To the editor:

A scene in the Netflix series “The Crown” shows Winston Churchill leaving 10 Downing St. He saved his country, and for thanks he’s been turned out of office. As his car leaves, he sees the car of the new prime minister pulling up behind him. Churchill tells his driver to stop. He gets out and hobbles over to shake Anthony Eden’s hand. This isn’t easy for Churchill. The two men aren’t on friendly terms. Churchill is a “great man,” as he himself on at least one occasion declared. But he puts decency and country above his own ego and wishes his successor well. Donald Trump isn’t capable of such a redeeming gesture. Peevishly, he won’t attend Joe Biden’s inaugural. From the beginning of his administration, Trump wigged out over estimates of attendance at his own inauguration, an omen of the grotesque pettiness and narcissism to come. Over the ensuing years, it became clear that Trump didn’t care whether the publicity he courted was good or bad as long as it kept him in the public eye. Now he’s a reminder of Popeye’s Bluto, a bloated but still dangerous cartoon. Like the king in Eugene Ionesco’s play “Exit the King,” Trump presides over an ever-shrinking kingdom, abandoned and alone, unable to understand that he has been the author of his own destruction.

George Gurley,

Baldwin City