Donald Trump’s ultimate nightmare—and it’s not what you think

Earlier this week, after a federal judge barred the Kennedy Center from once again adding Trump’s name to it, Trump apparently ordered his handpicked Center trustees to close it down. (Fencing went up around the building this week.)

Trump said in a social media post that the closure was needed for safety repairs. But he also said the repairs would happen only if the board were permitted to move forward with plans to add his name to the building.

The Center’s trustees confirmed that without “appropriate recognition” on the building, Trump was unlikely to oversee the renovation or “lead the fiscal rescue of the Center.” A fiscal rescue is necessary because ticket sales and fundraising plunged after the trustees added Trump’s name to the building in December.

What’s going on here? By now we’ve become accustomed to Trump’s moves but we’re still confused about his motives.

Some blame Trump’s vanity. Others point to his flagrant narcissism. Or his insatiable need to glorify himself. Or his bottomless vindictiveness.

It goes deeper. They’re all symptoms of a mentally disturbed man-child who cannot abide the humiliation of losing. Any person or group that publicly puts him down, makes him look as if he has surrendered, or displays domination over him threatens his self-worth.

His ego is so fragile that the mere prospect of being shown to be who he fears he is — a loser, a bumbler, a clown — drives him nuts. Like a 6-year-old who kicks over the card table when he’s losing a game, Trump would rather demolish the Kennedy Center than endure the public humiliation of having his name removed from it.

This is the dangerous world we’re all living in.

It’s why Trump is willing to wreak endless suffering in Iran and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf, to cause death and injury to American service members, to compromise the security of the United States, and to impoverish Americans who can no longer afford gas or groceries or their mortgage loans — rather than endure the public humiliation of being defeated there.

It’s why Trump was willing to undermine the trust on which American democracy depends rather than endure the public humiliation of losing the 2020 election, and why he’ll do whatever he can to sabotage the 2026 midterm elections.

It’s why he responds the way he does to all those who have publicly challenged him — from the writer E. Jean Carroll to Harvard University to Canada’s Mark Carney to the members of the Supreme Court to the few congressional Republicans who have crossed him. He would prefer to have them purged and expunged, their careers ruined, their reputations in tatters, their nations become America’s enemies, rather than suffer the public humiliation of being defeated by them.

But there may be good news here. With his polls in the basement and the likelihood of midterm losses mounting by the day, it could be he’d rather exit from the game than publicly lose it. He’s already said out loud that he’s “getting a little bit tired of politics.”

If the midterms turn out as badly as expected for Republicans notwithstanding Trump’s efforts to sabotage them, I wouldn’t be surprised if, before the start of the new year, he the announces that he’s resigning the presidency and handing it over to his handpicked successor, JD Vance.

Like his closing of the Kennedy Center, he’d rather close down his presidency than be seen losing it.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.