A narrative of Trump’s personality as interpreted through the lens of global media
The latest decade, some things have happened in american national politics that many people in Europe do not want to copy and paste over to their own democracies. That a man with Donald Trump’s quote- and behavioral history could be elected president in 2016 was relatively widely seen as a setback for feminism’s painstakingly acquired progress over many decades.
Many european countries have had female heads of state. America got the ugly, literally unbelievable“pizzagate” and Donald Trump in stead. In 2005, Trump bragged to Howerd Stern that he could go into Miss USA’s dressing room (“backstage”) to see the contestants naked, some of them only teenagers, since he “owned” the pageant and “had to” inspect. The same year, Trump was involuntarily caught on tape saying ” I tried and f… her” about a woman he knew was married.
Where did conservatively republican and traditionally american family values go? The married lady had rejected him, but that had lead to, in Trump’s words, that he “moved on here like a b….“. He said to interlocutors: “Grab them by the p….” Trump thereby wanted to say something about what celebrity status allows you to do.
A word exchange from the 1991 movie thriller “the silence of the lambs” can come to mind: FBI’s Jack Crawford: “Starling, when I told that sheriff we shouldn’t talk in front of a woman, that really burned you, didn’t it? It was just smoke, Starling. I had to get rid of him“. Clarice Starling: “It matters, mr. Crawford. Cops look at you to see how to act. It matters“.
Do fewer women than men vote for the republican party because they disagree with the overall policies of the party, or because with Trump as the republican presidential candidate, feminism becomes a more important political issue?
In 2023, Trump was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman; E. Jean Carroll back in 1996. From a maybe “hopelessly morally naive”, norwegian perspective, this conviction, all alone and without additional arguments, should be enough to disqualify him from running as top candidate for political leadership and as commander-in-chief for the men and women who make up the nation’s military forces.
It is not actually a radical opinion, that concerns for the level of trust that democracy must enjoy among the public, grants that criminal convicts may not be allowed to run for election as the supreme representative of a system they themselves do not respect. If an “ordinary citizen” has a cannabis conviction, it can cause difficulties in the job market. Being president is as much the nation’s foremost “position of trust” as it is the nation’s foremost “job”.
If any person other than Trump was convicted for criminal fraud, sexual assault, and was then criminally indicted for insurrection-like affairs, would “you” elect that person mayor of your small american town? We can imagine the question being addressed to the citizens of Rockland (Maine), Lewisburg (West Virginia), and Jefferson (Texas).
One may argue that prohibiting by law that convicts run for the nation’s highest public office is a possible adaption which would not conflict with democracy. Serious criminals are prohibited – to vote. A Trump who is elected president as a convict, and then wants to go after “marxist judges” who aren’t marxist: It would be the opposite of the old, American song “I fought the law, and the law won”. What kind of normative example would that constitute for people antagonistic to “the system” from a different political viewpoint?
Zero tolerance for criminal records could have saved Germany from Hitler, who won power and then usurped further power, to sweeping popular ovations. The counterargumentagainst zero tolerance for criminal records is that the system can be affected by actual corruption and injustice and then either “criminalize” or “frame” (or both) honest freedom heroes who want to fight that very injustice. South Africa’s Nelson Mandela fell victim to such processes.
Some, however, are liable to calumniate a whole system just to be able to appear as freedom heroes or freedom hero aspirants next to it. That Trump sees himself as a freedom hero and tries to draw up an image for the public of himself as a freedom hero – is a different topic. So did Fidel Castro from the extremist left of the political spectrum in Cuba, as an act of usurpation.
Trump can, without any observable signs of irony, gruffly pull your arm towards his body if you choose to give it to him for a handshake, thereby appearing as an undisguised “alpha type” before and regardless of any formally defined power. Should people who, “alpha-like”, take informal, personality-based authority for granted be rewarded for their – usurpation – of informal authority– with – formally granted authority/power? Is that a good norm (main rule) for democracy?
Should Trump based on his seeming expectation of impact through his pre-formal authority radiation and given his behavioral- and quote-history as well as his criminal record, legitimately be able to “correct you” as your “superior”? The risk is that people knowing with themselves that they have comparatively cleaner slates and who would themselves never have voted for anyone without it will think: “We subtract the share of the presidential authority that expresses the person Trump’s pre-formal expectation of authority”. That would sharpen domestic conflict in ways a not controversial republican president would have avoided.
Intersubjective processes as a means of mutual approximation of objectivity constitute a necessary basis for cooperation and “cultural normality” in well-functioning democracies. Democracy, after all, is a form of government meant to mirror the people’s way of life, by the people and for the people. Equal ranking of different people’s subjectivity prior to agreements intended to approximate objectivity, a “certain” degree of a sense of unity, and all parties’ respect for objectivity as an ideal (although an ideal too often evasive), are crucially important factors in healthy democracy.
