When the news dropped about the bizarre PPE and supply procurement situation, where Trump noisily stomped that supplies weren’t his problem and that the governors should be making their own arrangements, and that then Trump’s DHS was torpedoing those efforts through FEMA by seizing those supplies under the Defense Procurement Act, there was (and still is) a widespread sense of bewilderment. Many seem to think it’s a deliberate policy of systematic murder. Nobody can seem to figure out where the supplies are actually ending up, and what the actual endgame is for the administration.
But when I realized what was going on I felt a bizarre sense of deja vu. In order to explain why this all makes perfect sense to me I have to relate a personal anecdote, but I promise it will circle back to the President and the reason we seem to be living in a Tom Tomorrow cartoon come to life.
When I was a sophomore in college there was something I wanted. I don’t even remember today what it was. I just remember my parents indignantly stomping that if I wanted something like that, I’d have to get a job, as parents have indignantly stomped probably since the job would have been keeping the tribe’s campfire alive through the night.
So my studies were going well, and I had some friends who were working to put themselves through college, and I arranged with one of them to interview with his employer for a position as a clerk at a convenience store. I did the application and took and passed the lie detector test and two weeks later got the news that I was an employee.
So I went home and surprised my parents with the good news. They were grateful and enthusiastic, right? Um, not exactly. They indignantly stomped that I was absolutely not permitted to do this. I reminded them of their own dictat that I should try this and they affected not to have ever said any such thing and that working at a convenience store was not what I was supposed to be doing and when I pressed them, because they were acting fucking crazy, they kept raising the ante until they said all right, if you want to do this you can find somewhere else to live too.
In poker terms, I was stacked. I put my tail between my legs and went back to explain what had happened to my new not-employer, who spun his forefinger in a circle around his temple and made a fou-fou sound.
This wasn’t the first crazy thing my parents had done. My mother had some issue with how I used the washing machine; whenever I did the wash it never came out right, and I couldn’t see either what she saw in the clothes or what I was doing different loading the machine. And I couldn’t remember to take out the garbage. This was proven since, if I did remember to take out the trash at 7:00 PM one day, they’d remind me at 6:45 the next week that I had forgotten.
I realized this was a game I couldn’t win but it was much later in my life before I realized exactly what was going on. The real explanation was elegantly simple: My mother was terrified of the idea of my leaving home. That’s why they had sabotaged my full scholarship to a prestigious university by not remembering until a week before enrollment that there would be dorm fees which they couldn’t afford, and darn now it was too late to make any other arrangements. It was why she constructed an alternate reality in which, even though everyone agreed I was intelligent and capable, in practical terms I simply wouldn’t ever be able to take care of myself on my own. Words were muttered about building a little apartment on the back of the house where I could live. Every bizarre thing they had done was aimed perfectly at creating this illusion.
And my Dad? He was so devoted to my mother that it was simply impossible for him to accept that she was ever wrong about anything. Which is why I’m not going to show him this blog.
And the truly bizarre thing is that I am sure there was no conscious intent in any of this. Neither of them really understood what they were doing to me; it all kind of just happened even as they thought they were honestly doing what was best for their only beloved son. I don’t believe either of them was sociopathic and I honestly believe they loved me and consciously bellieved they were doing what was best for me.
So. The PPE and ventilators and stuff, what’s up with that? What’s his strategy?
The first thing you have to understand, as with my parents, is that there is no strategy. You probably couldn’t convince him of the harm he’s doing if you tried to explain it to him. I was never able to explain it to my parents.
But of course, it’s not fear of an empty nest that drives Trump. He obviously has deep neurotic issues, but they’re different. Trump is driven by fear that he is inadequate. His father must have pounded that into him with a 20 pound sledgehammer to sink it in so deep. This means Trump needs several things to all be true, which sometimes emerge at cross-purposes.
First, Trump has to be the best. He has to be the smartest, the most cunning, the richest, the most knowledgeable, and the only person who can really save you. He can tolerate someone briefly who has a skill he doesn’t have if he needs that skill, can take credit for it by proxy (“I’m so smart I found this guy”), and if he can convince himself that he is superlative in other unrelated areas. This is why Dr. Fauci is acceptable for the moment.
Second, Trump can’t ever be wrong or at fault. It’s never his fault, it’s always someone else, most likely the guy he likes least at the moment.
Thirdly, and in some ways more important than the first two, Trump has to feel in control. This is both a corollary and a necessary precondition for the other two needs, but it’s also where the biggest contradictions emerge.
Finally, it has to make Trump richer or get him influence. But, significantly, this is the least important of the guiding values, which is why he keeps going bankrupt following the first three. Trump prefers scams that show his skill at grifting the system because doing honest work is for suckers and losers, and Trump isn’t one of those.
So, the PPE and supplies. What happened there?
It began with the governors complaining that he wasn’t adequately supplying them, which implied that he was at fault for something. This can’t be tolerated so he stomped that he’s not a supplier, the Feds don’t have that role (even though the legislation and the whole history of the stockpile says they do), and the governors should go get their own stuff. In my mind I heard you’ll have to get a job.
But then when the governors did take measures to get their own supplies, that couldn’t be tolerated either because it made them look better than him and, more importantly, now he wasn’t in control. Fortunately his advisors told him about this DPA thingie which made it possible for him to be in control again. In my mind I heard and you can find somewhere else to live.
So, you ask, where are the supplies? They might be in crates next to the Ark of the Covenant. More likely being quietly resold by Donnie’s grifter friends. The seized supplies piling up are a separate problem which will be addressed according to the guiding principles. The most important thing to understand, because nothing makes sense otherwise, is that each problem is addressed with no consideration at all to how that action might affect any of the others. Since he is probably not conscious of any of this, as my parents were not consciously aware of how they were systematically sabotaging my life, whatever process in his brain stem is driving all this probably cannot process more than one cause-effect relationship at a time.
There are other elements to Trump; he has a certain level of real skill at PR, and he also tends to project his faults and misdeeds onto others. But it is the needs created by his sense of inadequacy which most fundamentally drive him.
Oh, and you might be curious how the situation was resolved with my parents. It was messy. Really messy. Like, the most painful thing I have ever experienced, and that is saying quite a bit messy. And I suspect parting ways with the Donald is going to be pretty messy too.