By Hal Brown
There’s a scene in the 2017 political satire “The Death of Stalin” (95% Rotten Tomato critics rating) where Stalin is laying motionless on the floor of his office having had a stoke. He is surrounded by his top advisers who are trying to decide what to do. At least one, his secret police chief Beria, seems to revere him and wants to summon medical help. When his daughter Svetlana gets there she desperately wants doctors to help him. Others like Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Nikita Khrushchev had their own aspirations to replace him. All of them are terrified of what he’d do to them if he recovered and finds out they didn't try their damnedest to help him.
One of them says that they have to get the best doctors in the country. In the movie they spend a long times debating this because there’s no in-house medical team. He’d had the nine doctors on his previous medical team, most of them Jewish, arrested as part of what was called the “doctors’ plot” in 1952. They were charged with the deaths of leading military and political figures.
Another in the group says that thanks to Stalin the best doctors are either on trial, dead or in Siberia.
Another says they must then get any doctors.
Next we see a dozen or so men in white coats examining Stalin. A few are naive looking men just out of medical school and the rest are doddering old men.
You can see why this reminded me of Trump putting politics above medical science.
Not to spoil the movie, Stalin dies, but this isn’t my point.
For all the millions Stalin murdered or let starve to death when it came to his funeral it was clear that when it came to the general public he was worshipped as a god. Hundreds of thousands came to pay their last respects to him as he lay in state in the Hall of Columns in the House of the Unions. It has been estimated that thousands may have been trampled to death in the crowds that tried to get down Red Square turned into a stampede. Reference . Related story
“No law, written rule, or regulation specifies who may lie in state; use of the U.S. Capitol Rotunda is controlled by concurrent action of the House and Senate. Any person who has rendered distinguished service to the nation may lie in state if the family so wishes and Congress approves.” Reference This included 11 presdients.
Thinking of this led me to think about what would happened if Trump died during Biden’s term.
I wondered if the MAGA crowd would trample over each other to get as look at Trump’s corpse or his coffin? I don't know if there is a rule saying it must be a closed coffin. If it was up to him he might want an open coffin so people could have one last look at his glorious visage.
Would he lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda as recent presidents dating back to Ronald Reagan have?
Has he even left instructions for his funeral or does he think he’s immortal?
Lenin's embalmed body has been been on display in Red Square where it has been of display for almost 90 years, following his death in 1924. Stalin's embalmed body shared a spot next to Lenin's, from the time of his death in March 1953 until October 1961, when Stalin was removed as part of de-Stalinization and Khrushchev's Thaw, and buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis outside the walls of the Kremlin. Reference
Perhaps Trump will have arranged for a similar tomb for himself where his MAGA fans can pay homage to his embalmed body.
If he has specified how his last rites will be handled did he decide that he wanted to send a last message of his distain for them to Congress?
On the other hand, perhaps he wanted to inspire another assault on the Capitol.
Think of how his lying in repose in the Capitol Rotunda would work logistically.
How would the building be secured? How would people be screened for weapons? If 15,000 National Guard troops were deployed to Washington for the inauguration how many would be needed for an event which would attract so many Trump supporters?
After Stalin died there was some speculation that he might have been poisoned by his enemies or rivals but there was no social media and no QAnon at the time. What would happen if there was a prevalent conspiracy theory that Trump’s death wasn’t due to natural causes but was the result of a deep state assassination?
Last but not least, think of the irony considering the insurgency he was responsible for if he ended up being honored in that very building.
As an afterthought, consider this question: where would he lay in state if not the Capitol?