How does Trump administer the strong position of his own subjectivity, given that it often seems to stand in the place of any intersubjective approximation of objectivity? He said in 2023: “A vote for ‘crooked Joe‘ is a vote for a jihadist who turns our cities into dumping grounds“. It may sound almost radical to claim it, but you actually cannot have a debate with Trump on such a basis. Factuality is completely excluded, so that his statement must be understood as an attempted domination technique to “suspend the opponent”, a “boarding”, if we are to use ice hockey terminology.
“In order to judge how nuanced or obtuse (publicly) prominent minds are from nature’s side, one must pay attention to how they perceive and reproduce the opinions of their opponents. From this one reveals the natural measure of one’s intellect. (Nietzsche, 1881: The dawn of day, Book 5, #431)
Biden as a jihadist? Is it possible to end up any further “afield”? Trump’s presentation of Biden is maximally uncharitable, untrue (cf. an undoubtable instance of “fake news”), frivolous, appealing to certain people’s fears, and person-characterizing. Referring to Nietzsche’s quote, it seems leaning more towards obtuse than towards nuanced, albeit that is admittedly a subjective statement.
Trump calling progressive democrats marxist strengthens that same subjective judgement. What would old-school republicans say, if their subjectivity was called upon to be able to approximate an objective stance intersubjectively here? This way or that way, opponents of Trump “get to” be either marxist or jihadists. He seems to think he wins votes that way. Does he?
“Crooked Joe”: Is that Trump’s projection (in the psychological sense)? Trump himself, not Biden, has been convicted in court. Projection is a psychological defense mechanism where a person attributes traits and characteristics to other people that he/she has but does not consciously acknowledge. Unwanted feelings or traits about oneself are unconsciously attributed to someone else. A typical example is the partner who is unfaithful himself, but who suspects his partner of being unfaithful. One sees oneself as blameless, blaming the other without cause.
It is a core point of well-functioning democracy that people can disagree on the level of issue without resorting to unfair personal attacks. Political culture is becoming, with Trump, so hard and so “toxic” that “ordinary people” may no longer imagine being able to cope with devoting themselves to politics. They expect acceptance for their seriousness but observe that the friviolous Trump “trumps out” seriousness. Seriousness loses if it threatens Trump’s center position as an “alpha-type”. What kind of normative example does that set for other, especially young politicians.
If “ordinary people” would no longer cope with devoting themselves to politics, that would be a – disaster – for democracy. Americans could choose to ask themselves if there is a historical precedence from their own country of a president lacking the ability to engage in factual and respectful debate. Hitler lacked that ability.
Trump calls Barack H. Obama, “Hussein O”. Those who find that morbidly humorous, are probably not the same people who would actualluy fear Obama because of his middle name. Even if you suspend the part of this topic that might have to do with appealing to unrealistic fears to increase your own chances of power, a presidential candidate should have better qualities than appealing to the morbid humor of some. The polite and – normal – manner is to call people what they call themselves. Creative name-calling is often seen as a technique of children’s mockery of each other.
A person delegating onto his own person the right to alter a whole nation’s political culture by normalizing the use of “cozy, fatherly intimate and caringly patronizing” nicknames such as “Crazy Pelosi”, “Hussein O” and “Crooked Joe” must feel pretty darn convinced of his own sovereign, patriarchic over-position relative to those others – some type of “ownership”. Does he want others to embrace that sovereign over-position or ownership of his too – for only laughing stocks don’t?
Trump bullied his republican competitor for the presidential nomination, Nikki Haley, because her husband was not with her on the campaigning tour. Shouldn’t the woman Nikki Haley be able to stand as a full-fledged nomination candidate without a husband by her side? Melanie Trump does not always stand by her husband Trump’s side, and a point was made of this in some media before the 2016 presidential election. It is thus a sexist double standard by Trump.
The sexist double standard makes it regrettably remniscent, again, of projection – of Trump’s own characteristics onto another. He doesn’t not have his spouce by his side, it is Haley – who doesn’t have hers on her side. Someone other than Trump could choose to be honest as to this topic, rather than narrowing the political fight to a focus on petty, politically irrelevant details. They could for instance say to Haley in a debate, with a twinkle in their eye: “We are both expressions of the political reality of later years, where one no longer has to adorn oneself with the ‘image‘ of sacrificial support of one’s spouse”. Trump does not talk like that, but he could skip the topic alltogether.
Instead, Trump interferes, boundary-overstepping, in the fact that Haley’s husband is “deployed” and therefore – should – be with her on tour. The sure enough nameable reasons Melanie Trump was not always by his side and whether or not that is something she – should – have been, are issues he does not raise. Trump is perforating, with his verbal clawfingers, a shell that in decent cultures, including the traditional american culture, is supposed to protect people’s private sphere. What if for instance still unclarified, sensitive health issues is the reason the man is at home?
