Trump mocks murdered movie director and praises his own greatness
Rob Reiner was beloved by American audiences ever since he played the son-in-law “Meathead” on “All in the Family” and he has since been the auteur of some of the finest films of recent decades. After he and his wife were murdered, and with his troubled son suspected of the crime, it made sense for the US president to weigh in with words of comfort at the loss of a cultural giant.
But we have Donald Trump, whom Reiner has accurately criticized as a danger to American democracy. So in his post shortly after the murder was reported, Trump referred to the murder victim as “tortured and struggling” and said he and his wife had died “reportedly due to the anger he caused others” through a “massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind-crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” He wrote that Reiner “was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump.” After referring to himself in the third person, he went on to praise his own greatness.
Let’s just consider this for a second. Can you think of any other leader – really, of any country at any time – who would behave this way? Even close? If your answer is, as I suspect, no, then it is actually worth asking: What psychological, political or practical impulses could possible lie behind such a deranged response? And when the reflexive response to a murder of a beloved national figure is not condolence but a caricature of the crassest and pettiest of self-promotion, what can we possible conclude in the wider sense? Anything?
One possibility is that Trump is as a child – he reacts with simple emotion. He hated Reiner for his criticism, especially given the reports that he had been working on a TV series exploring Trump’s relations with Vladimir Putin – a sore point. So he lashes out. You normally want your president to operate at a higher maturity level, so that’s not great.
The second possibility might attach to more complex psychology. A person constantly under siege in political discourse – who as we see has the emotional level of a child – may come to see criticism itself as an existential threat. In that worldview, a critic’s death is a vindication of grievances long harbored. Or perhaps it is a form of externalization, a common psychological defense in which individuals attribute their own unacceptable feelings or motives to others. Either way, in absence of any filter – voila! The post.
Another layer to Trump’s Reiner response could be a signaling to the base that sees every criticism as ideological warfare. To accuse a critic of causing his own death tells supporters that Trump stands defiantly against ridicule and opposition. It reinforces the notion that emotional injury inflicted on the leader is an attack on the nation itself. In this way, the comment functions as a dog whistle to angry partisans, keeping them in line. It’s basically a rallying cry.
Reasonable though these impulses may seem to some, they are all problematic.
For one thing, giving a violent crime a political cause in the absence of evidence is a dangerous leap, and in this case it appears be false; police seem pretty serious in pointing to a son with a history of substance abuse and homelessness.
A national leader must lead beyond his tribe; the office demands empathy, restraint, and a commitment to the dignity of all citizens.
Moreover, empathy is central to governance. When leaders can acknowledge pain that is not their own, it reassures citizens that they are seen, heard, and valued. When leaders are capable of transcending political grievance in moments of national attention, they reinforce the bonds that hold a diverse society together. The president’s post did the opposite. It took a brutal, inexplicable crime and folded it into a narrative of personal grievance, mocking a family tragedy in real time and suggesting a false causal link between political criticism and violent death.
Which is really the main problem. By uncritically suggesting politics was the motive, Trump implicitly normalizes political violence. He has done this in the past as well, but of late he seemed to be against it. Consider that in September, Trumpworld projected righteous rage at some expressions of understanding for the killer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, arguing that any rejoicing was beyond the pale, and seeing it as cause for firings and cancellations. I suppose consistency is not always top of mind in such circles.
Whatever the reason and calculation, it’s morally bankrupt in a way that is actually getting attention around the world – where Reiner movies like “Stand By Me,” Spinal Tap,” “The Princess Bride” and many others are still very popular. I am currently in London, and I can report that people watched in fascination as the bar for public discourse was lowered even more than Trump had lowered it before, hard as this may be to believe.
I don’t expect Trump to care about any of that, because he does not appear to care about the country, nor what people think around the world. Judging by available evidence, Trump cares about himself, and is deploying a strategic approach whereby modern political communication is an attention economy: every post, every speech, is designed to generate engagement. Outrage, insult, and provocation are among the most effective currencies in that economy. By falsely framing a murder as political grievance, and by being outrageous and despicable, Trump is guaranteed attention. Indeed, I am giving it to him here. Enough such useful idiots will supply you viral traction.
Trump has in the past said he could shoot someone in the street, he was recorded saying “grab ‘em by the pussy,” he led crowds in chating “lock ‘er up,” he tried to overturn an election (”find me votes”), he mocked a disabled reporter, he said “quiet, piggy” to a female reporter, he posted an AI video of himself wearing a crown and piloting a plane dumbing shit on people in New York City, and so on. It all got attention, and here he is as president, and you and I are not.
Therefore some have suggested that outrage itself is the wrong response — that ignoring such comments deprives them of oxygen. But I am not so sure. Even though this strategy has worked well for him so far, I’m not entirely sure that Trump has it right this time. He is human, after all, and for all of us attention — especially attention earned through cruelty — is a double-edged sword. Go too far and you can start to look like, well, forgive me, but … an asshole.
I don’t think Americans like assholes, necessarily.
Sometimes things just creep on you, though (no pun intended, but on second thought, welcomed). The question arises: Will anything ever be enough to actually make a critical mass even his followers recoil in disgust? Could this – absurdly, perhaps – be the moment that a rubicon is crossed?
Marjorie Taylor Greene seems to agree. She blasted Trump for his gaucheness over the murder. So have a few hardy souls in the “GOP” – though most are keeping quiet, lemmings that they are. Then Indiana party branch rejected Trump’s redistricting demand on the same day – perhaps another welcome sign of spine.
Allow me to make the pitch – and keep in mind that this comes from a person who has long held that good character, while desirable, is less important than questions of policy. I’d like to ban guns and not ban abortion, and to enact universal healthcare properly police the borders while doing something about rampant inequality and attacking cancel culture; give me these things and I’ll look aside from personal failings.
But as with all things, there is a limit. A president who mocks tragedy in this way reveals a kind of rot that no good policy can make acceptable. Indeed, it is unlikely to come from a person with especially good policy. It is likely to come from a person who taxes Americans via tariffs on Canadian goods and services because he didn’t like a TV commercial, and who tells military leaders that they must now fight enemies from within.
So I would propose that Americans focus for a minute on this response to the Reiner murder and ask: Do we want to be led by a person who would do this? Would we be friends with such a person? Would we want to drink a beer with such a person? Would we marry them, or want our children to marry them? Or be anywhere near them?
Do we want such a person engineering the Supreme Court and gerrymandering our system and deciding on vaccines and dismantling of government departments? Would we trust their judgement when they tell us – contrary to what any economist will say – that tariffs bring money into the country? Or that Ukraine must surrender land to Russia? Or that the National Guard must be deployed in U.S. cities?
Would we hire them for any job, ever? And if we realize we actually just did, for the biggest job in history, what does that say about us? What lessons can we learn? And how can we prevent ourselves from ever making a mistake this colossal again?
Sometimes a tweet is not just a tweet but a canary in the coalmine. If it is, here’s what the American people will tell their lowlike president: We shan’t work together again.
