LinkedIn on Thursday, July 2, 2026
The media tends to give Donald Trump way too much credit.
Let’s start with the underlying facts that the print and electronic media don’t talk about, perhaps because they’re trying too hard to be respectful. Donald Trump is not particularly bright.
More importantly, according to professionals who are willing to diagnose him based on his well-publicized behavior, but without the benefit of clinically formal, in-person testing, Donald Trump suffers from “malignant narcissism.” He cares only about himself. He has “antisocial personality disorder.” He is, in other words, a sociopath who cares little if anything about other people. He lacks empathy, the ability to appreciate and share the emotional states of others. …It’s not a matter of choice on his part. It’s who Donald Trump is. Unfortunately, his is not a personality type you want in the office of President of the United States.
According to some in the media, Donald Trump is a con man, albeit with a very limited bag of tricks that have proven to be very successful.
- He lies, all the time, generally because he believes that presenting an alternative to the truth works in his favor. And because, as noted above, he’s not all that bright and doesn’t care much about learning – other than what he watches on TV – and sometimes substitutes what he believes should be true for the reality he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know the truth, so he makes it up as he goes and too many people choose to believe him.
President Trump doesn’t just lie frequently, he lies repeatedly. He believes, and it’s true, that the more often you tell a lie, the more people there are who will believe that it’s true – or who, at least, will begin to question the reality of what you’re lying about. Famously, Trump lied, again, again and again, about President Obama having not been born in the United States and is still lying, years later, about his 2020 loss to Joe Biden having been the result of election fraud.
- Other than lying, when he does something that is dishonest and often illegal, he does so in public. He has learned that people tend to assume that information disclosed to them by someone must affirm legality, otherwise the criminal would keep that information to him or herself.
What he discloses, of course, is only part of what’s happening. Some country gives him a $400 million plane without asking him for anything in return, so he tells us. But they are expecting something. He’s just not telling us what. …He made over $2 billion last year, all perfectly legal so he assures us in a 900+ page release that conveniently fails to mention any conflicts of interest or ways in which he’s sold out our government for personal gain.
- If anyone accuses him of misbehavior, he aggressively attacks and discredits that person to discourage the accuser and call into question his or her voracity.
That’s it. Nothing very smart or particularly creative. Nothing clever. No brilliant team of specialists carefully selected and deployed by Danny Ocean. Mostly, his game is all about lying and stealing which is the only way incompetent people have a chance of succeeding beyond what their capabilities will otherwise allow.
So, is he a con man or more of a thug? More of a gangster who has bullied his way to making money, undeservedly, at other people’s expense?
Since he’s become President, Donald has done something most con men don’t have the opportunity or power to do. He’s used his Presidential authority, real and assumed, to replace those who might hold him responsible for his illegal behavior with people who are inclined to protect him. At the Department of Justice, for example, and other departments where Inspector Generals might be a problem. In the Department of Defense and on the Supreme Court. In Congress, on the Republican side of the aisle. …So far, so good.
Only two things stand in his way, threatening his continued success and legacy. The Constitution of the United States. A simple, but nonetheless powerful piece of paper, which he doesn’t understand and about which he couldn’t care less. And the will of the people in the mid-term elections only four months from now. Two months later, if the Democrats takeover the House and maybe even the Senate, Trump is done for. And he knows it. He’ll be lucky if he finishes out his term without being disgraced, impeached and charged with all manner of crimes, including insider trading, from which Presidential immunity will not protect him.
Knowing all this full well, Donald Trump is going to do absolutely everything he can to stop or at least discredit the elections. It’s his last big play and a potentially dangerous proof of concept moment for our country if ever there was one.
So, is Donald Trump the brilliant con man many in the media think he is? Con men commit complex, thoroughly considered, sophisticated crimes they expect to get away with. By comparison, Trump’s approach is more like a caveman hitting someone over the head with a club. And he’s running scared. The questions we the people should be asking is how desperate is he and what is he prepared to do to affect the outcome of the mid-terms.
-Les Cohen