Trump even went on to call Haley a “birdbrain “. Hence, according to Trump, the people of all South Carolina have been no better than electing a birdbrain for governor, doesn’t that make them birdbrains too? He said: “There’s nothing nice about her”. Saying such a thing is harassment and can be interpreted as an attempt to initiate mockery. That there is nothing nice about the human being Nikki Haley at all, is what Trump thinks. Should, however, his subjective and emotion-driven feelings of sympathy or antipathy be transformed into an objective truth for an all-american “we”?
“There is a deep, heartwarming quote (by Carnot): ‘What matters is not the person, but the issue’.” (Nietzsche, 1881: The dawn of Day, Book 3, #167)
If Trump, himself saying there is nothing nice about Haley, says that because he believes that “being nice” should be a minimal prerequisite for becoming an american president, people who may have subjective feelings of antipathy towards Trump (cf. that he is not “nice”), should take time to put reasons for their feelings into cold rather than heated words, and then confer with “old school republicans” (Raegan’ians who admire fellow republican Lincoln), in an intersubjective process meant to approximate objectivity.
Maybe Trump wants to italicize himself by slandering others and create an impression that “there is no decent opposition” to him. If so, that resembles once again, projection. Should Trump be believed; that in America’s democracy you face only indecent opponents to him, the PR impact for America’s democracy would be maximally negative. If it is believed, Trump will be left in a public image abroad as the very most decent political leader who can be expected to come from the United States.
Trump has – aped – physically after Biden (because he admires the advantages of the chimpanzee?). If both Biden and Trump had aped after each other, for example in a national TV debate, it would reflect badly on the USA. One may have felt sure about it before Biden threw in his towel, but now it is at least 100% that will never happen.
Before the 2016 presidential election, Trump also – aped – after reporter Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from arthrogryposis. Many other politicians would likely have recognized the inner strength required for an observably disabled person to work as a reporter in a national, political context, admiringly. Maybe they would have kept their admiration to themselves in order not to come across as patronizing, but they wouldn’t camouflage their admiration so convincingly that they’d end up mocking him from stage.
The most compromising for Trump’s character’s image, however, is the absence of regret and apology afterwards. Trump subsequently claimed that he did not bully Kovaleski. When the incidence has been taped, however, “fake news” based solely on oral dissemination has a weaker impact. This is one of Trump’s lies that has been proven. Trump seems not to admit his own mistakes, something that can be dangerous in international and military top leadership if calaminous wars threaten.
It might be worth pointing out that there have been published long lists of lies that Trump has served to win support for his bid for re-election as president. Off course, those lists may be “fake news”, Trump might want to say so. One random example, nonetheless, is a claim that a typical american family has lost $7,400 in income with Joe Biden as president. The latest product (june 2024) of Trump’s fake news factory was that some US states allow killing of newborn babies. Trump has even repeated the latter claim despite standing corrected for it, which may let a great deal of people think that he lies pure and cynical. He has also tried to link Kamela Harris to the killing of newborns.
Those claims are refutable if one has enough interest and energy to obtain – the facts – rather than having “blind faith in fake news”. Biden has claimed Trump told 28 lies in the 2024 presidential TV-debate with him (before Biden stepped aside). The media and part of the public, however, seem to be so oversaturated with Trump’s lies that they are habituated to them and no longer react to them as though it would be a serious matter any longer. It seems that lies (at least Trump’s lies) have become so normal that the issue of it is suspended in the minds of the public (cf. the factor always present is subtracted from perception). In real, people who constantly lie have a rotting moral fabric/character, fully untrustable. Not lying is also the ninth of the ten commandments, provided common societal morality is an issue.
The “Pizzagate” story was forwarded on pro Trump websites, among other places. Even though Trump – probably – didn’t believe it to be true, he had no scruples about letting the fact that others believe it come to his own political advantage: The QAnon sequel to Pizzagate claims that Trump 2016-20 secretly fought a “cabal” of progressive-liberal and celeberty child-molesters (but without seeking any political credit for it in the 2020 presidential election). Isn‘t it always – safer – to vote for suspected paedophilia-fighters than for suspected paedophilia-offenders. Others, however, would rather not want the word “paedophilia” associated with themselves in any way, if with a plus-sign or with a minus-sign in front.
If all lies (cf. fake news/propaganda) are believed, truth as the focal point for mutual approximation in democratic decision making may ultimately lose. That, although it is a necessary base for healthy, well functioning democratic decision making. The more Trump-lies that are proven (like for instance that he did not mock Kovaleski; that some states allow the killing of newborns), the higher the sheer statistical probability that he also lied about electoral fraud in 2020/21; that it was all “fake news”. If he becomes a president who curtails the free media, those same lies may become state propaganda.
Even though many believe that he is attacking truth as a base for sound and true democracy, Trump has said: “all I have done is fearlessly defending America against those who want to destroy it“. That sentence has a premis in it, namely that mainstream political opponents of Trump struggle and stride to destroy America. Such a premis is the only thing that can let him portray himself as a fearless protector. Do other opinions than this one that is his own, make him feel like a “victim”?
