Donald Trump has never described himself so perfectly. At 10:52 last night, he posted this on his social media site: "Colbert is finally finished at CBS. Amazing that he lasted so long! No talent, no ratings, no life. He was like a dead person. You could take any person off of the street and they would be better than this total jerk. Thank goodness he's finally gone!"He was talking about Stephen Colbert, of course. But allegations are confessions when they come out of Donald Trump's mouth.The celebrated comedian shuttered his show Thursday, a year after Paramount surrendered to the president's bullying. Trump got what he wanted from his corporate toadies, but unsurprisingly, that wasn't enough. No words are too shameful, or as screenwriter David Simon put it: "The smallest, most soulless creature to ever be over-stuffed into a human form has thoughts about quality television. With a world and nation in disarray and requiring remedy, the president of the United States feels the need to opine on this passionately. "Our republic is so debased."So it is. But Colbert didn't let Trump steal his joy. "The 'Late Show' crew, [Colbert] said, always referred to the program as the 'joy machine,'" according to the Times' James Poniewozik. "The daily grind means the production has to be a kind of machine, he said, 'but if you choose to do it with joy, it doesn’t hurt as much when your fingers get caught in the gears.'" That way of thinking, Poniewozik said, gave "an energy to Colbert’s satire that I think of as 'hopeful despair.' ... When you suffer a loss, you pull yourself out of the rubble, you dust off your clown suit, and you put on a show."In an exchange about faith and grief, Dua Lipa once asked him if religion and comedy ever come in conflict. "Does one of them ever win out?" Colbert answered by referring to Belfast, a movie he said evoked his Catholicism. "It's funny and it’s sad and it’s funny about being sad in the same way that sadness is like a little bit of an emotional death, but not a defeat if you can find a way to laugh about it, because that laughter keeps you from having fear of it, and fear is the thing that keeps you from turning to evil devices to save you from the sadness."The comedian went on to quote Robert Hayden's famous poem:“We must not be frightened nor cajoledinto accepting evil as deliverance from evil.We must go on struggling to be human,though monsters of abstractionpolice and threaten us."Colbert concluded by saying: "So if there’s some relationship between my faith and my comedy, it’s that no matter what happens you are never defeated. You must understand and see this in the light of eternity and find some way to love and laugh with each other."Does that sound "like a dead person" to you? Of course not. Donald Trump was talking about himself.Given that Trump's poll numbers are sinking and that even some Republicans are standing up to him, there's lots of enthusiasm right now. Even so, I don't have much confidence in justice being served in the end. I fear the Democrats, once they reclaim power, which seems likely, will take a few steps toward accountability, then move on. I will gladly accept being proven wrong. However, all things considered, I don't think I am. Justice won't likely come.That said, I take comfort in knowing one thing. Donald Trump is dead inside.More than that, I take comfort in knowing that he knows it, and that also he knows everyone, including his family, will celebrate the day of his demise. "Amazing that he lasted so long!" people everywhere will say. "No talent, no ratings, no life. He was like a dead person. You could take any person off of the street and they would be better than this total jerk."Thank goodness he's finally gone!"Such is the fate of tyrants. To illustrate, I'm going to quote from Stephen Greenblatt's brilliant 2018 book about them. I'm going to put Donald Trump where Richard III's name is. What excites [the tyrant] is the joy of domination. He is a bully. Easily enraged, he strikes out at anyone who stands in his way. He enjoys seeing others cringe, tremble, or wince with pain. He is gifted at detecting weakness and deft at mockery and insult. These skills attract followers who are drawn to the same cruel delight, even if they cannot have it to his unmatched degree. Though they know that he is dangerous, the followers help him advance to his goal, which is the possession of supreme power.His possession of power includes the domination of women, but he despises them far more than desires them. Sexual conquest excites him, but only for the endlessly reiterated proof that he can have anything he likes. He knows that those he grabs hate him. For that matter, once he has succeeded in seizing the control that so attracts him, in politics as in sex, he knows that virtually everyone hates him. At first that knowledge energizes him, making him feverishly alert to rivals and conspiracies.
