What does Trump fear the most?
At first glance, this may seem like an easy question: He fears being a loser.
We’ve known this for years. There have been numerous reports that his greatest anxiety, when he was an entertainer, was losing his celebrity status. His fragile ego and sense of self-worth just can’t tolerate the thought of not winning.
Calling someone a “loser” is also among his most common insults, no doubt a projection of his own insecurity. Of course, now that he’s President-elect, we don’t know if he’s worried about losing his new job—although he might well be concerned by the latest Quinnipiac Poll, which shows him to be the least liked or respected incoming President in modern American history. As if that’s not bad enough, according to the latest Gallup Poll, he’s disapproved of by a majority of Americans even before taking the oath of office–an unprecedented rebuke to an incoming President.
But there’s something Trump fears even more than losing. What he really fears and cannot stand, deep down, is being made fun of–being a joke. And you know what? That’s precisely what he has become: a joke.
With the ridiculous hair, the pussy groping, the Russian dossier of his perverted flings with prostitutes, the European models he has dated and occasionally marries, the insults, the exotic animal-killing sons, the Twitter storms, the lies, the thin skin, the temper tantrums, the contradictions, the use of NOT! and SAD! on Twitter, and, yes, calling his “enemies” losers—in fact, all the bizarre tics that Alec Baldwin captures so well on Saturday Night Live—Trump has become a caricature of himself, the ultimate Trump impersonator. People are no longer trembling at him. They’re laughing. Trump has long been comedic fodder for late night T.V., but now he’s a full-fledged cartoon character—and not a sympathetic one, either, but a ridiculous, foolish bozo.
Look at the media. There’s Trevor Noah’s crack, “Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Obama and now Trump–one of these things is not like the other.”
Stephen Colbert: “This is what it feels like when America is made great again. I was wondering.”
Conan O’Brien: “Two things happened last night. Trump got elected president, and my job just got easier for the next four years.”
Jimmy Kimmel: “I had the weirdest dream last night. Remember that guy who used to host ‘The Apprentice’?”
James Corden alluded to the golden showers. “Donald Trump was refuting it when it leaked out, but it was too late. The puns were already flowing on Twitter. There were streams and streams of jokes online.”
Then, here in San Francisco, there’s the new Beach Blanket Babylon version of Trump and a guitar-strumming Melania.
And finally, this tweet I saw, from a regular guy: “Donald Trump is like if Homer Simpson inherited all of Mr. Burns’ money.”
A rich Homer Simpson! Doh! Can you imagine how angry all this makes him? It’s the one thing he can’t fight back against: being the butt of a national joke, being seen as pathetic despite the money and power. Yes, he can lash out on Twitter or in an angry public rant, but that just becomes part of the joke. The poor guy, I’m almost feeling sorry for him, as he melts down and Democrats rub their hands with glee. But caution!! Let’s enjoy the laughter, but let us not lose sight of the fact that he’s still an ominous, pernicious fraud and an illegitimate President.