He might be fearless (certain personality types are known to be) based on the impression he gave when he got shot in his ear among other things, but he will not wait for others to grant him the formidable compliment “fearless”. He states his opinion about himself – himself. For some people, “fearless” may here seem to lie close to “reckless”. From the other side of the atlantic, many find that he looks like a “strange figure”; some kind of “bad loser” who acts without boundaries outside of all political decency and preestablished cultural norms.
Those norms, however, are screws in the political machinery, and they are becoming dangerously loose. A “fearless, seemingly serial-lying, rude, culturally norm-blowing, and not responsible victim”; a “self-pitying freedom hero” with his “most faithful” on street alert. From a distance, where the danger is that it becomes so “detached” that it becomes a bit cynical, it can look like this: Trump is fighting for freedom; freedom from opposition against himself; against “his path in life”. That isfreedom understood in decidedly liberal terms. He wants “moral permission” for the way he is and to be free of any correction by any judiciary.
God forbid it be true: Alpha and billionaire Donald Trump must face indictments because he has failed not to overstep considerably weighty legal boundaries in more than just one single case. Such a perception may have to be trumped. He says the charges against him are “evil” and “detestable”, signs of moral bankruptcy. Is that projection too, a mirror reversal? The unpleasant, moral connotations of the legal charges should only affect those who would otherwise cause him to experience that same discomfort? They cause him to have unpleasant feelings, hence they are bad.
He responds to any serious criticism, “preemptively”, with “talentedly potent”, projective counterattacks. His agenda seems to be to refute his own guilt, even when that means “heretic-declaring” all prosecutive power as well as the judiciary as “corrupt to the point of being undemocratic” (cf. “a democracy that indicts moi can’t really be democratic and must be judged back”). Since there are indictments against him, Trump is fighting “his fight” as a privately implicated person. Can you then have confidence that his motives for seeking renewed power while calumniating his own country’s democracy can be “best assumed” uncontaminated.
It is arguably possible to observe a pattern to Trump’s behavior where he seems to see himself as morally inaccusable also apart from the context of being indicted. His moral inaccusability can thus be perceived by some as a personal trait he might have. Trump previously hosted a reality show on TV (“The Apprentice”). Once, he fired a participant and gave as his reason for it that the person “always had an excuse” in cases of failing effort or results.
Trump too always has an “excuse”, most pertinently for why there can never be anything – morally wrong – with any of his choices, his actions, or his statements. When it had been taped and revealed that Trump had stated “grab’em by the p…”, his – excuse – was that this had only been “locker room banter”. That it was “locker room banter”, however, can just as easily be seen as morally aggravating.
“Talk” by a powerful man which aggravates weak, other men’s attitude towards women; that it is OK to “move like a b….” towards safely married women – provided you are a celebrity; that celebrity status means you can see yourself as an exception to the requirement of abiding to republican-conservative, family-oriented moral codes and values: That is all OK as long as women don’t get to know it’s taking place.
Where bad things dominate, shame is attempted removed. There will be an attempt at trivialization and normalization of what is bad. That is the nature of moral degeneration. It makes the vulnerable even more exposed. What Trump actually communicates without words to weak men is: If you are not a celeberty or a powerful individual yourself, those who are can go after your wives. He thus makes the culture more oriented towards status, power and celeberty; shallower and more superficial.
Trump was indicted in 2023 for having taken classified information with him when he handed over the presidency to Biden in 2021, including documents on potential vulnerabilities of the USA, plans for possible retalliation in case of a foreign attack, and nuclear weapons capacity. He is also accused of wanting to hide that as a fact by lying and scheming to mislead federal investigators, an intention that was not crowned with success. The FBI found those crucial documents lying around. The case was later dismissed, for reasons technical to the judiciary, not because the FBI didn’t find those documents at his place. A comment by Trump in july 2024 was that the democratic party must stop using the judiciary against their political enemies. Yeah – that‘s what this is!!!
It has now been established as a fact that Trump himself acknowledges that he took the documents with him when he left the White House. Confronted with facts, Trump said he declassified the documents “in his head” before he resigned. He has explained that he had forgotten that he had declassified them only “in his head”. Again, there is always an excuse absolving him from a moral viewpoint. Maybe even Trump’s words “you always have an excuse” – is projection.
If Trump had declassified the documents according to procedure, there would have been no need for him to try and hide that he still had the documents. At best, he must have discovered that he had done something illegal, and then tried to hide it. Trumps attorney had assured that all such documents had been returned. Should every president be able to claim the right not to be held accountable for his/her actions? Trump as of 2024 seems cognitively strong. Thus, more likely than dementia (that he forgot that his declassifying act only took place in his head), is that he has a boundless and “easily planted” sense of ownership of power-privileges before and outside of formally defined power.
