The Gangster
Gangsters are professional bullies who, among other things, run protection rackets. Give me money or I feed you to the wolves. Trump was happy to run his protection racket against Ukraine in front of the world on live TV. He thinks it makes him look tough.
For gangsters, everything is personal. All relations are about dominance and submission. For Trump, if you are a sycophantic flatterer, you are “nice.” If you are not, you are “nasty.” If you actively seek to constrain his impulses (or actively refuse to submit to his dominance) you are an enemy. All “diplomacy” among the capos is mano a mano, and we saw on Friday what that looks like.
Gangsters live and die by two principles. The first is absolute personal loyalty to the capo (Trump) and family (MAGA). Second is that the only unforgivable crime is betrayal, and when it occurs it must be publicly punished. Trump is methodically punishing all who he believes have betrayed him. Firing is for minor offenses. He has condemned Mike Pompeo to death by removing his security detail while under a fatwa from Iran.
Gangsters are obsessed with hierarchy. Trump is obsessed with Putin and Kim Jong Un because they possess powers that he does not: the ability to determine the outcome of “elections” and exercise power for life unfettered by the rule of law or political checks and balances. And gangster hierarchy is also defined by the size of your “turf.” Trump needs to show the other capos that he controls his neighborhood, thus the public bullying of Canada and Mexico. And adding Greenland makes perfect sense, a large addition to his turf which can be taken without too much trouble from a weakling.
The Showman
For a showman, all publicity is good. When the showman has an epic case of narcissistic personality disorder, public attention becomes an all-consuming addiction. Trump is living his dream, where he is the lead in every news story everywhere in the world every day.
Shows are about spectacle, not substance. Everything you need to know about what is happening you could learn by studying Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment (formerly WWF). From 2016 on Trump has followed the show’s recipe of extreme vulgarity, spectacle, nicknames, insults, fake feuds, and conspiratorial fantasy. Characters compete to be the most crass, obnoxious, vulgar, and crude. And new outrages – the more preposterous the better - are required in every episode in order to hold the attention of the audience. Trump instructed his staff to treat each day of his presidency like the episode of a reality show “in which he vanquishes rivals.”
The showman’s approach to entertainment, politics, and now governance is devoid of substance or content. Trump doesn’t hide this. He bragged following the vile spectacle in the oval office on Friday that “this is going to be great television.”
The Conman
The conman revels in the stupidity of his “marks” and brags about the magnitude of his cons. Trump takes great pride in the billions he extracts from cons such as the Trump meme coin sale. Stealing from the marks is a form of dominance.
The conman starts out as a grifter dealing in small deceits: sins of omission, misleading twists of the truth, and petty lies. He graduates to the big lie. The preposterousness of the big lie is the ultimate measure of status. It is safe to say no one in public life has lied bigger and bolder than Trump. It is the source of enormous pride.
Trump’s con game has flourished in a culture that no longer has faith that the market economy rewards innovation, hard work, efficiency, or the creation of value. Instead, ordinary people struggling to get by are told dozens of times a day that the rich made it through “hacks” and “tricks.” Hacks and tricks are exactly what the conman sells. When Trump came along, a third of the country was ready to buy.
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It is astonishing that the commentariat continue to cover the unfolding train wreck through the same lens they have used for decades. They assume that actions by a president reflect the exercise of goal-oriented reason and thus can be explained in terms of ideology, policy, and/or political calculation. In Trump’s case, they cannot. Everything happening that originates from the White House is simply an expression of who Trump is. He is a gangster, showman, and conman. Look at it that way and you will easily understand what is happening and why.