At the core of any grandiose narcissist is a howling void where some essential thing should reside. What is that missing thing? Maybe it varies. In some cases, perhaps it’s empathy. Or a soul. Or a parent’s love.
I’ve spent way too much time pondering the abnormal psychology of deeply damaged men like Trump, Musk, Thiel, et al. I don’t want to think about them! But when they’re busily turning my country into a nuclear-armed kleptocracy or demonizing my queer child or setting up a surveillance state or making it difficult to afford healthcare, gas or groceries, etc., it’s hard to ignore them.
Trying to understand why they’re Like That feels almost like a form of preparedness. In an essay published today at TPM (gift link), Josh Marshall writes about the sadness that underlies Trump’s building and naming spree, including his latest gambit to turn his shitty South Florida golf club into the new Camp David.
As Marshall notes, Trump isn’t proposing to donate a remote parcel of land to the U.S. government for a private presidential retreat. He wants to build a presidential bungalow at his shitty resort that future presidents can use — and receive membership in his crappy club gratis. It’s a way to permanently associate the U.S. presidency with Donald Trump. And that’s pathetic. Marshall:
Trump has said a number of times that he has to build monuments to himself because no one else will after he’s gone. This is both a monumentally vain statement and also a bracingly pessimistic, despairing one. Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy didn’t have to worry about this. FDR remains the face on the dime nearing a century after his death.
Democrats have long been put off and even repulsed by Republicans’ former mania for naming almost literally everything after Ronald Reagan. But Reagan didn’t do it himself either. Indeed, the most striking thing is that notwithstanding the fact that Trump’s supporters have already tried to name all sort of things after him, he seems to realize or at least anticipate that all of that will melt away as soon as he and the hammer he can bring down on people are gone. However much you hate Trump — and you have so many good reasons! — this is a dark, despairing and fundamentally sad self-conception and effort…
What adds such pathos, patheticness if you will, is that the naming and building spree can’t really change this. Your monuments can be torn down, as I certainly hope his will. The over-sized metal letters with which federal buildings are named can be pried off as easily and quickly as Trump himself has done. He clearly realizes that he has to get his arch and ballrooms built absolutely as soon as possible or they will simply be cancelled if he’s succeeded by a Democratic president.
I am, I hope it’s clear, not remotely asking you to feel sorry for Donald Trump. But I do want to focus some attention on just how sad a tableau this actually is, in addition to arrogant, grandiose, illegal and all the rest. But fundamentally sad.
I think that’s right. And I hate that sumbitch so much that I hope the sadness eats away at him constantly. We are suffering, and he should too.
Also, a confession: I was today-years-old when I learned that it is FDR’s image on the dime. I thought Marshall identified the wrong president in the essay; until I looked it up this afternoon, I thought Eisenhower was on the dime. In my defense, dimes are small, and I am nearsighted!
Open thread.
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