What Is The Mob Movie Donald Trump Saw With A Gangster Named “Alan Jones” In It?

The model of Donald Trump currently on display is fussy and sour, poached to glossy and unappetizing gumminess in his own luxurious bathwater; he is also, to all appearances, miserable. It is hard to say whether the adoration of his admirers or the revulsion of a large and growing portion of the American populace has been worse for him in that regard, but neither seems to have done him much good.

The Trump currently maundering and free-associating through 110-minute performances at various swing state event spaces is manic or wan but mostly just dull—a mean old dunce listing his gripes, telling weird lies, and talking about dumb stuff he saw on TV. People suffer and die as a direct result of how much he sucks, every day, and he is still somehow the most boring old rich guy imaginable. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it is humiliating in the extreme to live in a society that produced someone like this at all, let alone put him in charge of everything. Trump remains very well-insulated from the consequences of his actions, moment by moment thanks to a team of chittering courtiers and Renfield types and more generally because protecting him from those consequences is the only thing that a number of hugely important political institutions really do anymore. But also you can tell that he knows, at some level, that everyone can see that he is failing.

There’s another version of Donald Trump that only comes out when he feels safe, and while that version also sucks ass and is stupid as hell, it is notable as the last vestige of the character who once charmed America’s most credulous and least exacting voters. The other version of him, the one that speaks in front of smaller, more carefully curated crowds, does not seem to know that everyone can see that he is failing. That Trump is making innumerable lives around the world harder, crueler, and worse is not something that would bother him, really, because his own life remains pretty much the same. The trouble comes when he is perceived, correctly, as a preening and delusional failure, and in front of a crowd of people who believe he can do no wrong, all of whom are visibly, clammily yearning to give him more of their money, Trump is untroubled. He knows he can get up there and just say whatever, and so he does.