In a recent interview, Donald Trump boldly claimed, “I run the country and the world” – a statement that screams megalomaniac tendencies but likely reflects a mix of his personal worldview, political strategy, and the unique dynamics of his second term as U.S. president. Putting on my Sigmund Freud hat, here’s a breakdown of what might be fueling this audacious declaration:
1. Self-Perception of Global Influence: Trump has long projected an image of himself as a singularly powerful figure, a trait evident throughout his business, media, and political careers. His statement reflects a belief that his policies – particularly on trade, immigration, and foreign relations – have outsized global impact.
2. Foreign Policy Ambitions: Trump’s second term has been marked by a deliberate shift away from traditional U.S.-led global systems. He’s prioritised bilateral dealings with brutal leaders like Russia’s Vladimir Putin over multilateral alliances like NATO, which he views as exploitative. His attempts to broker peace in Ukraine – whatever his agenda might be – position him as a central figure in global geopolitics, reinforcing his perception of world leadership.
3. Domestic Political Messaging: The statement aligns with Trump’s knack for provocative rhetoric to energise his base. By claiming to “run the world,” he projects strength and dominance, appealing to supporters who see him as a disruptor of the global status quo. His comment may also be a response to domestic challenges, like his 41% approval rating, to deflect criticism by emphasising global control. Closer to home, in signing over 140 executive orders in his first 100 days he’s pushed boundaries on issues such as immigration and tariffs which he may interpret – with overflowing satisfaction – as bending the world to his will. He’s like that.
4. Critical Perspective: Trump’s policies, like his tariffs, undeniably send shockwaves across the globe, but his assertion of “running the world” is an exaggeration that ignores the intricate web of international systems. While the U.S. presidency grants him significant global influence, it falls far short of actual control over the world stage.
Roswell Freud’s diagnosis: Trump’s assertion likely stems from his conviction that he’s a transformative force, driven by bold policies and a need to project unparalleled strength. Yet, this claim is more wishful thinking than reality, tied to his personality and political tactics rather than any tangible truth, ultimately serving as a self-reassuring boost to his sense of dominance. In short: it’s largely a mental construct.
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What this behaviour does show in a significant deficiency in the US Constitutional arrangements which seem to allow a President to rule by decree (Executive Orders) without reference to the elected Congress for ratification and restraint.
I’m not a student of the US Constitution but it seems to me that the founding fathers were content to grant their President powers equal to those of the Monarch (George III) who they had ousted.
Interesting point was raised when Dutton and his team were asked about who or what was the greatest threat to world peace and Australian sovereignty and they identified China. Malcolm Turnbull noted succinctly, that China had not threatened to annex Canada, had not sought to Seize the Panama Canal and had not sought to expropriate Greenland and had not created economic chaos on world markets.
I’ve met a number of bullies over the years and I remember one in particular who was my boss in the 1980’s and who gave me and others much grief at work – one weekend he was playing tennis and had a heart attack and died just like that on the court – on Monday things improved quite significantly at work.
Trump too will pass [he’s seventy nine in June] maybe he should take up tennis!
There can be no doubt that Trump ticks every box as a dangerously undemocratic, megalomaniacal psychopath who poses a REAL danger to America’s Constitution and, indeed, to world peace. The reality that Trump not only has a notorious history of misogynistic predation against women; maintains a dangerously skewed, totally undeserved stratospheric ego, a HUGE self-serving sense of entitlement and is a recidivist remorseless pathological liar is bad enough but the fact that he is also a CONVICTED CRIMINAL fills millions of people – inside and outside of America – with disgust and a justifiable sense of foreboding and dread! America is probably the ONLY country in the western world that permits a CONVICTED CRIMINAL to rise and attain that much autocratic power which, given Trump’s megalomaniacal and vengeful lack of character, he will use to exact revenge against ANYONE who justifiably criticises or condemns him!
The terrifying reality is that this totally amoral, condescending, lying sociopath is a totally unfit individual to hold ANY position of power and/or responsibility let alone corrupting the position of POTUS! WHAT ON EARTH were some deluded Trump-supporting American fools thinking when they thought it may be a good idea elevating a totally corrupt, lying, narcissistic, notoriously vengeful alpha male criminal into a position that represents America and Americans on the world stage?
Trump ticks every box as an insular racist white supremacist and a rusted-on misogynist – with a long notorious history of condescending contempt for ANYONE who isn’t a White Anglo Saxon American Male – into a position that allows him to have his power-obsessed, irrational finger poised over the Doomsday button and gives him unfettered access to nuclear-powered weapons of mass destruction! America’s misguided delusion in elevating that avaricious, treacherous and totally untrustworthy criminal psychopath into the powerful position as POTUS will provide him with the perfect opportunity to seriously (mis)handle and (mis)manage unlimited financial resources and the autocratic power to abuse that trust! There can be no doubt that Trump, a vengeful, totally irrational, sociopath, will abuse that power and trust in order to wreak havoc and instill fear and division against ANYONE and ANY country that questions, opposes or justifiably condemns him.
Trump’s recent divisive, irrational criticism of not only Australia’s democratically-elected leader, Anthony Albanese, but his sneering contemptuous remarks against Canada’s Mark Carney enraged Canadians to the point where it helped Carney win the election to become Prime Minister! Trump’s constant unwanted interference in the political affairs of other nations has proven to be of great concern as to Trump’s appalling deluded sense of grandeur and his willingness to cause friction and division with long-time American allies such as Australia and Canada!
