Louis XIV of France supposedly said “L’État, c’est moi” (“The state, it is I” or “I am the state”). That is likely apocryphal, but it certainly seems to be the motivating sentiment of Donald Trump. Or as the Washington Post put it:
As Trump tells it, he is a hard-working and honorable president whose conduct has been ‘perfect’ but who is being harassed and tormented by ‘Do Nothing Democrat Savages’ and a corrupt intelligence community resolved to perpetuate a hoax, defraud the public and, ultimately, undo the 2016 election.
“There has been no President in the history of our Country who has been treated so badly as I have,” Trump tweeted Wednesday, some 13 hours after Pelosi’s announcement.
Victimization always has been core to Trump’s identity, both as a politician and as a real estate promoter and reality-television star. It is the emotional glue that yokes Trump to the grievance politics of the right. Many of Trump’s grass-roots followers have said they feel protective of the president in part because they also feel oppressed and ostracized by elites.
Trump feels that anytime someone says something negative about him, they are being a traitor to the US. In this context, saying “Make America Great Again” means “Make Trump Great”.
