Vol. 126: Trump in our future

He’s got us under his skin

Last week, as federal troops battled protesters in Los Angeles, llya Somin, a libertarian law professor at George Mason University, accused President Trump of “declaring utterly bogus emergencies for the sake of trying to expand his power, undermine the Constitution, and destroy civil liberties.”

Ya think?

Another law professor, Frank O. Bowman of the University of Missouri, put it this way: “Declaring everything an emergency begins to move us in the direction of allowing the use of government force and violence against people you don't like.”

Hmm. That’s not good.

And Michelle Goldberg, in the New York Times, wrote, “Trump is a master demagogue with a gift for creating the scenes of conflict his supporters crave.”

Uh-oh.

Tourists in Gaza

True, the president has issued 161 executive orders (and counting) so far this year. That’s more than one a day. He has claimed that the nation faces a rebellion in Los Angeles and other cities, an invasion by a Venezuelan gang, and extraordinary foreign threats to our economy. He threatened to annex Canada, the Panama Canal, and Greenland. He advocated expelling 2 million Palestinians from their homes in order to convert the Gaza Strip into a tourist resort. He expelled 1 million immigrants from the U.S. He pardoned 1,600 violent insurrectionists. He fired government employees en masse while handing the tools of government to an unelected billionaire. He imposed tariffs, then withdrew them, then threatened to impose them again. He gutted entire departments of the federal government and hobbled scientific research. He made enemies of our allies and friendships with tyrants. He defied federal judges. He threatened to withhold funding from Harvard and other universities. He bent law firms to his will.

“He created chaos, emergency after emergency,” wrote Jill Lepore in The New Yorker.

Sigh. Doesn’t this guy ever take a day off?

Look, I don’t want to write about Trump any more than you want to read about him. This column was designed as a refuge from the nasty and the petty, a place where you and I can focus on the good and beautiful things in life like, y’know, Renata Scotto or Isaac Stern (oh, wait— they’re both dead) before we’re swept away by a wildfire or a Covid pandemic or global warming.

I’m 83 and recovering from a stroke. I have a loving wife, devoted daughters, incredible sons-in-law, promising grandchildren, and, perhaps most important, competent computer tech advisers a phone call away. Trump I can do without.

An amusing buffoon

On the other hand, at this juncture in history I find myself in a unique position. As readers of this column are probably tired of hearing, I have been following Trump longer than any journalist anywhere— specifically, since 1978, when he made a clumsy and, I’m proud to say, unsuccessful attempt to be to be included on a “Wealthiest Americans” list I was preparing for Town & Country magazine.

He's been on my radar screen ever since. As far back as July 1991, when I was editor of the Welcomat in Philadelphia, I wrote that Trump “never exercised public authority, but he insists on monopolizing our attention anyway. For more than ten years Trump has manipulated the media to create the illusion that he's rich, thus convincing gullible bankers and bondholders to pay for his yachts, mansions, and mistresses.” That was long before he got into politics.

Following Trump's election, most political commentators, never having dealt with such a buffoon, hopefully assumed that Trump, like his White House predecessors, would “grow into the job.” When Trump continued to behave as a candidate rather than a president, these same pundits professed mystification. What diabolical strategy, they wondered, lay behind Trump's juvenile tweets (e.g., “Happy new year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly that they just don't know what to do”)? Why did he seem so preoccupied with tearing down not only his critics but his even the government's own intelligence agencies, which he characterized as Nazis even before he took office?

Key prediction

Four days after Trump's inauguration in 2017 I offered, in Broad Street Review, my psychological explanation for the new president's bizarre behavior:

“Trump very likely suffers from narcissistic personality disorder... To such a person, everything is subordinate to the need for attention and approval— a hunger that can never be fulfilled.”

Eight months later I added one more prediction:

“In any given situation, Trump will take the action that makes waves or creates headlines, even if it makes no moral, political or practical sense... From a narcissist’s perspective, how can you attract attention if you simply endorse conventional wisdom?”

I submit that this remains the best explanation for Trump’s behavior since he returned to the White House this year. It has nothing to do with politics, the Constitution, tariffs, academia, immigrants. Everything he has done has passed the narcissist’s test: to gain attention. Power is not his goal; as Trump has amply demonstrated, he doesn’t know or care what to do with it. On the other hand, a giant $40 million military parade to celebrate the army’s 250th (and his 79th) birthday… now, there’s a Trump priority.

And crowd sizes at his rallies and inaugurations? Questioning them is the only thing that really gets under his skin.

What next?

Readers of this column may hold me to another prediction I made about Trump this past January:

“Assuming he survives the next four years, Trump will attempt to amend the Constitution in 2028 so he can seek a third term at age 82. Whether or not that effort succeeds, he won’t leave office graciously— not because he craves power, but because graciousness can’t be found in a narcissist’s tool kit.”

What has changed since 2017? Only one thing: Trump now commands everyone’s attention. He’s in the headlines or breaking news every day. Yet the narcissist’s hunger for the spotlight can never be satiated. And we’re less than five months into Trump’s four-year term.

Last Friday, a typical day, Trump’s name appeared in five stories on the front page of the New York Times. Where does a narcissist go from here?

Well, he’s already made inroads into the business and arts pages (The Guardian: “Trump’s weird obsession with the arts is part of the authoritarian playbook”). Over the next three-plus years he can tackle the sports section (he once ludicrously claimed to have been the best baseball player in New York State). That still leaves plenty of time to set his sights on the Style section (formerly “Food Fashions Family Furnishings”), the Travel section (all those golf clubs), Science Times, the Sunday kiddie section, the Help Wanted ads, and the daily Wordle game.

It’s a good thing he’s harmless. Otherwise, someone might get hurt.

Enjoy Dan Rottenberg’s new memoir, The Education of a Journalist: My Seventy Years on the Frontiers of Free Speech. You can also visit his website at www.danrottenberg.com