Lawrence O'Donnell: "That Image Is A Precise Measure Of Just How Inadequate Donald Trump Feels."
Donald Trump "revealed just how much he hates what he sees when he looks at himself".
Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC, December 15, 2022:
Somewhere inside Donald Trump, he knows what the psychiatrists [in those 2017 clips from earlier in the segment] are saying about him is true. The externalities of Donald Trump are a constant fireworks display designed by Donald Trump to hide how he sees himself. But — today — today Donald Trump revealed just how much he hates what he sees when he looks at himself. His major announcement was this — he called this a “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT”, a Donald Trump Digital Trading Card that you can get online, buying from Donald Trump, for only $99. . . .
Donald Trump knows that he doesn’t look like the fake superhero on the card that he put out today, but he is telling you — very openly and very desperately — how much he wishes that he looked like that. That image is a precise measure of just how inadequate Donald Trump feels. That’s the way Donald Trump thinks he should look. . . . That is Donald Trump’s hope of the way you see him. That’s the way he wants to look.
But the bathroom mirror cruelly tells him exactly how he does look. And there’s nothing wrong with the way Donald Trump looks in real life. But Donald Trump thinks so. Donald Trump thinks the 76-year-old, overweight version of himself isn’t worth $99. And so this tortured man puts out this demented image of himself in a desperate attempt at a kind of glorifcation he knows he can never have — and his continuing attempt to vacuum up money from his guillible supporters.
One of the public defenders of a January 6 attacker of the Capitol said at his sentencing hearing: “His outspoken, vulgar online persona belied a roiling inner-turmoil about his place in the world and a deep sense of inadequacy.”
That picture of Donald Trump is the very picture of “a roiling inner-turmoil about his place in the world and a deep sense of inadequacy”.
Alex Wagner, MSNBC, December 15, 2022:
These “trading cards” are just Trump photo-shopped into the fantasy scenarios of a 10-year-old boy. . . .
I don’t think it’s really news that Trump is yet again doing another big, blatant grift. Trump doing something like that is about as revelatory as the fact that water is wet. But what was amazing about Trump’s announcement today was that the conservative ecosystem that has propped him up for years now seems to be embarrassed by him.