THE SOULLESSNESS OF DONALD TRUMP
Keith Boag
The Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s response to the recent hurricanes along the Atlantic coast was typically dishonest and unhelpful, but it was also exceptionally disturbing for its casual cruelty — especially in North Carolina where the Governor is a Democrat. Trump seemed not to have the slightest qualm about snuffing out every flicker of hope for the people there. As they stared helplessly at the wreckage of their lives floating off into the darkness, he did his damndest to convince them they’d been abandoned — that neither state nor federal help was on the way.
FEMA, the Federal Emergencies Management Agency, had blown its budget on housing for illegal immigrants, Trump said, and so the agency had no money left for anyone else.
There were no helicopters available to rescue people or deliver them food in North Carolina, and those who’d lost their homes should expect only $750 in government assistance. “Think of it,” he said. “We give foreign countries 100s of billions of dollars and we’re handing North Carolina $750.”
None of it was true, of course.
FEMA can draw on a budget of 35 billion dollars for disaster relief; in North Carolina helicopters rescued people and delivered supplies to where they were needed; the $750 was just a quick cash instalment from the government for short term basic necessities like food and water, there will be significantly more money to follow.
When even FOX News fact checked Trump to his face, he pretended not to notice and kept on lying.
To be sure, Trump did not invent all of the lies. But he certified them and that has tremendous currency in the gullible world of MAGA where the invisible hand of an imaginary deep state is assumed to pull the strings behind every catastrophe.
Those affected by the hurricanes, but predisposed to believe Trump's lies, still might not believe that government help is available to them, might not seek it, might end up worse off without it. Trump doesn’t care.
Those who know him as the pathological liar he has always been are left to wonder again, “what is wrong with the man?”
Trump has occupied centre stage in the American political drama since 2015, and in three weeks voters will decide if they want another four years of it in the White House—despite still not knowing what seem to be important details about his pathology: Seriously, what is wrong with the man?
As election day looms, that question hovers in the air. “The Apprentice”, a new movie about the early life and business career of the former president, shows him under the protective wing of his lawyer, fixer and mentor Roy Cohn, who imparts to him a strategy for life defined by three rules: 1. “Attack. Attack. Attack.” 2. “Admit nothing. Deny everything.” 3. “Claim victory and never admit defeat.”
Sound familiar?
It is the strategy of someone who intends to do harm and to get away with it.
Trump’s early literary collaborator, Tony Schwartz, who ghost wrote “The Art of the Deal” thought the film crystallised what he learned from watching Trump closely years ago. Writing in The New York Times last week, Schwartz said that Trump was an example of how “nothing we get for ourselves from the outside world can ever adequately substitute for what we’re missing inside.”
The awareness that Trump is a broken man who has no interior self is something that eventually dawns on everyone who plumbs the depths of his soul and discovers vacant space. Mark Singer, who wrote a 1996 Trump profile for The New Yorker, spent days hanging out in New York with Trump, probing him from time to time about who he is when he’s by himself. Trump appeared to find the question incomprehensible and Singer finally concluded that Trump “had aspired to and achieved the ultimate luxury, an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.”
It’s fair to ask whether it matters. Is there anything to gain from understanding what drives Trump’s behaviour? He is what he is, regardless of clinical diagnosis. His friends revere him, his enemies revile him, but apparently no one cares enough to save him, so why risk that a psychological evaluation might somehow let him off the hook for his moral indecency?
Seeing him in action at the scene of a natural disaster, lying and denying reality, should remind us that, when facing a crisis, he is a problem not a solution—just as he was as president during the pandemic. But, clear as the evidence for that is, at this crucial moment roughly half the American voting public chooses to believe that the opposite is true, that he truly has their interests at heart.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Keith Boag - The US presidential ticket is set: Trump + Vance versus Harris + Waltz. And to cover that election, we're bringing our readers and listeners a brilliant journalistic mind and political correspondent legend, Keith Boag! Keith was with the CBC for more than 30 years, including as Chief Political Correspondent. His career included work for many years in Washington, D.C., and as Ottawa Bureau Chief. Keith covered seven federal elections in Canada, ten party leadership campaigns, as well as several US elections. Keith will regularly offer his written analysis via "QUOTES" at Air Quotes Media.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Air Quotes Media. Read more opinion contributions via QUOTES from Air Quotes Media.