Political strategist Steve Schmidt tore into Donald Trump ahead of the president’s 80th birthday on Sunday — the same day Trump hosts a UFC cage match in an “Octagon” built on the White House’s South Lawn to open the nation’s 250th birthday celebration.
Schmidt, the co-founder of The Lincoln Project and a Never Trump Republican who became a Democrat in 2020, described the president as “Hated And Alone at 80,” an invective on his Substack newsletter.
He notes the “irony” of Trump’s 80th birthday against the nation’s 250th: “At the very moment Trump seeks to place himself at the center of America’s 250th year, he appears smaller than ever. More isolated, aggrieved, obsessed and alone.”
“One story is about a man,” says Schmidt. “The other is about an idea. One story is about vanity. The other is about liberty. One story is about self. The other is about sacrifice.”
Schmidt observed that much of Trump’s life “has been devoted to denying the reality that every human being must eventually confront: time wins.”
“No amount of money can buy another year,” he noted. “No amount of power can stop the clock. No amount of cosmetic surgery, gold plating, self-promotion, propaganda, or flattery can alter the simple fact that every life is measured, finite, and judged.”
He went on to explain that “Trump has spent his life constructing monuments to himself,” and that his buildings, airplanes, golf courses, steaks, university, casinos, “cryptocurrency schemes,” and merchandise all bear his name.
Trump is the project, says Schmidt, yet the “tragedy of his life is that after 80 years he has accumulated power without wisdom, wealth without dignity, fame without honor, and followers without friendship.”
He asks, “where are the genuine relationships that mark a life well-lived?” The “lifelong companions,” “trusted confidants” and “people capable of telling him the truth.” Absent, Schmidt observes.
“The tyrant is always alone,” Schmidt charges. “The narcissist is always isolated. The man who demands loyalty from everyone eventually discovers that loyalty and love aren’t the same thing.”
The American experiment has “endured,” Schmidt notes. “It has survived worse men than Donald Trump. It has survived corruption, demagogues, traitors, cowards, and fools. And it will survive Donald Trump.”
In the end, Schmidt says, “There will only be the answer to a simple question: did this man enlarge the meaning of America, or diminish it?”
