What I tend to see in news from the media outlets that don’t kiss Trump’s ass these days, outside of the selective reporting that deliberately makes him and his administration look bad, is a certain kind of doomsday preaching. (What I see in those that do is, well, even more selective ass-kissing.) When the comparisons, implicit or not, arise to Nazi Germany and other politically fascist or authoritarian states, I cringe. The Heritage coalition goons working behind Trump certainly would love that—a nation of voters wholly and completely falling in line against some phantom enemy within (and without), whereby those repressive, regressive, backwards ideologues could, in the name of “domestic security,” do whatever they want anytime, anywhere, to whomever they want. But this is America in 2025, not the Weimar Republic. Though the administration, its spokespeople and bootlickers in Congress have (perhaps) indirectly implied that the two share a commonality in their inability to provide for their population, their condoning of rampant proliferation of sexual perversion and depravity or their bureaucratic ineptitude, they’re selectively framing the issue when they do. By all honest accounts, the U.S. economy was doing quite well before Trump came into office. Especially taking into account the fact that it was just a couple of years out of a global pandemic. Progressivism wasn’t doing the harm that conservatives were saying it was, either. If it were, there would be an actual plurality of proof. Same thing goes for the “deep state.”
There is no doubt, though, that what the administration is seeking to do is stifle speech it doesn’t like, stifle ideas it says are wrong, stifle lifestyles it thinks are disgusting and cram a legislative and economic way of life down people’s throats that really doesn’t have most Americans’ health and financial stability in mind, particularly if they fall below a certain income threshold.
But Donald Trump isn’t a syphilitic (I don’t think), warmongering, racist (kind of) madman, back to the Nazi Germany comparison. He’s a power-hungry, contemptuous, quite possibly soulless egomaniac with very little sympathy for humankind, sure. If he had ever only possessed a tiny fraction of his current wealth in life, he would likely have been beaten to death a long time ago by some hired goons he’d run afoul of, who wouldn’t have tolerated his fingers-to-the-chalkboard level of self-importance and manipulation for very long. And that’s assuming being a millionaire by the age of eight didn’t strongly shape his personality, which it very likely did.
And, though I hate to say it, Donald Trump isn’t a complicated man. I could argue no president in history has so publicly displayed his emotional triggers to an audience of supporters and reporters, so posted temper tantrums on social media to the point of making a ten-year-old question the concept of adulthood and so admittedly based policy decisions on nothing more than “gut feelings” more than he has. The man really is an open book.
Even his political MO follows a pattern. Which you can actually read about by opening a book.
And while I’d be lying if I said I knew what went on in Trump’s head, the following is a breakdown of the likely thoughts (and, quite possibly, the extent of them) that drive the biggest issues so far in the administration. Where the thoughts were likely put into his head by others, it shall be clearly marked.
#1. “America isn’t white enough. Let’s make America white again. Can we do that?”
Trump’s bigotry goes back a long way. To 1973, in fact. At least that’s the first legal documentation of it. And while it may have ended in a consent decree whereby no admission of discriminatory guilt ever had to be made on the part of the Trump family, it wasn’t the only example over the last fifty years. There’s no doubt conservatives recognize they can hoard votes by exploiting people’s close-minded fear of the foreign and of foreigners, and a dissolution of the traditional fabric (read: Whiteness) of America, but why the net has been dragged to such lengths in this administration is something I don’t think I’d be asking if Trump didn’t have the fanatical Stephen Millers of the world whispering and scheming behind him: pushing such big policy decisions and steps while he (Trump) willy-nilly picks a grade school slap fight with the rest of the world, or the country’s own judicial system. Trump’s a bigot, no doubt. But I wouldn’t call him a racist, as the term is strictly defined. The Stephen Millers on the other hand…
#2. “Look at this country. If I ran it, I’d make it as perfect and beautiful as my own company.”
I’ve said it before, Trump runs America like his own company. It’s all the man really knows, and he knows it pretty darn well. And with a guy whose head is as thick as his, who doesn’t like to learn, read or be told what to do, there was absolutely no other way for him to “lead” it this time around. I mean, what did you think was going to happen once he finally got his presidential act together? Did you think he was going to do it like all the others? (See thought #5)
#3. “People who don’t like me are bad people.”
