Friday Round Up! 3/7/25
Narcissism and the unitary executive are two already not-so-great tastes that are a complete disaster together.
I’m getting a late start to today’s Round Up because I leave tomorrow for Kenya! I have to say, it feels like there could be no better time to get out of the country for a couple of weeks and get a little distance and perspective (which will hopefully include from a hot air balloon while on a safari).
Speaking of perspective, I have been ruminating on the themes I wrote about in my Substack post earlier this week on the unitary executive theory. In particular, I have thought about how that theory — which considers all subordinate officials in the executive branch as extensions of the President — intersects with a person who does not see any distinction between the interests of the office of the presidency, and the his own self interest.
I’m not a psychologist, so I won’t try to “diagnose” Trump (though other people have), but the result is a toxic combination: The President is basically a walking Id, and everyone in the executive branch is obligated to act in service of that Id. To put this into concrete terms: Trump sees the U.S. Treasury as his personal piggy bank. He sees the Justice Department as his personal lawyers. He sees government documents, including classified information, as “his” personal property. He sees judges as being on his “team,” rather than as independent referees (as evidenced by his hot mic moment with the Chief Justice after the State of the Union address last Tuesday, where he thanked Roberts profusely and assured him that he “won’t forget” that the Court did him a solid). He sees foreign nations and heads of state as his personal “friends” or “enemies,” depending on how they make him feel and what they can do for him, rather than for the country as a whole.
In short, everything Trump does as President must have something — visible, tangible, concrete — in it for him. He just cannot wrap his mind around doing anything that might benefit the country, if it doesn’t enrich or aggrandize him personally in some way. This might seem obvious, but I think explicitly acknowledging this fact in analyzing Trump’s actions is important, because it makes things much simpler.
Think about it: If your thinking was so simple and transactional that you believed that the money in the Treasury was “yours,” and you literally weren’t able to conceive of the national security benefits of helping a democratic country that had been invaded (which is very abstract, and has no immediate monetary or tangible benefit), it would seem like a “bad” deal where you are “losing money.” A “good” deal would be one where you “got” something concrete in return. Money. Minerals. A Trump Tower Moscow.
If you had no concept of honor, integrity, sacrifice, compassion — all of which lack any tangible value (i.e. you can’t put it in the bank or make a “deal” with it as leverage), they look like strange, weak, and useless concepts. From this vantage point, soldiers might seem like “suckers and losers” because they are willing to give up their whole lives for…nothing.
If the entire purpose of being president was to help improve your “brand,” you might be totally confused about why George Washington named his home Mount Vernon, rather than after himself, which would have been “smart.” (This really happened.)
Again, I realize all of this is obvious to most people, but the way the media covers Trump’s actions seems to gloss over it. The chaos unfolding right now is still covered as though there is some secret public interest or national security payoff we just don’t know about yet to destroying NATO, or threatening or neighbors, or kowtowing to dictators, or dismantling our military and law enforcement and administrative state. There’s not.
The only question to ask is: What’s in it for Trump?
While you noodle on that and offer your theories, here is my latest pod with Renato and our special guest, NYU Professor Rachel Barkow, who goes into detail on the 90-year precedent the Supreme Court may overturn, giving Trump even more power than he already has:
Upcoming events:
Freedom Academy Book Club, Tuesday, March 25, 6 p.m. ET. I’m so excited that the Freedom Academy Book Club selection for this quarter is Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History by Ben Mezrich. You are likely already familiar with Ben’s work, as his book, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook was the basis for the hit movie The Social Network, and his more recent book, The Antisocial Network, was the basis for the hit movie Dumb Money. I am fortunate to get to hang with Ben and his wife, Tonya, up in Quechee, Vermont, and we are very lucky to have him join us (sometime in March) to discuss Elon, Twitter, social media, and billionaires more generally! (I am actually also reading his other book, Bitcoin Billionaires, because I’m now kind of obsessed with the rise of the broligarchs.) The Freedom Academy Book Club discussions are open to all paid subscribers and recordings of the talks are posted after in case you can’t make it live!
NEW! Zoom Office Hours on Tuesday, April 1, at 6 p.m. ET. We’ll discuss actions steps and responses to what is happening. Zoom link will be sent three hours before the discussion. This will not be recorded.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
I am getting a lot of questions from friends and colleagues asking what they can do in this urgent political moment. I have three potential actions steps you can take now:
Pro bono lawyers are on the front lines to stop Trump and Musk’s breakdown, takedown, and shakedown of the federal government. You can contribute to this effort on the donation page of State Democracy Defenders Action
Start a democracy group! This week I shared with my democracy group this new initiative from the Aspen Institute — the Aspen Policy Academy — which offers free webinars and trainings on how to engage in the civic process. (There’s a webinar being offered this Monday called “How to Tell Governments What You Think.”)
Self care tip of the week: Get outdoors! (I realize this is easy for me to say since I’ll be hanging out in 80+ degree weather looking at zebras and lions.) For me the time change always feels like hope being restored in the world — and the longer daylight in the evenings make me want to get out and take a walk.
More next week, from Kenya!
‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number—
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many—they are few.’
— The Masque of Anarchy by Percy Bysshe Shelley, stanza XXXVIII
As a retired therapist I know more than a lot of other people about character disorders and how resistant they are to treatment or change. And I also see in Trump many other issues besides Narcissism, such as a probable ADHD problem and even outright psychopathy, also known as sociopathy. Not to mention that there also seems to be evidence of progressive dementia. But whatever labels we apply to describe our understanding, we can still state the obvious: he is utterly unfit for office. Unfortunately, the only remedies for this very serious problem is removal from office via impeachment, or a decision to apply the 25th Amendment, neither of which seems remotely possible under the circumstances, more's the pity.
Your description of our current conundrum has just reinforced my conviction that 47’s “brand” is irreconcilable with democracy. All of us better figure out how to work together to push back and disrupt the current chaos or we might reach the point of no return way sooner than we think possible.
Enjoy your trip, Asha! You are one of the reasonable voices/perspectives keeping me sane.💙