Donald Trump: Human, All Too Human

Last updated on: October 28, 2016 at 4:49 pm by Chase Padusniak

Donald Trump: Human, All Too Human 2016-10-28T16:49:10-04:00 Chase Padusniak

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

(A young Donald Trump. Source: Wikimedia, Creative Commons License).

“Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Who is Donald Trump: savior, pragmatic choice, satanic force? The answer you get much depends on who you ask. In my news feed anyway, he is most often an evil beast lurching toward Washington D.C. to be born—a misogynist, a racist, an enemy of good manners, and the decency we’ve worked so hard to instantiate and uphold.

But in that lies an irony—Donald Trump is himself a product of a well-mannered bourgeois background; in fact, one might say that the stresses of that upbringing molded the (perhaps not-so) well-coiffured man before us today. This is no longer mere speculation—it’s a hard truth that keeps popping up from beneath the surface of recordings of Trump recently acquired by the New York Times. The Times’ provides a worthy summary of the tapes, originally made by Trump with his biographer, Michael D’Antonio:

Those recordings, which capture Mr. Trump in unusually candid, searching and unguarded ways, are the basis for a special two-part episode of The Run-Up. In both, Mr. D’Antonio and I explore Mr. Trump’s emotional life, psychology and behaviors, relying heavily on Mr. Trump’s own words from the tapes.

The recordings reveal dimensions of Mr. Trump we rarely see. He describes his lust for fighting in high school. He revels in the first time his name was mentioned in a newspaper. And he acknowledges a fear that the adoration of strangers, a sustaining force in his life, may someday fade away.

Episode No. 1 focuses on Mr. Trump’s reluctance to confront the traumas of his childhood: his parents’ decision to send him off, at age 13, to a distant and disciplined military academy; his difficult relationship with his father; and the tragic death of his older brother […]

Episode No. 2 further explores the grown man Mr. Trump became: fixated on his own celebrity, anxious about losing his status and contemptuous of those who fall from grace.

A culture of competition, of acquisitiveness, of self-assertion has created Trump. His father taught him to be the best, to achieve at any cost, even at the cost of his own brother, who would eventually pass from alcoholism. Trump and his father would, allegedly, team up on poor Fred Jr., questioning his decisions, as he moved—broken—back home after failing in his chosen career, now ready to drink himself to death.

In the interviews, Trump expresses his lack of desire to confront any of this—even saying that he tries not to reflect too much, fearing he might not like what he sees. As the podcast hosts suggest, he learned early on—at home, in military school, from the overall culture—that success required playing by certain rules, rules that could be remade by the most successful. Take courting his wife—he used a limo and flowers, thousands of flowers; this mode of romancing (while legitimate) reflects a certain attitude toward power in such relationships. The strong, powerful man woos the woman with material goods; life imitates art (think, as they say in the podcast, Pretty Woman).

People declare he’s a megalomaniac, but seem to give little consideration to why or how he might have become so. Voices clamor about his unfitness, but pay no mind to the traumas that constitute him. He is a man for whom, despite all the discomfort, we should be praying, praying for his conversion, his healing, even as many, justifiably, hope he loses.

And we so we forget all of this when we look at Trump, when we see only savior or antichrist, friend or enemy. Donald Trump is a human being scarred by the culture he simultaneously wishes to uphold and overturn, to save and to destroy.

The recordings are worth a listen, if only to see the conflicts that have created him. And even if Trump loses, what will America have gained? If our country will not face the nebulousness that brings us pride, greed, and vanity, what stops us—Right, Left, Democrat, and Republican—from spawning more of the same?

Previous Post

September 29, 2016

An Orthodox Catholic Socialism?

Next Post

November 1, 2016 Is a Smaller Church a Better Church?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Academia Culture Politics Reviews Theology Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 July 2021 December 2020 November 2020 July 2020 May 2020 April 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 August 2019 July 2019 April 2019 March 2019 December 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

According to Jesus, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for." what?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Money Righteousness Power Popularity