Approaching the end of Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, I encountered a brief passage that seems an acute description of Donald Trump. She couldn’t have characterized him any better had she actually been writing about him.
In order to be profoundly dishonest, a person must have one of two qualities. Either he is unscrupulously ambitious, or he is unswervingly egocentric. He must believe that for his ends to be served, all things and people can justifiably be shifted about, or that he is the center not only of his own world but of the worlds which others inhabit.
I don’t think that there is any rational doubt that Trump is profoundly dishonest. He usually demonstrates that multiple times daily. The unfortunate fact, though, seems to be that Trump is both unscrupulously ambitious and unswervingly egocentric, making his dishonesty even more profound and more toxic than it might have been otherwise.
The other sad fact is that by achieving the presidency, he has made the delusion that he is the center of the worlds which others inhabit a malignant, repugnant, and dangerous reality.