Trump becoming 'a grievance-fueled failure' — and he hates it: report

During Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, many of his critics predicted that disparaging comments about Sen. John McCain's (R-Arizona) military record would doom his campaign. Trump said of McCain — who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam — "He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured; I like people that weren't captured."

Trump also attacked McCain for losing the 2008 presidential race to Democrat Barack Obama, saying, "He lost, so I never liked him as much after that. 'Cause I don't like losers."

Trump's attacks on McCain didn't doom his 2016 campaign; he won the GOP nomination and went on to defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the general election. But the fact that he viewed McCain as a "loser," critics argued, showed that Trump had a very warped view of the world and was unfit for the White House.

Now almost 15 months into his second presidency, Trump is suffering from weak approval ratings in countless polls. And The New Republic's Matt Ford, in an article published on April 15, argues that Trump is the very thing he despises: a "loser."

According to The New Republic, "There's nothing more central to fascist authoritarianism than being proud of being a grievance-fueled failure."

"The last two weeks have been disastrous for the Trump Administration," Ford writes. "In Europe, Vice President JD Vance made the extraordinary move of campaigning for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose illiberal far-right regime is a beacon for authoritarian conservatives around the western world…. President Donald Trump's illegal war against Iran continues to disrupt shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — the geopolitical equivalent of stabbing the global economy's femoral artery…. This is what happens when losers are elected to lead the world's only superpower."

Ford continues, "'Loser' is the president's favorite insult. He has used it to describe, at various times, Rosie O'Donnell, John McCain, Chris Christie, Mitt Romney, Graydon Carter, Russell Brand, Bill Barr, Jimmy Kimmel, Ron DeSantis, Paul Ryan, Joe Biden, Mark Cuban, Liz Cheney, Michael Bloomberg, Sadiq Khan, George Conway, Hillary Clinton, as well as ABC and CNN. This is only a partial list, but I think you get the picture."

Ford emphasizes that Trump fails to understand what a "loser" is.

"A loser is often not someone who is actually left behind; nor is it someone who simply failed at something," Ford writes. "Failure is a part of life; it can even be the first step on the path to success. Instead, a loser is one who thinks in terms of winners and losers at all — and who believes that they have not received the status and rewards to which they feel entitled. They always seem slighted by the world at large, which has cheated and denied them things that they think belong to them by virtue of their supposed innate superiority."

"Grievance," according to Ford, is often characteristic of fascists and authoritarians.

"Racism is the most familiar redoubt for the loser, since it provides what they think as highly visible proof of their own supposed superiority," Ford explains. "Trump, for example, often describes migrants in eugenic terms, claiming that they are 'low IQ' or bring 'bad genes' into the country…. Fascism and loserdom go hand in hand because fascism is predicated on the notion that the fascist has been unjustly cheated and robbed, and that only through force can they restore and revitalize themselves. Fascists idolize losers because no fascist society has ever flourished and because they see themselves reflected in other people’s failures."

Ford continues, "It is fitting that Trump and his allies have lavished praise and public statuary upon Robert E. Lee, a Virginia-born colonel who is best known for leading a failed rebellion against the United States on behalf of a slaver aristocracy in the South.

The goal of Trumpism, it could be said, is to create losers of us all."

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