Most politicians will respond with something along the lines of, “I wanted to do the most good for the most people as possible,” or something similar when you ask them why they decided to run for president.
Most politicians are not like Donald Trump.
In an interview with Maggie Haberman of the New York Times for her upcoming book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” Trump discussed the “why” of his previous and (presumably) next runs for the presidency.
“If you could do it over again, would you have?” is the question I get asked the most often.” Haberman heard Trump say. “The response is, absolutely, I believe so. Because this is how I see it. Nobody is aware of any of my numerous wealthy acquaintances.
OK. Just to be clear, Trump is suggesting that he would run for president again if he could do it all over again because it made him more well-known. His desire to become well-known was his primary driving force to run for president, and it was successful.
Even for Trump, that is a stunningly sincere admission. He didn’t even try to go for a more conventional response, like, say, assisting people or seeing legislation he supported implemented. Right on the sheer personal level.
Which, given what we already know about Trump, probably shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. He is an extremely egotistical person who spent much of his presidency treating the country as his own personal domain. “My generals” and “my military” were there. the anticipation that the Justice Department will act on his instructions and go after his political rivals.
(Sidebar: When Trump was president, he frequently babbled about how much money holding the office cost him. At a rally in Pennsylvania in 2019, he stated, “Being president is costing me a fortune.” “It probably costs me between $3 and $5 billion to have the honour of existence, but I couldn’t give a damn. You are aware that riches is irrelevant. I simply want to perform superbly.
For Trump, becoming president was a means to an end: to increase his notoriety, marketability, and significance.
That’s how Trump saw everything that happened to him in his life: as an opportunity to grow and prosper. always acquiring more. One of his most telling remarks came when he told Playboy magazine back in 1990, “The show is Trump, and it’s sold-out performances everywhere.”
There was a heated discussion at the beginning of Trump’s administration over whether he would budge to the rules of the office or try to bend them to his own. With the benefit of hindsight, it is obvious that Trump chose the latter, imposing his thirst for celebrity and power on the presidency for four years.
It is a fool’s errand to imagine that anything would change if he is re-elected in 2024 and serves another four years in office.
