights in the sky.

We are the viruses. We are not human. You are my host as we sail through space, quiet and slow, as day turns to night, night to day, and things live and they die. We colonize your body in order to replicate. We viruses are, in the aggregate, the most abundant biological entity onboard this ship, and we have no boundaries. When we replicate inside you, you may live, or you may die. We don’t know the difference between night and day. We don’t look at the sky and wonder why. That is the way.

There is a familiar and old joke about certain Supply Sergeants in the Army that Commanders at all levels have experience with: When a Supply Sergeant evinces reluctance, or flat-out refusal, to distribute supplies to the troops, we all say “Why would they give it out? Then they’d have less on the shelf.”

Then a Commander gets involved, and, in my experience, that Supply Sergeant quickly is made to understand who paid for ‘his’ stockpile (taxpayers) and who is entitled to it (troops). And if he doesn’t do a 180 on the spot, he is negatively counseled, demoted and/or fired. This is because we all know the large degree of truth behind German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel’s comment: “Battles are decided by the quartermasters [supply guys] before the first shot is fired.” Rommel again? It’s Rommel month!

That’s one type of Supply Sergeant, encountered frequently enough for us to all know the occasional juvenile human impulse to husband resources and blur the lines between possession and ownership once things are under one’s control. Fortunately, this is not a frequent occurrence, and Army supply experts are usually of another type:

This second type are those that take enormous pride in using all of the resources under their control and their logistics training and acquisition skills to make their units the best supplied units in training or on the battlefield. And when I say ‘acquisition skills’ for this second type of logistician, I can tell you that we’ve all been amazed by the creativity and tireless effort that often surfaces when these guys try to make things happen to benefit their Commander and the troops. I saw this in action everywhere and can still remember specific efforts and results of logisticians from the National Training Center in California, to Katrina in New Orleans, and in Afghanistan. I remember countless ‘situations’ saved by logisticians and have great respect for them to this day ̶̶ and I’m delighted to give these Supply Sergeants a shout-out in this obscure blog post today.

Jared Kushner said on camera yesterday that “The notion of the Federal Stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use.” Well . . . he’s that first type of Supply Sergeant, ain’t he? If he gives it out to the states, he’ll have less in ‘his’ stockpile. And he resents it. You could see it in his face; you could see him straining to be polite about it when in his heart he wanted to really shout “Don’t take my stuff!”

If an Army Commander had heard that said by a Supply Sergeant in their presence, everything would stop. People in the room would all look around with knowing ‘uh-oh!’ glances and then the senior guy would ask most of the people in the room to leave. Then, the slap in the head (I mean the ‘re-training’) would happen: that guy would be given one chance to re-learn who pays for the stuff and who it belongs to.

So. What type of re-training should Kushner receive? It didn’t help that his administration tried to back up his thinking by changing the purpose of the National Stockpile in their website. But, the media is helping to course-correct his notion of who owns the stuff and what it is for. And, there is of course the statute that his comment violates, and there is the logic question I’d personally ask him: “Who are the people you reference by ‘our’ that don’t live in the states?”

But a good Commander would also go to the training records to see what Kushner’s training record is, how he became qualified to manage the greatest and most important logistical asset in the country. Was he the Quartermaster General of the United States Military prior to this post? Was he the Chief Logistician for Boeing, or IBM, or GM?

No. There is only one document in his training file: a marriage certificate. He married the President’s daughter.