"The Department-Store God-King: Our Megalomaniacal President" William Kristol, The Bulwark | May 5, 2025

Friends:

I don't know about you, but I was deeply offended when I saw Trump create an image of himself as the Pope that the White House re-posted. And I'm not even Catholic! It reminded me of the Biblical prophecies in the book of Revelation that I grew up reading and learning about, which made me immediately think of Trump as the "anti-Christ." Geez, he's the fulfillment of prophecy? Really?

Because the word “Christ” appears in “anti-Christ,” I choose not to use that term in any reference to Trump. Instead, I prefer William Kristol’s description of him as a “megalomaniacal president,” which more precisely conveys the grave danger his leadership poses to our nation and the world, as reflected in the following passage:

"In the second term, we have sycophants like Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, and Marco Rubio prostrating themselves before the megalomaniacal Trump. And we have authoritarians like Miller, Russell Vought, JD Vance, and Kash Patel encouraging Trump to even greater dreams of omnipotence.

We have a megalomaniac surrounded by sycophants and authoritarians."

That's for sure. They're here in the Texas legislature, too. Kristol ominously concludes, "This will not end well." 

No, it won't, but if we all do our small part, our granito de arena, our grain-of-sand contribution, we can mitigate damages. That's what many are doing right now through a lot of hard work, fighting bills in the Texas legislature, myself included.

I prefer Kristol's framing in psychological terms because it captures the dangerous pathology at the heart of this movement—a leader consumed by delusions of grandeur, enabled by a cast of enablers who have traded integrity for power. 

I also find the analysis by forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee, who also serves as President of the World Mental Health Coalition compelling and provocative.

The larger story about our country right now is that it's about the corrosion of truth, the dismantling of democratic norms, and the rise of a cult of personality that threatens to unravel the moral and constitutional fabric of our nation. 

We must call it what it is and resist it with clarity, courage, and conviction—before it’s too late.

-Angela Valenzuela

Reference

Lewis, T. (2021, Jan. 11). The "Shared Psychosis" of Donald Trump and His Loyalists: Forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee explains the outgoing president’s pathological appeal and how to wean people from it, Scientific American.


The Department-Store God-King:
Our Megalomaniacal President
Trump has always been a narcissist. But it’s gotten much worse.


by William Kristol, The Bulwark | May 5, 2025

President Trump shared an AI generated image of himself as pope which some consider to be a sign he’s an Antichrist and honestly they might be right (Composite / Photos: Whitehouse on X / Shutterstock) Angela Valenzuela note: the devilish eyes are not my creation; here is a link to the original image I saw via CNN News: https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/04/world/trump-ai-image-pope-intl-hnk

The Department-Store God-King

Why is Donald Trump’s second term so much more dangerous than his first?

There are several reasons, but here are two.

The first: Trump is worse than he was eight years ago. The second: Those around him now are worse than those around him then.

Trump has always been a narcissist. But what do you call it when success and power go to a narcissist’s head? Megalomania?

As Trump said in his recent interview with the Atlantic: “The first time, I had two things to do—run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys . . . And the second time, I run the country and the world.”

Now, most presidents wouldn’t say in the first place that they “run the country.” They might recognize that other branches of government play a role, and that other national institutions matter. They might grasp the fact that this is a free country, not one the president “runs.”

So the narcissism is jarring. But Trump’s self-described progression from “I run the country” to “I run the country and the world” seems to represent a progression from narcissism to megalomania. Running the world sounds . . . God-like.

Tariffs are one of the miraculous ways that Trump believes will enable him to run the world. As he explained to Time magazine:

You have to understand . . . I’ve made all the deals. . . . The deal is a deal that I choose. View it differently: We are a department store, and we set the price. I meet with the companies, and then I set a fair price, what I consider to be a fair price, and they can pay it, or they don’t have to pay it. They don’t have to do business with the United States, but I set a tariff on countries. . . . So I will set a price.

What an image: The United States as Trump’s department store. It’s a store where he sets the prices, where neither Congress nor companies nor markets nor other countries have any say. It’s all him.

President Trump: the God-King CEO of the universal department store. It’s a vulgar Trumpian picture. It’s a picture of untrammeled power. It’s a narcissistic vision. It’s also a megalomaniacal one.

And let’s not forget the military parade planned for June 14, which providentially happens to be both Trump’s birthday and the birthday of the United States Army. The Army had planned a reasonably modest 250th anniversary festival on the National Mall. Trump is now demanding a large military parade—we must assume with the commander-in-chief looking down from on high on the reviewing stand.

And then there’s Trump’s oft-expressed wish to retake the Panama Canal and to seize Greenland—and for that matter Canada. Trump realizes that territorial expansion is a mark of a certain kind of powerful national leader.

Then there’s the matter of Trump’s aides. The people around Trump this time are far more sycophantic and far more authoritarian than those with him eight years ago.

Early in Trump’s first term it was the crazed Michael Flynn who was purged and Steve Bannon who was stopped from attending NSC meetings. In the second term, it’s the relatively sane Mike Waltz who is purged and Stephen Miller who attends NSC meetings. And Miller is now a strong candidate to become national security adviser, as Trump himself has confirmed.

In the first term, the relatively normal types prevailed for at least for a while in the internal struggles. For much of that term those aides and cabinet secretaries constrained a narcissistic Trump.

In the second term, we have sycophants like Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, and Marco Rubio prostrating themselves before the megalomaniacal Trump. And we have authoritarians like Miller, Russell Vought, JD Vance, and Kash Patel encouraging Trump to even greater dreams of omnipotence.

We have a megalomaniac surrounded by sycophants and authoritarians.

This will not end well.