The Tragedy of the Naked Emperor

Donald Trump has spent a lifetime building his image, his brand, and his own ego – which are, of course, all facets of one narcissistic entity.

We’ve all heard the man himself brag, ad nauseam, about the incredible skills that made him successful: he is the best negotiator in the world, he is a business genius, and he is always smarter than everyone in the room.

Trump’s unending braggadocio may have played well in boardrooms, where real estate deals are crafted behind closed doors and a certain amount of self-serving arrogance among the players is expected as par for the course.

But in becoming “pResident”, Trump quickly became the author of his own misfortune by publicly exposing his own incompetence.

The “world’s best negotiator” walked out of a meeting with Kim Jung-un with nothing in his hand but his flaccid dick, while Jung-un walked away victorious in having gotten everything he wanted. Trump then proceeded to insist this epic failure was a monumental success – which brings into question all of the great business deals he’s ever bragged about and whether they, too, are simply figments of his imagination.

Mister “Art of the Deal” practically fellated Putin in public, and emerged from their meeting in Helsinki looking weak, subservient, and utterly defeated. The man who has spent decades proffering himself as a strongman who can’t be out-witted or out-played by anyone, stood on the world stage and pathetically humiliated himself by kow-towing to our country’s most ardent adversary.

Before meeting with Kim Jung-un, the self-declared business genius stated that his unparalleled ability to read people meant he would “know within minutes” whether the NK dictator would negotiate in good faith. The fact that Kim Jun-un played him like a bad fiddle came as no surprise to anyone, given that many of those Trump described as the “best people” when he appointed them are now facing prison sentences – including people he has associated with and placed his complete trust in for years.

The “smartest guy in the room” has demonstrated time and again that he is, almost invariably, the dumbest guy within ten thousand miles of the room. He has displayed his ignorance repeatedly, along with an inability to understand even the simplest workings of our government or the rule of law.

The man who made a career of yelling you’re fired! doesn’t even have the balls to fire anyone face-to-face, but has consistently resorted to “firing by tweet” – behaviour that screams cowardice rather than any semblance of the courageous leadership Trump continues to lay claim to.

Through his own arrogance and hubris, Trump took on the responsibilities of the Oval Office – and in the doing, exposed himself as possessing none of the attributes he has attributed to himself throughout his entire career.

It’s no longer a matter of the Emperor having no clothes. The real fact of the matter is that he has removed those clothes himself. Despite his carefully-crafted image, he has inadvertently stripped away every shred of clothing that once covered his weakness, his stupidity, his lack of business savvy – and, above all else, his inability to comprehend just how completely he has destroyed his own “brand” in front of the world.

What we as a nation have witnessed – and continue to witness – is a man now exposed as never being who he claimed to be, a man whose self-proclaimed skills apparently never existed, a man who continues to expose himself as nakedly inept on every level from domestic policy to foreign affairs.

While the destruction of our democracy and its institutions seems to be Trump’s ultimate goal, the truth is that he has destroyed his own image in pursuit of that goal – an image that has now been shown to have as little connection to reality as the man himself.

The latest polls speak for themselves. The would-be emperor is now being recognized – even among former staunch supporters – as being nothing more than a flim-flam con-artist who has nothing to offer other than his own self-aggrandizing bullshit, delivered by a man whose constant litany of lies has now reached legendary proportions.

The Trump Mystique has now been exposed as the Trump Myth – the myth of intelligence, the myth of extraordinary business savvy, the myth of superior skill in being able to choose “the best people”, the myth of being the smartest man in the room when he has repeatedly been outsmarted.

What we are left with is the man who would be king standing exposed and stark naked, shivering in fear as his cowering inferiority is on full display for all to see. The fact that he has exposed himself as being exactly that is a testament to just how incompetent he is.

The Trump that millions voted for has now been proven to be the man who never was. And one by one, they're beginning to see that - thanks to the man himself.