A more consiliatory interpretation among several possible ones, is that he experienced “disbelief” because he lost the presidency in 2020, that he had to let his jaws drop because of it and found it extremely hard to fathom. That, too, may reflect a “sense of ownership” of power privileges – to the US presidency (!). In a more indirect sense, it also reflects a “sense of ownership” to power privileges to sense that one may always decide for oneself whether one has done something “wrong”, and that one can try to “browbeat” representatives of the country’s judicial branch of the threefold power if they do not take his sense of such power ownership duly into consideration.
At last, it has been pointed out that Trump; not even as president, would have had the formal authority to declassify all the documents he “declassified in his head” and took with him, specifically those dealing with national vulnerabilities and nuclear weapons capability. Wanting to declassify information that is “not declassifiable” indicates poor judgement.
Good judgment is a desired quality for presidents. Trump became the object of a rumor that he had previously had a punctual relationship with a porn actress. It was claimed that monetary demands from the porn actress directed towards Trump had been put forth under the threat that the case would “leak”. Whether truth is this or that, when the case “leaked”, Trump told his “most faithful” to take to the streets. Hitler, liked to surround himself with his “most faithful” who had as “their chore” to “stand out” in the street picture as something other and different than happy citizens.
This happened in March 2023 as Trump expected to get arrested. What he was suspected of, was having kept false accounts to “cover up” a payment of “hush-money” to the porn actress. As a directly implicated part, he wanted to shift the focus away from the offense he was accused of, by politicizing the context, seemingly as something not quite unlike a “preemptive attack”, projecting guilt away from himself and over to someone else for what he wanted the public to see as political persecution of him.
The “street action” Trump called for was supposed to make it “politically sensitive” to arrest him. If interpreted correctly, Trump thus tried to politize a criminal case, something that could have hindered the criminal justice system to uphold its intended, politically neutral role. If it had succeeded, the criminal justice system would no longer be politically trustworthy.
What about Trump’s perspective, however? Intersubjectivity means we should take his subjective side into account. Is “the hush-money case” just “alternative news” directed the opposite way, to Trump‘s disadvantage? Is it just a “nicer version” of something comparable to “pizzagate”? The courts have now concluded it was not, convicting him. The evidence of false book-keeping was apparently hard. The NY conviction was unanimous.
Even if we are to entertain Trump’s claim of his own innocence despite of that, however, when “pizzagate” hit the american public in 2016 like a molotov cocktail smelling like natural fertilizer, Hillary Clinton did not “instruct” free-thinking, autonomous, eligible voters how to think; congruently with the narrowest possible interpretation of what could be her personal self-interest, and she did not encourage them to follow “dictation” and take to the streets to spread social unrest. It looks like a fledgling pattern of hysteric reactance on the part of Trump, when we simultaneously keep the storming of Congress in the back of our minds.
After having been indicted in the hush money case in 2023, Trump talked about “Trump-hostile judges”. What kind of personality types, however, are known to be (a) self-referent (cf. here attributing the causes of the event one-sidedly to one’s own person rather than to the subject matter of the conviction) and (b) talking about themselves in the third person form?
Trump went on to “post” a photo of a judge’s daughter. That is a fear- and intimidation-based power technique. What kind of personality types are there that would intimidate someone by afflicting innocent relatives of those they perceive as opponents? As “president material” Trump would usually be expected to possess an ability to think through what his statements may trigger in terms of actions from unstable individuals among his followers.
Hitler used threats from his paramilitary SA to get people to abstain from voting for his political opponents. That “admittedly” sounds even more grave than Trump singling out a family member of a judge as a target for people among which some could have mental instabilities. What if someone had actually shot that daughter in her ear? In the 1983 movie “dead zone” (Stephen King) the fictional presidential candidate Greg Stillson loses because when he gets shot at, he picks up a girl and uses her as a shield.
Trump’s clear, indirect threat against the daughter of a judge, also lets stories from the mafia-infested southern Italy come to mind. Mafia controlled contractors are aided by mafia bribes to land contracts, for instance for public road building. When government inspectors arrive to oversee that they build the roads according to standard (cf. that corners are not cut to secure mafia profitability), they have gotten threats in the form of mafiosis showing them pictures of their children, etc. What does Trump do to american, protestant culture? Did he grow up with too strong an influence from the “wrong” sub-culture of NYC, like Thomas Hagen in the “Godfather” movies (1972 & 1974)? His judgement makes the question justified.
Trump has become a “target” of criticism because of the way he conducts “his political fight”. In his own mind, his best interpretation of the fact that he has become a target of criticism, is apparently as domestic threats to America’s own, celebrated ideals of freedom. He said: “I don’t mind being Nelson Mandela”. Mandela was the victim of persecution due to his pacifist freedom fight against South Africa’s racist apartheid regime. Mandela – was – a “not responsible victim”, as far as possible to see.
