Donald Trump’s big meltdown gives away just how terrified he is
I don’t ordinarily like the word “meltdown.” It’s overused on the internet. My dislike of the term stems from my old days of online debate when it was cheaply and frequently used by opponents. It didn’t matter how calm or factual my retort may have been, it was always a “rant” and I was always having a “meltdown.” To me the word is too often redolent of a coward’s excuse for not replying to valid rejoinders eloquently delivered and impossible to refute.
No, if you want to see a textbook example of an actual meltdown, check out Donald Trump’s Boxing Day video tirade that he posted to “Truth” Social. Now that’s a meltdown.
Trump is obviously beside himself with fury about the January 6 Committee’s criminal referral to the Department of Justice, naming him as the principal offender in four very serious crimes. I’ll let you in on a little secret about that rant, brothers and sisters. Donald Trump isn’t just angry, he’s also terrified.
I know this because I know narcissists. Once you’ve penetrated their massive defensive shield of delusion they become incandescent with rage. Sometimes dangerously so. It’s often because they’re terrified they’ve been exposed, and that exposure could get them into huge trouble.
That Trump’s diatribe is overflowing with numerous and easily refutable lies is a given. One of the biggest lies he told in his rant is that the “unselect committee did not produce a single shred of evidence that I in any way intended or wanted violence at our Capitol.”
Sure they did. Cassidy Hutchinson witnessed Donal Trump saying, “I don’t care that [the insurrectionists] have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.” He also ignored numerous (hundreds?) of text messages and pleas from members of his own staff and his own family begging him to call out the National Guard to defend the Capitol and ask the crowd to stand down. He took absolutely no action against the violence — for hours.
It was only after he saw that the violence was going to lead nowhere and that the mob wasn’t going to save his embattled presidency that he finally, tepidly asked the crowd to stand down and go home. Which they did and would have done had he asked them earlier. Or, if in his speech to them at the Ellipse, he’d told them explicitly and repeatedly that the protest was to be peaceful and without violence.
Trump wanted violence. In fact, he even opined to witnesses that his own Vice President, Mike Pence, “deserved” to be hanged.
There are more lies, easily refuted. I won’t give them any ink here. They are unworthy of being repeated and will be easily refuted in criminal court. And I think Donald Trump is now pretty sure that he’s going to have to answer for his crimes in criminal court. So am I. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.