Joseph Heller beyond the grave talks about Trump.

The chaplain (put in Trump here) had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.

― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Someone quoted this in a recent response in the NYT and I thought it was fitting--made me want to re-read Catch-22.