It’s got egomaniac written all over it. It’s nothing new. Narcissists can’t do anything wrong, egomaniacs are binarily right in any argument, real or abstract, and when you’re as rich and powerful as a Trump, you’ve had it very likely bred into that you’re better than everyone poorer than you from birth. It’s simply “good genes.” Among other things.
#4. “People who don’t do what I say must not like me. So, they need punishing. It’s really quite simple.”
This is the problem that arises when a guy like Trump gets too powerful. He punishes people who don’t do what we wants, or who contradict the basis of (or actually forestall) the things he wants done. We may have Roy Cohn to thank for that, God bless his antagonistic goblin soul. The world is a cutthroat place, the world of big business even more so. Not only do you have to look out for number one by continually convincing people that you’re number one, you have to look out for number two by continually convincing people that number two is, quite literally, a piece of sh–.
What I wanted to do was insert the more-or-less paraphrased thoughts that Cohn initially started planting into Trump’s head some fifty years ago, but with a guy like Trump, you don’t do anything original. He does everything original. Plus, I don’t know the exact thoughts Cohn may have planted. Except to say something to the effect of: ‘Attack, attack again, attack some more, don’t give up, attack a fourth, fifth and sixth time and deny eeeeverything. Then attack some more. And don’t forget to deny. And attack. And don’t give up. Then attack.’
#5. “Loyal people I can trust. They’re beautiful. I love loyal people.”
This is the inverse of thought #4. He not only punishes those who attempt to harm him, but rewards those who follow him without question. Take a look at his inept cabinet picks, the first term’s or today’s. They obviously weren’t chosen on merit, but rather on never having said a rude thing about the man. Or, if they had, they had repented of it not long after, then kissed his ass before doubling down on not just kissing more of his ass, but telling the lies he wanted to hear, and doing the legwork he didn’t want to.
Those who follow him and provide his existence with some kind of value, I should emend. Someone once said (I forget who), ‘Trump views relationships as transactional’, and there are enough examples of this to know that people are more or less high-end consumer products to him, bought and sold and then chucked in a dumpster when they outlast their usefulness.
Just imagine for a second I’m speaking about a stand fan here: ‘If you benefit my life by cooling me I will praise you to my friends and co-workers for your usefulness (or at least not chuck you in a dumpster); if you fail to cool a room properly I’ll chuck you in a dumpster, probably that one behind the butcher’s that everyone knows doubles as a front for Nickie Knuckles’ human chop shop’. Sounds feasible, right? And now, translated to the mind of Trump: ‘Make me look good and I will heap lavish praise and an innumerable plethora of superlatives upon you; cross me and I’ll slur your existence, nuking every figurative bridge connecting us in the process’. Steve Bannon, Michael Cohen, Rick Gates, Matt Calamari, Anthony Scaramucci—they’ve all felt the heat of those explosions.
#6. “Whatever it is, I’m gonna do it bigger and better than anyone who’s ever done it before.”
America’s purchasing of Greenland, the ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense system, Trump appointing himself chair of the Kennedy Center, the “Gulf of America” name change, unprecedented tariffs on almost every imported good into America—all these things scream “BIGGER THAN ANYTHING BEFORE!!!” And, honestly, that’s almost entirely the reason. Except for running America like a business.
While much of this smacks of imperialism and hegemony, I honestly don’t think Trump knows or cares about that. (Or even understands what the terms mean, really.) He just wants people to remember him forever, or at least for a long time after he’s dead. He wants people to look at such monuments to and efforts of his brilliance years from now and remember that droopy, orange, canteen-bag mug of his that looks like it’s been dropped one too many times on concrete staring back at them, dentures gleaming. Full of so much flax that it’s busting out of the zipper. You know what I’m talking about.
I’m talking about his face, yes.
#7. “I am always in charge.”
This, I think more than any other thought, is the biggest “big-decision” driver in the man’s whole repertoire. He simply can’t be told what to do. Nor can he be told or reminded of anything that conflicts with his worldview or the view he has of himself. He’s like a spoiled child in that regard.
Which, really, in the end, is what makes his thoughts so easy to peg down. Even if none of these are the actual thoughts he thinks in the course of a day or lifetime word-for-word, like a child lost in his own backyard, it’s obvious that the trail of behavior he’s left in the grass behind him, and the whining you can hear in the not-too-distant distance, is a clear and navigable path to discovering where (i.e., who and what) he really is.
