The Age of Trump

Like it or not we live in an age defined by a sociopath. In a perfect storm and confluence of events, a man of abhorrent personal qualities caused enough people to overlook the obvious and allow him to seize the reins of the most powerful nation in the world. We had for too long tolerated the greed and abuses of our political elite, so we allowed an unproven neophyte who promised to be a breath of fresh air to ascend to power. To quote John Cleese of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, “…and now for something completely different.”

No politician in American history could have previously survived the litany of gaffs, missteps, and outright assaults on acceptable behavior perpetrated by The People’s Fool. For him to rise within the ranks of the Republican Party, known for its patriotic fervor, religious piety, and conservative ideology, is a testament to the strangeness of the times. To think that a draft dodger could denigrate a war hero because “"He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured." Trump denies that he ever said such a thing but the video shot in Ames, Iowa, on July 18, 2015, has him saying just that. As of the beginning of 2021, the Trump lie tracking machine counter at the Washington Post was at 30,573.

Lesser politicians would have crashed and burned after that one gaff but not our blonde sociopath. Then there was the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape that Trump was able to shrug off as locker room talk. For politicians of previous generations his proclamation that it was his male birthright as a wealthy famous person to treat women as sexual objects placed here for his amusement would have been the coup de grâce. Did Trump crash and burn after that one? Nope. How is this possible?

Then there was the time that President Donald Trump discussed classified information during an Oval Office meeting on May 10, 2017, with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The classified info concerned a planned Islamic State operation that easily burned the identity of an Israeli agent and revealed intelligence collection methods. The Israeli Mossad then issued an advisory that warned about sharing intelligence with the Trump White House because of the cavalier attitude of that administration toward national secrets and intelligence. Trump had his staff first deny that anything had happened but, when faced with facts, Trump bragged that he had every right to disclose national secrets to his Russian friends. Did Trump’s ratings take a hit? Nope.

Now we have the preoccupation with “his classified documents.” Like a child with a favorite stuffed animal, the former president threw a presidential tantrum at the thought of being separated from his toys. He treated our nation’s secrets like Linus treated his blanket. They were his personal treasures. The mere possession of such valuable stuff stroked his ego. He would travel the country with his favorite boxes. His staff began referring to them as his “beautiful mind” materials. The reference was to the book/movie about John F. Nash, Jr. whose schizophrenic mind believed news clippings contained a secret Russian cipher that he needed to crack.

Trump and his obsession with this collection of boxes has also been compared to the Gollum character in The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings, who called The Ring, “my precious.” The Ring in this case was magical in that it grants the wearer invisibility. I doubt that Trump would ever envy invisibility unless it meant it could be used to hide from his legal troubles.

In the fictional middle earth that was the world of Gollum, his obsession with The Ring was the cause of his destruction. It remains to be seen if Trump’s obsession with control of “his boxes” will have a similar effect. As they say, “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.” This is of course a reference to Wagner’s opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and Valkyrie Brünnhilde (a buxom character) whose final twenty-minute operatic moment signals the end of the world for the Norse gods. In Trump’s case, the fat lady is still doing vocal warm-ups. Trump may in fact be his own "fat lady" as he does like to sing about his activities, even those that dig the hole of his political grave even deeper.

Another analogy was made in an opinion piece in the New York Times by Maureen Dowd where she likened Trump’s attitude to that of King Louis XIV of France who famously stated, L’État, c’est moi. The translation is “I am the state” and was used to describe the king’s exercise of control over all things. It represents the manifestation of power in a dictatorial and repressive manner. Perhaps such thoughts echo within the cranial recesses of our nation’s first true sociopathic ruler. His “beautiful mind” Is beyond the understanding of mere mortals, at least those of us who live on planet Earth and not the tangential universe of planet Trump.

In that same opinion piece by Maureen Dowd, she references the time when Trump’s office in Trump Tower had walls covered with magazine covers so that his own face “stared back at him from every angle like an infinity mirror.” She stated that he must worry: "Without pieces of paper to prove I am important, am I important?"

Donald Trump is but a tick feasting on the blood of an unwitting segment of our society. A veritable smorgasbord of religious extremists, racists, xenophobes, homophobes, etc., became his very own Happy Meal. He has found his ultimate con in politics. As a perpetual candidate, he has tapped into the forgotten motherlode of America’s citizenry. Like a border collie, he herds his sheep with loud barking. He hopes they won’t see through his disguise and realize that he is not the friendly canine who will guide them to a greater America but a wolf in disguise who will have them for lunch, and not in a good way. His sheep are blinded by promises and a false kindred spirit that is the stock in trade of the good conman.

Politicians would normally ignore or disavow racists, white supremacists, Nazis, homophobes, xenophobes, anti-Semites, and the radical religious fringe, even if they too held some measure of similar beliefs. In a normal world filled with normal sane and caring people, these radicals would be a political third rail. For Trump, they represented an untapped resource that would electrify his campaign, and by openly acknowledging support for them, they found a champion for their belief systems. As isolated camps they were ineffectual, but as a collective, they could work as a voting block that would be difficult to ignore. The mob mentality of January 6th was festering.

Current traditional conservative Republican politicians cower in fear of Trump’s cult of human flotsam. He demands that Republicans pay homage to their de facto new leader and, if found wanting, they will suffer the ire of the cult and could even earn a derisive new name. In addition to the cult members, in the 2016 elections, he found enough support among independents and traditional Republicans who were unaware of his true nature to win the presidency. After four years in office, the 2020 election saw that many independents and even some traditional Republicans went in a new direction. The Cult of Trump was not enough to swing a second presidency. I doubt that he will succeed in 2024. He will campaign if only to fill his coffers with donations.

The Donald will always be the Donald. He will not change. His sociopathy is a means for his survival. He suffers no shame, remorse, or boundaries. His disordered mind is like his many file boxes, a collection of “things” he desires for his self-aggrandizement. Unlike Citizen Kane who had Rosebud as a singular joyful memory from his youth, Citizen Trump has no such pleasant memory from his early days, only his magazine covers, his plaques, his trophies (aka former wives, prostitutes, porn stars, and rape victims), his headlines, his video of January 6th, and yes, his boxes.

Trump's Secrets in Hangar 51 Storage

You can almost bet that there are still some classified records somewhere within his span of control. I can imagine him dreaming of the final scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark where the Ark is hidden in Hangar 51, the government storage facility for important artifacts of supernatural and extraterrestrial importance. Perhaps, in Trump's Hangar 51, there is even a love letter from Kim or a thong once worn by Vladimir.