The laugh heard round the world
And there it was. The moment in which Donald Trump’s profound delusions about his place in the world went crashing headlong into proof of the opposite. Trump had, incredibly, convinced himself that he’s somehow succeeding as President of the United States. Moreover, he was so comfortable with this delusion, he thought nothing of bragging about his imaginary accomplishments to representatives from the entire world. They literally laughed out loud at him.
What we saw next was a moment that psychologists may well be studying for generations to come. Trump’s broken mind was unable to process the reality that the whole world was laughing at the notion that he was any sort of success. So instead, on the fly, he convinced himself that he had in fact intentionally told a funny joke. In his mind, it was evidence that the world did indeed love him. But this isn’t about what’s inside his head.
Donald Trump’s approval rating in the mid thirties, and his core base in the mid teens, makes clear that plenty of the people supporting him aren’t truly his people. Trump may well never lose anyone from his base, but he has plenty of people to lose from his supporters outside his base. In fact he’s already begun losing them, which is why his approval rating is going down.
One of the primary tenets of modern American conservatism is that the United States is automatically the best nation in the world, and that other nations look up to us. For those who have been on the fence about Donald Trump, because they lean conservative and they like to be fed bullshit, but they also know he’s an idiot, are now left processing the reality that Trump has turned America into the laughingstock of the world. And while Trump’s deranged mind finds a way to avoid having to accept that reality, his reaction doesn’t count; as always, this is about how his least sure of supporters are interpreting this worsening humiliation. Everyone has their breaking point.
