Donald and Melania Trump
Atlantic writer Tom Nicols said it’s not enough that President Donald Trump is a bumbling fool whose mistakes make the nation look like idiots: He’s a vicious bumbling fool who wants to blame others for his buffoonery.
“Tom Nichols, you accurately place this conversation in its real moment... Explain,” said MS NOW anchor Nicole Wallace.
“Well, he's always been a narcissist. I don't think … you need to be a psychiatrist to reach that conclusion. That's just who he is. But there comes a time in some kinds of regimes, authoritarian regimes, where the leader has become so isolated, so surrounded by people … so unwilling to tell him the truth, so capable of kind of snapping his fingers and, making a reality, like he did with the [Reflecting] pool,” said Nichols.
Nichols said the situation is particularly dangerous because “there is no one around” Trump to say “this isn't true or that's a bad idea.”
“He now has become completely wrapped up in his own power and surrounded by people that are just footmen rather than advisors. That is incredibly dangerous,” said Nichols. “It's bad when it's the, the head of a corporation or the captain of a sports team, but when you're the president of the United States and you lose touch with reality because you're simply cut off from anybody and anything that can contradict the reality of that movie inside your own head rather than what you see around you, that's just astonishingly dangerous.”
Nichols said the unfortunate situation is a hallmark of other regimes, particularly Latin American dictatorships and the old Soviet bloc.
“It's just who he is now. And, you know, his team has helped make him that way," said Nichols.
Ben Rhodes spoke of the “human toll” of this problem as Trump seeks out targets to blame when his misinformed policies blow up in his face.
“Other presidents [have] done things that were mistakes that cost lives, but this is a scenario in which he made a decision to do this reflecting pool with this sketchy, no bid contractor, and it goes to pieces. And he basically instructs people apparently to go find culprits to be guilty of this, and they have to be cast as violent vandals or left-wing terrorists or something,” said Rhodes. “Trump can probably convince himself that what he thinks is the reality. It almost is immaterial whether he believes it or not. But this is different. Like this idea that like, ‘hey, we're going to go find some people to punish, to validate my theory of reality.’”