The fact that Trump is “cuddling up” to that notorious ex-KGB Killer, Vladimir Putin and giving verbal and financial support to that repugnant, Islamophobic, genocidal murderer, Netanyahu – whom the UN has justifiably declared a WAR CRIMINAL for Netanyahu’s murderous assassination of unarmed non-Jewish Palestinians – Muslims and Christians alike – as they attempt to flee Netanyahu’s KILLING FIELDS along the Gaza Strip, is a testament to Trump’s zero discernment in supporting the world’s most deranged political psychopaths! It beggars belief but, given Trump’s total lack of compassion, his abysmal lack of education and his zero understanding about what is REALLY going on outside his own narrow little world in America, it is not at all surprising that Trump’s dangerously insular view of the world – combined with his megalomaniacal, born-to-rule arrogance – is proving to be of justifiable concern to the rest of the world!
The world watches on, in horror, as Trump continues to behave like a spoiled, petulant, tantrum-throwing two year old – ranting, raving and destroying everything in his path – because he can’t get his way or because somebody more foresightful, more qualified or better (which is about 99.9% of the human population) is understandably getting more attention!
Trump is an ANNIHILATOR – destroying every single positive relationship America once had with close allies like Canada, Australia and the UK. Indeed, history will show that Trump’s ONE AND ONLY SUCCESS was his ability to MAKE AMERICA HATE AGAIN and isolate the United States from the rest of the free world!
We should not be surprised by Trump’s claims to be special.
This is what happens when we allow the development of a society in which individualism is not just permitted, it’s encouraged. Encouraged to become the dominant ideology.
Our surprise that it has gone so far with Trump’s actions has come about because we forgot, or worse ignored, or worse still rejected, the analysis of liberal society by Karl Marx.
He explained that not only liberal attitudes, but also liberal (capitalist) modes of production produce an atomised society. A society in which people are alienated, separated from the fruits of their labour to become just a cog in a machine, producing no finished product, and so being spiritually diminished by being denied the wholesome satisfaction of a job well done.
A few liberal and conservative analysts are finally waking up to this alienation, but it’s taken them almost two centuries.
But because we have a deep inner need for meaning in our lives, some in our atomised society seek meaning by the pursuit of “specialness”. Having been denied the satisfaction of a job well done, they look for meaning in something that is illusory. Because all else is illusory.
In a cohesive society, this tendency is not such a problem.
We are social animals, but in an atomised society, alienation produces insecurity, stress, anxiety. And ultimately exhibitionism that we see everywhere now, not just from Trump.
But the security provided by a cohesive society largely eliminates this tendency which, let’s be frank, is destructive.
The liberal system is in decay.
It’s time to ditch it before it destroys us.
TM, when I was a 10 yr old kid and newly boarding at a (so-called) prestigious college in Adelaide, I was caught out of bed and out of the dormitory along with another kid in the middle of a pillow fight with the adjacent dorm by one of the housemasters.
We were taken into the housemaster’s common-room, each of us placed at opposite ends of the room, facing the wall, and then thrashed for perhaps 10–15 minutes with a leather slipper as the sadist ran between us. At the end of it all, he’d actually worked up quite a sweat for his efforts.
He became the sole person in my life who I vowed should I ever encounter, I would repay threefold.
Unfortunately, (for me), he too dropped dead in the middle of a tennis match. I was at a function with my sister, and she pointed out his widow… was tempted but refrained from letting her in on her former husband’s cruelty.
Trump: ‘I run the country and the world’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jj-PaqFrBc&ab_channel=CharlieChaplin
Kathryn. I’m stealing that. Watch this space.
This time I won’t change a word.
“I RUIN the country and the world.” The orange idiot talks like a child.
Dogshit Donald, perverted primate, thief, felon, crook, liar supreme, a POX. Eliminate…We have barely recovered from Adolf and Josef. Eternal evils…
Looking at the “glass is half full” perspective, the likelihood of Trump walking the world into war is receding by the day.
He might drag the US into one, but the civilised, rational world won’t be flapping along behind the US as they have in the past.
Trump now leads a nation that is isolated from its tradional friends and allies.
The Trump administration has chaotic foreign and economic policies that will strengthen its relationship with the Putin regime, and probably no one else.
First – I have to say how much Canguro’s story affected me. A friend of mine ran away from a horrible boarding school in the UK in the nineteen fifties.
Trump’s misjudgements are coming back when even his own appointed Judges are overturning outrageous convictions obtained on spurious grounds.
Mohsen Mahdawi.
A Burlington Vermont Judge declared that the young man- a Green card holder, a Peace Activist should be released from detention. His actions at Columbia university in a perfectly legal protest against the genocide taking place in Palestine and his advocacy for peace were not a contravention of law.
Maybe one could add, like researchers inferred post Brexit with similar forces in background inc fossil fuels, media, leveraging a large cohort of ageing, less educated, less diverse and regional voters.
They found one or several factors of ‘nostalgia’, ‘collective narcissism’, ‘sovereignty’, anti-EU, ‘white nativism’ or ‘anti-immigrant’, ‘resentment’ or ‘pensioner populism’ driving same voter cohorts, to benefit <1%.