Donald Trump sounds like a man who knows his time is up
Here’s how we know that on his more lucid days, Donald Trump sees the end of his presidency coming sooner rather than later: he’s already obsessed with his legacy, and how history will view him, based entirely on what he’s done in office up to this point. That’s not how a guy views things when he thinks he’s only halfway through the ride. And yet Trump is more obsessed with framing things this way than ever.
Take, for instance, this tweet from Donald Trump today: “Despite the most hostile and corrupt media in the history of American politics, the Trump Administration has accomplished more in its first two years than any other Administration. Judges, biggest Tax & Regulation Cuts, V.A. Choice, Best Economy, Lowest Unemployment & much more!” Trump keeps hitting on this same “first two years” refrain, and I think he’s giving something away in the process.
Sure, it’s based on Donald Trump’s usual narcissistic hyperbole. Nevermind that Abraham Lincoln had the Emancipation Proclamation in his first two years, or that FDR had the New Deal, or that Barack Obama had the Affordable Care Act, even as Trump hasn’t done a single thing that’ll be viewed positively by history. It’s that he’s obsessed with the two year benchmark.
This sounds like a guy who fears that he won’t get his second two years. If Donald Trump were a rational person, we’d say that perhaps he simply doesn’t expect to be able to accomplish anything in his final two years with a hostile Congress. But Trump isn’t rational. His list of accomplishments is just things he’s making up to begin with, so he could easily just make up some more fake accomplishments for the second half of his term.
No, this is a guy who’s worried that he’s going to be thrown out on his butt long before the end of his term. So he has to convince himself that he’s done more in his two years than anyone else ever has. That way he can pretend that he’s among the greatest of U.S. Presidents, even though he’ll have been the only one to be in prison before his first term would have ended.
