The young pitcher's on his way to the majors, but the old catcher who will never get there knows the tricks to pull. He tells him to bean the mascot, in the great baseball movie "Bull Durham." He does.

The batter says, "This guys crazy," and the catcher agrees, adding, "I wouldn't dig in there if I was you. The next one might be at your head."

The trick is to scare the batters into backing off. It worked. They didn't know what to expect but knew they might get a fastball aimed at their heads.

Some people are bean-the-mascot bosses. They try to lead by creating confusion and the fear that follows confusion. They keep everyone else always off-balance because people who are off-balance can't defend themselves very well or go on the offensive. Being continually off-balance makes them afraid, because they never know when they might fall, or get knocked down.

Many of us have had bosses like that. I think Donald Trump is that kind of boss. He creates confusion and then fear by being so cavalier with the truth.

Trump the boss

In the American system as it's developed, the president is the boss. What he says and how he says it matters hugely to the nation and to the whole world.

At a press conference last Tuesday, the future president said he might use military action to take over the Panama Canal and Greenland. A reporter asked him to assure the world that America would not use "military or economic coercion," apparently assuming Trump would say that of course he didn't mean that.

He did mean that. "I can't assure you on either of those," he said. "We need them for economic security. ... I'm not going to commit to that. It might be that you might have to do something." He later added "national security" and protecting "the free world" as other reasons.

Another reporter asked if he'd use military force to annex Canada. "No, economic force," Trump replied. This time he invoked "national security."

Does he really mean it? Waging war on other nations to get a canal and a big island?

I think he may be serious about the Panama Canal but not about Greenland and Canada, partly because he's happy to upset Latin America but not so happy to upset Europe and Europe's North American branch.

I'd like to say that's just his way of talking, that it's his natural New Yorker way of indicating that he's serious and he's willing to shove America's weight around to try to get what he wants, but won't cross the boundaries.

It would be nice if we could just dial down whatever Trump says to get what he really means, the way you discount a hypochondriac's description of his symptoms to figure out how bad he really feels. You can deal with that kind of talk, because you know where you are.

He may be serious, or not

I don't think we can do that with Donald Trump. Maybe he's serious, maybe he's not. Maybe he's one-quarter serious about one thing, three-quarters serious about another, and just blowing smoke about a third.

We can't tell. The people who say that's just the way he talks and we don't need to worry he'll actually do anything bad he says he might do put more trust in his character than one can, on the evidence.

Even the most favorable reading of his actions on Jan. 6, for example, show a man saying anything he wants and then, when his words have their predictable effect, recklessly disregarding his nation's good and the laws he'd sworn to uphold. And then saying what he wants thereafter.

But we can't be sure. That's the problem. Trump sows confusion and therefore fear. He keeps America and the world off-balance. His way of speaking says to the world, "I wouldn't dig in there if I was you. The next one might be at your head."

This causes many problems, among them forcing people and governments to insulate themselves against the chaos, to the detriment of the chaos-creator and his nation as well as themselves. What else are they to do?

Darker impulses

Presidents certainly lie, generally a lot. But Donald Trump's prevaricating seems different, and worse. I would not be comfortable were I Panamanian or Danish. I'm not comfortable as an American.

But many of his supporters, I suspect, are thrilled by the possibility he might follow through. The wide range of possible actions, some violent, is part of his appeal. He knows what he's doing when he talks like that, does Donald Trump.

We've been here before, kind of, to be fair to him, and also gotten words of wisdom.

Campaigning for the presidency in Los Angeles in 1968, Robert F. Kennedy said, "For almost the first time, the national leadership is calling upon the darker impulses of the American spirit — not perhaps deliberately, but through the actions and the example it sets — an example where integrity, truth, honor and all the rest seem like words to fill out speeches rather than guiding beliefs."

Earlier, speaking at the University of Kansas just a few days after announcing his candidacy, he had criticized (indirectly) President Lyndon Johnson's coverup of the progress of the Vietnam war. "We as a people are strong enough, we are brave enough to be told the truth of where we stand," he said. "This country needs honesty and candor in its political life and from the President of the United States."

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