Trump and the Truth

PBS recently ran a segment about Trump’s lies. There were 3 panelists. They said what is unusual about Trump is that he lies so much. He is a pathological liar. Also, he attacks the media calling them fake news. Trump has to do this because he lies so much. He has to attack truth itself.

I’ve thought about this a lot. My parents went to the same church that Trump went to in New York. The same minister who performed Trump’s first marriage, married my parents. Also I work in the mental health field.

We might think of Trump as being controlled dysfunction. A normal President will meet with his advisors and come up with a plan to reduce taxes or deal with North Korea’s threats. Trump doesn’t do that. Instead he sends out a Tweet or a series of Tweets at 6am. Clearly Trump is impulsive. I believe he is mildly delusional. He is living in his own reality. His reality is very shallow. Trump doesn’t have the patience to govern. He is living in a fantasy world, his own world where he is King and everyone admires how smart he is. In his business dealings he has taken hundreds of millions of dollars from Russuan businessmen. In 1988, Trump was $988 million in debt. He had a failed airline, a failed brand of vodka, failed casinos. So how did he turn things around? He went down a dark road and became part of a crooked international money system. One aspect of Trump’s delusional thinking is that he thinks no one will figure out what he is doing. He is a con man. But it seems that many people, even tens of millions of people prefer to believe a con than to face reality. Trump promises the moon but never delivers. In a sense Trump is not lying. Trump talks about how he would like things to be. He is just sharing his own reality. It began with the size of the crowd at his inauguration. To Trump, it was the biggest crowd ever. Trump imagined himself standing in front of millions of adoring fans. Trump thought of himself as the Savior of the World, so he said in his speech that the US was in the worst shape it had ever been in. And people were like WTF? Trump sees most everyone as being against him. Except maybe Putin and Ivanka. Trump thought he would run the country like a family business with Ivanka and Jared Kushner by his side and Putin supplying extra cash when needed. Trump would prosper, the country would prosper. Jared would bring peace to the Middle East. But Washington D.C. was not Trump’s imagined world where if Trump says it, it becomes the truth. They are Republicans in Congress who are willing to buy into Trump’s version of the truth. We might call it TrumpTruth. They certainly don’t believe in Trump’s version of reality but they are willing to help him sell it to the public. They would rather have a Republican in office even if he cra cra.

Trump is an authoritarian which means “If I say it, it is true”. One could say that Trump lies constantly. Saying it a different way, Trump has his own reality. If the FBI Director, James Comey, doesn’t pledge his loyalty to me, then fire him. And then Trump always has his own version of events. Trump gets very upset when people take notes or videotape or record what he says. Then he attacks them personally.

Trump is dysfunctional. Long ago he embraced the Dark Triad of Narcissism, Sociopathy and Machiavellianism. Trump enjoys hurting people. It is the closest thing for him to feeling alive. He is empty inside. No amount of wealth or power will fill the emptiness. Trump is entertaining. He is not a politician. He is still a Reality TV star.

Trump’s biggest lie was when he said about the White Supremacists in Charlettesville that “there are good people on both sides”. Again WTF? Trump is not connected to the same Reality that most people live in. It is more like a dreamworld where the pieces are only loosely connected. That would be fine if he were a painter along the lines of someone like Salvador Dali. Every painting has both darkness and light. Trump is like an elephant dancing on a balloon. Trump is not President. He is a performer, an entertainer. He is not governing. He is doing something else.

What we are seeing acted out every day is the conflict between Trump’s fantasy world and the harsh realities of Washington and international politics. Also Trump does work for Putin. Part of this TrumpTruth is a spy novel where the President of the United States is a Russian asset. Holy Shit!!!

Trump gets upset when certain groups of people - like reporters from CNN and the Washington Post - don’t share Trump’s unique version of Reality. Trump is different. Trump is entertaining. What Trump is doing is performance art. Trump mucks around and pretty much ends up where he started. He calls Kim Jung Un “Little Rocketman” and then has a photo op with him and declares ‘everything is better now’. And people watching it unfold are like “What just happened?”

Trump’s ‘reality’ is malleable. Pieces float around loosely. I think Trump threatened war with Iran a couple of days ago. And he said Michael Cohen has lied his whole life. And Trump wants to buy $12 billion in farmers products that are being hurt by Trump’s senseless trade wars.

I think Trump’s mental landscape is fairly simple: Putin is a good guy, a “strong leader”. Attack our allies, sow chaos and confusion, make Putin very happy. Then claim it’s all to Make America Great Again. Rinse, lather, repeat. Attack someone verbally, like Iran, then backtrack a week later and claim you’ve made the world a better place. Trump creates dragons in his mind then slays the dragon and becomes the hero. If he creates several different dragons at once or in the same week, it’s like a Jackie Chan movie where Jackie Chan beats up 15 bad guys in an alley. Trump is like Game of Thrones. More theater than effective, efficient governing. Trump the dragon slayer.

Real politics is boring. Trump is WWE wrestling. The good president against CNN with nunchucks in a dark alley.

It is difficult to generalize about Trump because the different pieces tend to float around rather freely. Trump follows certain simple principles - America First, American businesses first. Attack our allies, make Putin happy. Create a dragon, slay a dragon. Verbal blood and circuses. It is theater, entertainment, not any thoughtful process of governing. It is a bit like having a barely articulate mime occupying the Oval Office. King Arthur against NATO. Create dragon, slay dragon, Putin happy. Sell more MAGA hats. Trump is the WTF President. He is doing something different. He provides distraction in an age of distraction. Opportunists can take advantage of the chaos. It is easier to tear down than to build. I would say that Trump has clowned around enough. Trump listens to dark voices like Putin and Steve Bannon. Trump is a mime in a minefield.