“Has anyone seen Silence of the Lambs? The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’d love to have you for dinner.” — Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention

My neighbor Swamp Rabbit was wondering about the Republican presidential nominee’s bizarre fixation on Hannibal Lecter, the fictional, flesh-eating serial killer played by Anthony Hopkins in an old movie called Silence of the Lambs. This wasn’t the first time Trump praised Lecter.

“It’s just Trump being Trump,” I said. “He tells a big lie then caps it with an outdated reference from mass culture that he knows will endear him to the ignoramuses who are susceptible to his lies.”

One of Trump’s favorite lies is that the influx of migrants from south of the border is made up of extreme undesirables — rapists and killers, maybe even cannibals. He ranted about migrants in his speech, right before pivoting to the one-liner about Lecter’s dinner preferences. This was to suggest there are many Hannibal Lecter types among the migrants, ha-ha.

“But ain’t he supposed to be a humbler guy, a unifier, now that he almost had his head blowed off by that nutjob in PA?” Swamp Rabbit asked. “That’s what them pundits are writing.”

“That’s just mainstream media bullshit. There’s only one Trump.”

Trump is the guy who thinks testimonials from the likes of Hulk Hogan and Kid Rock reflect well on him. He’s the candidate who said “107 percent” of jobs created under Biden “were taken by illegal aliens.” That he, Trump, oversaw “the best economy in the history of our country, in the history of the world.” That “Democrats are going to destroy Social Security and Medicare.”

He seemed to become more unhinged with each new sentence during his convention speech. His audience cheered and waved placards. Swamp Rabbit said, “Trump’s suck-ups are even sicker than he is. I bet they’d nominate Hannibal Lecter if they could.”

I thought about this for a moment. “That’s impossible, but they’re happy to settle for Hannibal’s alter-ego.”