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A Silver Lining of Trumpian Madness
Trump’s hyperreality can inadvertently enlighten us
On what he called “Liberation Day,” Donald Trump’s declaration of a trade war against most countries was an emperor-with-no-clothes moment, except that instead of lacking clothes, Trump lacks intellectual integrity.
That’s not hyperbole or name-calling. It’s an empirical fact that policies, ideologies, data, arguments, explanations, and truth are irrelevant to Trump. Nothing that Trump has said or done in the Oval Office can easily be explained in the traditional way, by assuming the President is a strategic thinker who acts in good faith to lead the United States and the rest of the free world.
All of Trump’s statements and actions while in office are best explained by assuming he has a severe personality disorder known as malignant narcissism. That disorder dictates everything he does, from the winner-loser mentality and the anti-American authoritarianism to the chaos and amorality, to the cult of MAGA and the shameless descents into apparent imbecility.
For instance, at a press conference in the Rose Garden, Trump revealed the first part of a chart that listed the many countries he planned to hit with what he called “reciprocal tariffs,” and included two columns of numbers, one purporting to be “tariffs charged to the…