It’s one thing to be compared to Nelson Mandela by others, but to draw the comparison yourself – it gave quite a few “raised eyebrows” around the world’s various latitudes and longitudes. Mandela spent 27 years in prison, and later reconciled – forgivingly – with those who had wronged him. Trump utters the mantra “revenge”, with reference to a claim that he has been “robbed” of his – right – to the US presidency.
What should you guess Trump’s inner reaction to be like? “Would Mandela really have had any reason to believe that he is better than me – I reserve me the right to doubt that!”? The people most likely to hedge sentiments like that are apartheid state officials who reconciled with Mandela with a resigned attitude. Why would Trump “consume” the public image in the USA of the uniqueness of Mandela’s merit?
It is early in the year 2024: The former politician Aleksej Navalnyj has died in Russia. In the United States, Trump will not participate in the accusing of Putin for it which, isolated, can be seen as not wanting to treat empirical non-facts as empirical facts, but he also used the occasion for a parade of self-reference that was rare even for his standard. He said:
“The sudden death of Aleksej Navalnyj has made me more aware of what is happening in our own country”. Drawing a parallel to the many legal charges he has to stomach, he posted: “Biden:Trump::Putin:Navalnyj”. Thus, Trump blames Putin for the death of Navalnyj after all, even though he claims not to do so – and – says what Biden does to him is the same thing.
He himself (Trump) is like Mandela, and he is like Navalnyj as well, who died while in prison. He consequently uses greater comparisons than there is a basis for about himself, to the symmetrical reduction of those same others‘ merit. Children can often be observed to do likewise. They may test the boundaries of what credit and merit they can deserve, attain or get away with. As a “statesman”, Trump has chosen to use his national stage to inform the popular electorate that he looks like Elvis Presley. Lack of recognition makes him a “martyr”, to the extent that he is not already such a “not responsible victim”, due to various indictments and/or the loss of the presidency in 2021.
With the message “Biden:Trump::Putin:Navalnyj” Trump can even seem “semi -paranoid” and “semi -deluded”. That is to say: It is possible to have an honest suspicion about it, without thereby saying anything about the strength of the suspicion. That is because Trump portrays Biden as though Biden was to be personally responsible for the indictments that have been brought against him, then understood as an unconstitutional abuse of power. The impression of Trump drawing up such an image was confirmed when, in february of 2024, Trump said that Biden was turning the government into a weapon for “stalinist show trials”.
Trump thereby portrays Biden, if not directly then most decidedly indirectly, as if Biden was to be some kind of a “semi-dictator”, completely out of step with american tradition. If that is an incorrect assertion, it equals dangerous disinformation, provided it is believed by enough of the eligible voters. You are once more reminded of that other Trump-quote: “all I have done is fearlessly defending America against those who want to destroy it“. Others struggle and stride to destroy America. Freedom heroes stand up for the rights of others, but look, Trump refers to stalinist show trials against – himself. No one wants to see the inside of a cell.
Does Trump himself believe Biden to be personally responsible of all charges against him because it is a “suspicious belief” that he himself personally entertains strongly? Trump found it apt to refer to Stalin. Stalin himself, is said to have probably been paranoidly suspicious. Does Trump project onto Biden the characteristic if owning a limited degree of resemblance to Stalin? Trump himself is the one who, in line with the agenda of “project 25”, opts for full presidential control over the executive branch of federal government (including the justice department) according to the maximalist interpretation of “the unitary executive theory”.
Without such a concentration of power in the hands of one individual, Biden – probably – cannot personally be behind the charges against Trump. Politicizing the crime fighting justice department (thus weaponizing its prosecutorial power) is what Trump has said that – he – wants to do. Trump – may – not recognize his own undesirable behavioral traits, and project these in unacknowledged forms into others around him. Should people believe Trump that Biden is much like a “semi -dictator” and thus completely out of step with american tradition, that is a gravely dangerous thing for the nation (for its democracy) if the actual truth is the exact opposite; a reverse mirror image, but “powerfully projected” by Trump.
Trump had it in him to politicize the frame of a criminal case when the hush-money case surfaced, and he – simply claims – the democrats do so in the documents-case. If Trump strongly entertains suspicions that Biden is like a semi-dictator (seemingly a suspicion grown to convictions if one is to take Trump’s own statements literary, just like that of electoral fraud in 2020 before), then other people who dare claim their constitutionally granted freedom to raise concerns about Trump are supporting a semi-dictator (Biden), thus being in effect un-american threats themselves. Would you want that to be you?
In a land of individualism, Trump should off course never be held responsible for what his father did, but his father shaped Trump‘s upbringing, which gives him the involuntary and unjustly assigned burden of having to “free himself from his heritage”. In 1927, Trump’s father was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan parade, but there was no proof that he was a member, hence he might not have been. In 1971, Trump became president of his father’s company. Two years later, in 1973, they were prosecuted by the Justice department for racial discrimination against blacks. It was – not – Joe Biden personally who was behind that then.
