Day: September 18, 2016

We've now seen one of those days which has become darkly familiar in the year of Trump. Trump is dominated, put on the receiving end of various perceived insults and assaults. In this case, it was being coerced by campaign aides into finally giving up the birther lie - which had to be addressed after the Washington Post interview and which I suspect they feared might blow up one of the debates. That was followed by a series of attacks from Hillary Clinton, a for once emboldened press corps roundly attacking Trump for the content and manner of his "major announcement", a furious attack from members of the Congressional Black Caucus and a mix of outrage and mockery from everyone from Barack to Michelle. The response was predictable and rapid. Trump lives in a psychic economy of aggression and domination. There are dominators and the dominated. No in between. Every attack he receives, every ego injury must be answered, rebalanced with some new aggression to reassert dominance. These efforts are often wildly self-destructive. We've seen the pattern again and again. The Khans, Judge Curiel, Ted Cruz, virtually every Republican presidential candidate at one point or another, half the reporters who've covered Trump. We can't know a man's inner thoughts. But we've seen action and reaction more than enough times to infer, or rather deduce, his instincts and needs with some precision.