Donald Trump is the reigning
king of American victimhood.
He is
unceasingly pained, injured, aggrieved.
The
primaries were unfair. The
debates were unfair. The general
election was unfair.
“No politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been
treated worse or more unfairly,”
he laments.
He
whines in a way that makes the weak feel less vulnerable and more vicious. He makes feeling
sorry for himself feel like fighting back.In this way he was a perfect reflection of the new
Whiny Right. Trump is its instrument, articulation, embodiment.
The way they see it, they are
victims of coastal and urban liberals and the elite institutions —
economic, education and entertainment . They are
victims of an economy
evolving in ways, both technical and geographic, that cuts them out or
leaves them behind. They are
victims of immigration and shifting American demographics. They are
victims of shifting, cultural mores. They are
victims of Washington.
No one speaks to these insecurities like the human
manifestation of insecurity himself: Donald Trump.
He pretends to be
ferocious, but is actually embarrassingly
fragile. His bravado is all
illusion. The
lion is a coward. Trump lacks focus and hates work.As Newsweek puts on
this week’s cover, he is a
“Lazy Boy.”
Twitter
tantrums, obsessive television viewing, holding campaign-style rallies to feed his
narcissistic need for adulation. Those things to me do not signal competence, but rather profound
neurosis.
he’s also a
projectionist: He is so consumed by his insecurities that he projects them onto others. Trump branded Ted Cruz a
liar, when he himself wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped him in the face. He blasted Hillary Clinton as being
crooked, when he himself was crooked. He sneered at President Obama’s
work ethic — among many other things — but Trump’s own work ethic has been found severely wanting.
In 2015, Trump said, “I would
rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done.” He continued: “I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a
president that takes time off.”
Lies.
Trump has spent an unseemly amount of time away from the White House, playing golf, and is at this very moment on a
17-day vacation.
This
projection of vice, claiming of
victimhood, and
complaining make Trump an ideal front man for the kind of cultural anxiety, desperation and anger that disguises itself as a debate about public policy.