Republican Robert Hur made a report where he described Biden as a sympathetic, well meaning elderly man with poor memory. On the national convention of the republicans in Milwaukee, july 2024, Ron De Santis said something in the vein of that they’d honestly have to admit Joe Biden was just a gallion figure. Those two statements don’t seem to fit all too neatly with Trump’s portrayal of Biden as a man personally behind stalinist show trials against him. From the other side of the atlantic, it seems likely to many if not most that De Santis has the relatively more realistic perspective out of the two, provided that De Santis sees those for whom he thinks Biden has functioned as a gallion figure (cf. the democratic party) to be legitimate political opponents within the democracy unless proven to have acted against laws or/and unconstitutionally.
Trump is not a gallion figure. As he – seems – to many to suspend the image of “moral levels” – that if others cannot be believed, he hopes to be believed, but can also endure having his lies exposed without thereby being comparatively immoral; as he – seems – to many to use lies (fake news) as successively undermining “missiles” against healthy, truth-honoring democracy; as he – seems – to many to aim charges of deadly harsh criticism against others based on projection, one might suspect that what he accuses others of; Illegitimately politicizing indictments, is what he himself is liable to initiate if he is re-elected president. In the worst thinkable case, he may not – feel – enough trust of opponents not to – he will just use the means that are right by necessity.
After the 2020 election, Trump claimed that thousands of illegal votes from serious criminals, minors and deceased citizens had been “counted”, and a systematization of Trump’s behavior can give rise to a suspicion that this is precisely what he himself is liable to do – If he is given the chance. If he does not trust that he won’t suffer unfair disadvantage due to others’ cheating without doing so, he may thus justify it to himself.
His story shows that he himself is liable to do things he accuses others of doing – because such accusations coming from him repeatedly (hence, as a pattern) seem to be projective. Projection is a subconscious method for making true what you feel to be true in your head. If you constantly accuse others of owning your own “betterment potentials”, eventually someone will be ticked at you; turning against you. That may then seem to the person doing the projection as proof; “the others are against me”. In reality, we talk about self-fulfilling expectations.
The illegal tampering with election technology in Coffee, Georgia that the “apparatus” of incumbent candidate Trump was responsible for after the 2020 presidential election should be taken as a further indicator that distrust of Trump when it comes to election results is not irrational. It was a bit like if a contestant in Trump’s Miss USA pageant would break into the judging panel’s voting technology. Trump probably wouldn’t have condoned of that. Maybe Trump, however, if it is right that he has an easily planted sense of ownership to power privileges, thought he contested as the pageant owner, given the way he was still president (cf. the incumbent candidate).
As a pageant owner, Trump seems formerly to have been attracted to the neon-like light of celeberty’s superficial glamor – before national politics became his new venue for it. Taylor Swift, however, is not one of his peagant contestants, but seemingly a hard working, independent artist. Early in 2024, Trump verbalized that Taylor Swift owes him loyalty in the upcoming presidential election. Trump said that for Swift to support Biden would be “disloyal to the man who made her so much money”.
Money, is the means to so much; why should power be an exception? To the extent that thanks for financial help is reasonable to expect, then financially. Expecting political thanks for economic services is a corrupt mixup of economics and politics, where an economic service should result not in financial debt, but instead in a binding of the person’s autonomy and freedom of opinion. That does not seem to be compatible with America’s own ideals of freedom. The attitude resembles a strong dilution of the slave-era’s “if I paid for you, I own you”.
Given Trump’s own emphasis on money, it is relevant to look at how he came to his wealth. He has said he got a start-up loan from his father. However, the New York Times meant to reveal that his parents transferred a billion dollars (in 2018 value) to their children, and that they evaded 500 million in gift taxes through former president Trump’s active participation. Trump has disputed the report’s accuracy, so we should keep humoring the possibility that he is right and the New York Times wrong. In 2022, however, Trump’s undertaking was convicted of tax fraud.
Trump takes the credit for his business empire‘s financial volume, although it seems in fact plausible that he deserves the credit for it to a markedly lesser degree. Could one interpretation among several possible ones be that – again projectively – he creates an image that others (here Swift) have the credit for their success to a lesser extent than people think, because he has that same share of the credit? Does he take credit for things with an “easily planted sense of ownership“ by consuming other people’s public image of credit for things?
Take a look at it in light of the projection-hypothesis: “Not I myself, but – others – deserve credit for their success less than people think”. As a second element, there is a consumption of credit for that which the actual lack of credit is projected away from himself: “I myself – do – deserve the credit some may hegde doubts about, concerning my own success, but subsequently also for the success of those who I (due to my initial projection of my own traits onto them) don’t think deserve their credit as much as others think”. The lack of differentiation here between craving credit for his own success and for that of others may suggest that the pattern of consuming credit may be the “back side” of subconscious projection. One may remind oneself again of how he minifies Mandela and Navalnyj.
