It’s fact beyond reasonable doubt that the insurrectionist-in-chief committed federal felonies when he tried to overthrow the US government with orchestrated violence. The Jan. 6 Committee made that clear Oct. 13, yet again, in its latest (and perhaps final) hearing. But what struck me most was one sentence uttered by Trump 26 days before his mob stormed the Capitol, a line of dialogue we previously hadn’t heard:
“I don’t want people to know that we lost, this is embarrassing.”
That’s Trump, truly in character, distilled to his essence. He lives in fear of being seen for what he truly is, a loser. Fear of being embarrassed tops fealty to the Constitution.
I could write at length (as I have since the Jan. 6 panel commenced in June) about all the emails and texts and messages and testimonies, the whole mountain of evidence exposing his guilt, but it all really boils down to one man-child’s damaged mental makeup.
As Peter Wehner, a former Republican speechwriter and conservative think tank leader, wrote earlier this year, “The most important thing to understand about Trump is his disordered personality; it’s the only way to even begin to think about how to deal with him.”
Trump’s mental disorder is what got people killed at the Capitol. It’s what inspired his suckers to smear the walls of that iconic building with (in Nancy Pelosi’s words) “poo poo.” It’s what drove our institutions to the brink of meltdown. It’s what continues to distract and sicken those of us – members of the exhausted majority – who want nothing more than to move on with our lives and rekindle our faith in democratic normalcy.
Jack O’Connell, who ran one of Trump’s ’80s casinos, said it well two years ago when he told the New York Times: “The worst thing in his world would be to be a loser. To avoid being called a loser, he will do or say anything.”
His self-esteem is so dangerously fragile that he has always needed to prop himself up with preposterous superlatives. The guy who threw paper towels at hurricane-stricken Puerto Ricans called himself “the best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico.” He has boasted that, with the “possible exception” of Abe Lincoln, he’s done more for Black people than any other president, and, indeed, he has touted himself as “our greatest of all presidents.” He’s the best environmentalist ever (“I know more about renewables than any human being on Earth”), and the best war-techie ever (“I know more about drones than anybody”). More recently, Trump even shared a bogus story that calls him the “Number 1 Presidential Golfer in History by a Landslide.”
He forever dwells in a binary world. You’re either a winner or a loser; there is no in between. He so fears being tagged as a loser (Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump casino bankruptcies, ad infinitum) that he will say or do anything to present himself as a winner. So if a congressional panel investigating the Jan.6 violence corners him like a rat, with overwhelming evidence and testimony of his criminal perfidy, he can only tout himself as a winner by dismissing all his probers as losers – or, as he raged yesterday on social media, “Radical Left losers.”
Granted, you’re probably well acquainted with the guy’s irrevocably sick mindset, his thirst for projecting strength to mask his weakness. But with an indictment seemingly closer than ever – for Jan. 6, for stealing and hiding classified documents, for trying to overthrow the results in Georgia, for all three – it’s worth pondering anew how history typically gets written – sometimes for better, sometimes for worse – by the character assets and deficits of the central players. People died and others were maimed at the Capitol because one guy was terrified of being exposed as a loser; thus his remark: “I don’t want people to know that we lost.”
Peter Wehner, the ex-Republican speechwriter, wrote: “Trump was dangerous, his mind disordered, before; he’s more dangerous, his mind more disordered, now. His behavior needs attention not because of the past but because of the future.” The only recourse, at this point, is to recast the loser as a criminal defendant. Michael Beschloss, the esteemed presidential historian, said it well yesterday: “Can an American President plot against our democracy, even to the point of violence, as on January 6, and not suffer serious legal or other consequences?”
Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes at DickPolman.net. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2022
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