Shakespeare on Orange Man

Trump, it bears repeating, is no Shakespearean villain—he is too willful, ignorant, undisciplined, and shallow for that. What we are watching is not the despair of Macbeth as he learns that Birnam Wood to Dunsinane Hill doth come and that Macduff was not indeed born of woman. It is, rather, a malignant narcissist’s psyche collapsing in on its hollow core. That process may be of clinical or purely malevolent interest, but it’s not the stuff of tragedy, because Trump is really only a few shards of a genuine human being.

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How might Shakespeare summarize his presidency? Let me suggest this: “A tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying nothing.”

Eliot A. Cohen, Trump’s Enablers Will Meet Their Shakespearean Ends