The “economic service” Trump had offered to Swift was his signing of “the music modernization act”, which mainly updated the music listening landscape to better facilitate legal licensing of music by digital services. Come on, that would have happened sooner rather than later no matter who was president! Is Trump a covert socialist, if he views his own signing of that act mainly in terms of it being a public, political decision to regulate the income of a certain group of professionals? A “socialist capitalist” who due to the way he deems his own share of credit and merit to be high, wants “royal” (personal) loyalty/thanks from celeberties, in effect to benefit his own power bid?
Expectations of celeberties’ political loyalty for “economic services” (if that’s you want to call the presidential signing of the music modernization act) express a “celebrification” of political culture which is absolutely unprotestant. The first of the “Godfather movies” can come to mind, where the singer Johnny Fontaine is “in the pocket” of the cartel’s head, Corleone. Fontaine, allegedly based loosely on Frank Sinatra, had to sing at casinos in Las Vegas so and so many times a year, as thanks.
In Naples, southern Italy, a shop owning woman once came forth and told the media that the mafia had demanded she payed them protection money, or they would be the ones she needed protection from. That – would – make sense if the mafia honestly believed they have credit for the shop owning woman’s success through the sum of all their “territorial services”: Easily planted sense of ownership – and – minification of other’s credit! It is in criminal settings and jails, that it is dangerous to accept favors, because it binds. This one “favor” was not for Swift to decline, as wasn’t the mafia’s territorial services offered to the shop owning woman in Naples.
Maybe too uncharitably, it is possible to interpret Trump’s attitude as follows: “Everything my wealth can buy me (including power) is legitimate if the wealth is an external manifestation (a truthful mirror) of who I am; an inherently success-destined individual”. The notion that he may have evaded 500 million dollars in gift taxes for a start out base of a billion he had previously claimed had not existed, may have threatened that self-image. The exposing media, which Trump wants to curtail and punish, have affronted him – personally.
Trump as a youth has elsewhere been described as a spitballing classroom bully and as a guy who went into Manhattan to buy switchblades and stink bombs. It is hence possible for outsiders to imaginatory visualize a distraught kid liable to enter into corrosive relations and affiliations, whether that image is correct or not. Maybe his available path to great success though family means saved him from such a road and provided him a chance for a better standing in mainstream society?
It has been revealed that Trump’s companies earned 8 million dollars from trade with foreign governments while he was president 2016 – 2020. That is a comparatively small sum, so the question is mostly principal in its nature. However, if a poor person had earned 8 million dollars the same way, it could easily be perceived mainly in terms of profiteering.
A sum equal to all such profits, Trump can channel into new election campaigns, hence use the consequences of his own power to increase the chances of further power. In the worst case, foreign governments could maximalize their trade with Trump-owned companies as a form of “foreign meddling” in affairs domestic to the american democracy.
This topic is ultimately about the value of preventing an image that corruptly mixing political power and economic force is normality in the leading country of capitalism. Even if a mostly incorrect image of money buying power and power supporting money would arise, it could give rise to doubts about the justness free competition and of globalized free trade, lest others think they can morally affort to compete by the same means. That could change the world, albeit less so southern Italy.
Trump said in 2024 that he will not let his own hands off his business if he gets re-elected as president. Trump, in effect, almost draws up a public image of himself where he has a “Chuck Norris-like” sovereignty. President; a “part-time job”? The presidency is maybe not big, serious or dignified enough for Trump to let his hands from the most important thing he has going on.
If the presidency is not the most important thing Trump has going on, then maybe it is also not so important what the people direct their attention to and fight for every fourth year, namely who will be president? If Trump wins, but has more important things going on, he appears, so to speak, more “sovereign” by virtue of his Persona than he is by virtue of the office of President. Does Trump want to prove what degree of “boundless, ‘total power’” he can be able to win as a capital stakeholder?
Not europeans the most, but even more so people from non-western cultures, can see “predatory capitalism” (a practice in the “grey zone” of legality and morality which must be sharply distinguished from capitalism as an economical theory and an economical system) to legally channel forces that could otherwise easily have found a criminal outlet. The lawful winnings potential is high enough to be worthwhile.
If that would be so, it could be viewed to have both negative and positive sides to it. It could reduce actual crime which is clandestine and more societally detrimental. It is often criminals, however, who put their subjective will above any external demands, who reject obligations they must “live up to”, who do not tolerate being affronted. If the system is to their disadvantage, it may ultimately have to be “trumped”.
In february of 2024 Trump was convicted for fraud by the courts of the worlds leading – capitalist – country, the USA! The court found that Trump had been behind an extensive scheme to dupe banks into granting him more credits than he deserved over many years. Trump responded that there had been no victims and that the courts were thus corrupt and persecutory.
Was he right? Who was the actually the victim? It was free – and fair – competition in line with Smith’ean capitalism. More specifically, Trump’s competitors in the free market. There are reasons that capitalist stakeholders themselves may not have the last words over the judiciary. Many have a unilateral subjectivity and an easily planted sense of ownership.