If you want to understand Donald Trump, read ‘Don Quixote’
Republican presidential candidate former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for a campaign event at the Orpheum Theater on Oct. 29, 2023 in Sioux City, Iowa. On Saturday, Trump joined other Republican presidential candidates when he addressed Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual conference where his one-time vice president, Mike Pence, announced he was suspending his campaign. (Photo by Scott Olson } Getty Images)
Trump fatigue is real. How could it not be? We’ve been held hostage by this man’s childish, self-indulgent antics for nearly a decade now, and it’s exhausting.
But it’s also Page One in the Donald Trump playbook, and probably has been since he was in kindergarten. He has mastered the art of never backing down until his opponents either run out of resources, or patience, or both, and just give up on trying to hold him accountable.
Well, it has apparently become just as exhausting for Trump as it is for the rest of us, because for the first two days of his New York state trial, Trump dozed off during the proceedings.
It’s not hard to imagine how this could happen. When was the last time we saw Donald Trump have to sit through an entire day of anything, much less an event where he isn’t allowed to speak? Plus you have to take into account the number of hours he spent in makeup.
I keep thinking of the similarities to “Don Quixote,” one of my favorite books. In that novel, most of Don Quixote’s enemies are completely imaginary, but completely real to him. In Don Quixote’s world, he, too, is fighting not just for himself, but for the good of all humanity. He sees himself as a champion of the people, battling the forces of evil.
In Don Quixote, the one person he trusts most is Sancho Panza, who, in fact, has a much better grasp on reality than Don Quixote ever will. Which of course means that Don Quixote not only doesn’t listen to Sancho, but he endlessly ridicules him, prompting Sancho to repeatedly threaten to leave. Then Don Quixote has to muster up his charm, along with some false promises of a governorship (politics even in the 17th century!) to convince Sancho to stick around. Because in the end, Don Quixote is helpless without Sancho Panza.
Donald Trump would have never become who he is without many Sancho Panzas along the way. And of course, the list of these former lackeys who have come out and denounced Trump, as well as giving blow-by-blow accounts of how he treats the people who work for him, continue to pile up. And yet apparently have no impact on the current crop of Sancho Panzas.
The number of people who are willing to look past Trump’s growing lunacy for their own benefit continues to astonish anyone who values the basic concept of ethics. The fact that Trump will never admit he’s wrong has become accepted, for no obvious reason, but even worse, the fact that he continues to ignore every order to stop attacking the people trying to do their jobs crosses a line that would put most of us behind bars.
Don Quixote lived in a fantasy world where he accomplished legendary feats of bravery. He was able to keep this fantasy alive by convincing Sancho Panza that it was true. And Sancho, although he often sees right through Don Quixote’s delusions, tells him what he wants to hear, probably in the interest of self-preservation more than anything.
Don Quixote’s fantasy world, where his foes are determined to bring him down, and he continues to defeat them over and over again, exists because the one person who knows he’s wrong is afraid to tell him the truth.
Don Quixote was published in 1605. And of course it’s fiction. But as a much wiser person that I once said, sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.
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