It’s well known that Trump often rejects reality and substitutes something entirely different. And we know that he can only succeed when he has a victim to malign. But what I think is less well known is that he has a tell: many of his insults on his victims are actually glimpses of truth about Trump himself.
At his political rally in Fayetteville, N.C., this past Saturday, Trump said a number of stupid things and to me a lot of them seemed like they were instances when Trump transferred to Biden what was happening to Trump. Trump said that Biden needs a teleprompter when Trump was reading from one. Trump said that it needed to be explained to Biden what xenophobic meant when obviously Biden knows and Trump would not have. Trump said that Biden’s team “will make up a lie, they will make up a story, and they go with it, it makes no difference whether or not it’s show” when we all know that’s the Trump playbook. Trump said Biden doesn’t know what science is when Trump’s aversion to scientific fact is on display in his handling of COVID-19.
I believe the most revealing line from Trump was that Biden needs a “big fat shot in the ass” to help him get through debates. Where would that idea even come from? I think the answer is Trump is familiar with such an idea because he gets such a shot. Trump says he wants drug tests but isn’t worried about actual testing results because there’s no way such a drug test would actually happen and even if it did, he’d blame science for getting it wrong. (“That stuff is what I have naturally in my system and Biden is weak and needs it added!”)
We’ve remarked through the Trump Presidency about how childish he is. The name-calling, the making everything about himself, the idea that he can do what he wants, that rules don’t apply to him, etc.. The childhood expression “I’m rubber, you’re glue; whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you” is what Trump seems to be saying to Biden. Or even more likely for Trump to think and say to Biden: “I know you are but what am I”.
