Rebecca Solnit on Trump and the corrosive experience of wealth and privilege

Trump is the apotheosis of a certain kind of warping wealth and privilege. This essay is mandatory reading, and I suspect will become one of the keystone bits of analysis written in this era.

She ends:

The man in the white house sits, naked and obscene, a pustule of ego, in the harsh light, a man whose grasp exceeded his understanding, because his understanding was dulled by indulgence. He must know somewhere below the surface he skates on that he has destroyed his image, and like Dorian Gray before him, will be devoured by his own corrosion in due time too. One way or another this will kill him, though he may drag down millions with him. One way or another, he knows he has stepped off a cliff, pronounced himself king of the air, and is in freefall. Another dungheap awaits his landing; the dung is all his; when he plunges into it he will be, at last, a self-made man.

One thought on “Rebecca Solnit on Trump and the corrosive experience of wealth and privilege

  1. So the East/West coast got their King and there was no coup attempt. The press fawned and polished Barack’s knob and otherwise took eight years off. It was their guy. Now they think they’re going to stage a coup instead of respecting democracy. Will the Dims try to take back the rust belt/working class instead of telling people what to think? Those hijinks got Hillary not elected and still she persisted, as does the press. So far, Trump is a racist, a traitor, a priviledged turnip (the backlash on this dumbassery is coming) and yet he won by surrounding himself with the antithesis of all things left. Breitbart, Bannon, Sessions. Subtle.