The Unreliable Narrator
His performance this term is less the work of a clever storyteller and more like that of an author who’s lost the plot.
Madeleine L’Engle once said, “Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.” But, if some stories empower, others are wielded with less noble motives.
Consider the current President. Admired by his supporters as a master communicator, he commands the world’s largest stage. The stories he spins—or should I say “weaves”—are unfailingly self-aggrandizing and used in the service of accruing ever more power to himself. Donald Trump has never been a reliable narrator. This drives much of the country to distraction, but his base has become true believers by suspending disbelief.
Anne Applebaum, author of Twilight of Democracy and columnist for The Atlantic, has compared Trumpism to 20th-century totalitarian movements:
“Most people did not believe the propaganda. But they repeated it anyway, because repeating it was the price of belonging.”
“When loyalty matters more than truth, then truth disappears. The distinction between truth and lies becomes blurred, and eventually irrelevant.”
“Ideology is often just a flag. The real attraction is the movement itself, and the sense of purpose and superiority it offers.”
Trump’s propaganda-fueled movement propelled him to a second term. This time, the constraints are gone. With the Supreme Court and Congress firmly in his corner, he faces fewer checks than ever.
There is so much about the past 12 months that is unbearably bleak. Political observers warn that damage to our democracy may last for decades. The question isn’t if we can rebuild, but when. Or even whether.
And yet, I take some small hope in the fact that the head of this regime is Donald Trump. Age and health are catching up to him, and his effectiveness is waning. His performance this term is less the work of a clever storyteller and more like that of an author who’s lost the plot.
A good author builds a world with rules and logic that hold together, chapter after chapter. When that logic breaks—when characters behave or speak in ways that don’t fit, or events seem to happen without cause—the whole story begins to collapse. Readers stop trusting the storyteller.
Trump’s second term looks like that kind of story. Not just dishonest, but incoherent. Americans are asked to suspend disbelief again and again, and offered nothing in return. His approval ratings steadily decline; inflation remains stubborn; polls show more Americans feel worse off financially than a year ago. The southern border is largely closed, but the images of masked marauding ICE agents roaming cities, smashing down doors, terrorizing children, shooting and murdering citizens have shocked even some of his supporters. Order was promised. Fear and chaos arrived instead.
Even true believers are getting whiplash. It’s one thing to go along with a familiar narrative, even when you know it’s not strictly true. But this year, Trump’s “gut” decisions have contradicted each other from week to week, even hour to hour. He keeps revising the MAGA script, transforming loyalists into outsiders.
Is this the natural endpoint of unchecked narcissism? Mental decline precipitating megalomania? The freedom of never facing another election? Maybe all of it. We’re in uncharted territory, and no one can say where this ends.
One thing is clear: this president and his administration, stacked with B-list sycophants, offer neither vision nor reassurance—only dread, at home and abroad. Their story can’t end well. We just have to hope it ends soon.
Unreliable narrators don’t fail because because of an occasional inconsistency. They fail when the lies pile up so high that no one, neither they nor their audience, can keep them straight.