Let's start with a composite Kane-Trump which allows us to create a biography that employs fiction to explore reality. Adult generations too young to know this movie, much less being fascinated by it, presents a challenge. So you in the prime of life can first read the Wikipedia article of the fictional Charles Foster Kane, and then come back to this --(It ain't the same as seeing the film).
I first watched the film on our little black and white TV around 1955, mesmerized for reasons I couldn't describe then, but now can make the attempt. The final scene is a flashback to Kane's childhood. Just before the final shot of a toy being tossed into the furnace, to be incinerated along with the carloads of detritus of his life, my dad who was watching it with me, intervened. He told me what was about to be thrown into the fire, something meant to remain unknown to those immersed in the fictional world of the movie, but never to be forgotten afterwards.
To this day, remorsefully, I remember my anger, my plaintive, "Dad, why did you tell me" and his hurt that I always regret. My father was not a success, most importantly in the context of his peers, first generation Jews in America. Often the route was starting a small business leading to the children's ultimate success in finance or science, perhaps even becoming a plutocrat or a Nobel Prize recipient.
I knew what" toys" I had been deprived of, while I'll never know those of my father that resulted in his living a life that at the time was stigmatized, our family vehicle being his taxi; the stripes and the lit dome light meaning I will follow your directions for a small charge, and you will own the back seat to do or say what you please during the trip. We parked the cab far away from social events for the many years it was part of our lives. He had came close to being on the entrepreneurial tract of his brothers, the little bakery he owned sold only months before war broke out. Then such small bakeries were provided with scarce allotments of flour for bread that was so in demand to require ration stamps, with a reasonable profit allowed to the bakery, or the chain of stores it could have become.
At about the same time-frame of my story from the 1950s, there was another one playing out of a father and son. It is that of Donald J. Trump and his father, Fred Trump. The goal of this article is to see our President, his strengths and his pathologies through a different lens, A well known public intellectual whom I formed a type of connection with over the last years, responded to my request for his comment to "add class" to an article I had published with, "Hard to deal with a sociopathic narcissist"
It sure is, but I'm attempting to do just that. Sociopathy is a personality disorder, one that is rarely remediated since it is deeply ingrained by the circumstances of ones earliest childhood. One who has this condition, even if he is in a position that it causes great harm to the entire world is still a victim, not negated by his victimization of others. The story of Fred Trump Sr., and his two older sons Fred Jr and Donald J. is well described in this Washington Post article, Trump pressured his alcoholic brother about his career. Now he says he has regrets. There is no reason to believe it is other than candid.
Both Donald J. Trump and the fictional Charles Foster Kane share the diagnosis of sociopathic narcissism, which like all personality syndromes are considered intractable, so ingrained that it can't be changed by the most extensive therapeutic intervention. Citizen Trump, unlike Citizen Kane, has actually risen to the position that the fictional character only aspired to.
Rage or pity, President Trump or Trump-(the lack of the honorific reflecting contempt rather than brevity) I have no closure to this essay anymore than the American people do. His approval rating is rising during this pandemic, even though his latest assertion is resisting the professionals' recommendation for everyone to wear masks with, "I'm not going to do it"
What this man realizes, more than epidemiologists, is the vital need for human connection, how we convey stress, anger or friendliness in our face. It is a subtle language of feelings that weaves together cultures and communities, something that Trump knows in his bones, that the scientists didn't consider.
Yet, like a great method actor, this individual can and does use his demeanor, his facial expression both to convey his immediate feeling ,but also to advance the plot of the story, his story, history. His enemies see everything he does and says as self interest, while his supporters enjoy him when he's sharing his feelings, and indulge him when he is performing - especially when they have shared goals.
Those who have never seen the 1941 film, I suggest you track it down. If you are watching it with someone else do not give away what is being thrown in the furnace. And allow time to contemplate how the fictional "Citizen" helps us understand the living one, whether we revere or despise him.
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