COVID-19 lies expose Trump's biggest fear: himself

Stephen H. Provost is a former newspaper editor, columnist and reporter. He’s the author of two books about Donald Trump: “Political Psychosis” and “Media Meltdown.” Both are available on Amazon.

Donald Trump’s most defining quality isn’t his narcissism, his corruption, or his ineptitude.

Those are symptoms of a fatal flaw.

Fatal to those who believed him when he told them COVID-19 wasn’t a threat, that it would just “go away,” that they didn’t have to wear a mask. People died because they took him at his word.

This flaw is overwhelming, crippling fear.

It’s probably the same fear he felt toward his father, as documented by his niece Mary L. Trump in her book, Too Much and Never Enough.

That fear creates a single, consistent response, no matter what Trump is facing.

Avoidance.

That’s what bankruptcy is, after all. It’s also what Trump consistently does when faced with demands from Congress: He simply refuses to comply. He avoids subpoenas for documents, avoids speaking to Robert Mueller, avoids telling the truth.

The truth is the biggest threat to him, because it forces him to look in the mirror and acknowledge his failures. As I’ve written, this is what separates him from Joe Biden (and any other competent leader) — and not in a good way: an inability to admit his mistakes so he can learn from them.

How pervasive is the avoidance that led Trump to mislead the country about COVID-19?

It’s easy to think he only watches Fox News because it flatters him, but consider the flipside: He’s avoiding MSNBC and CNN because they criticize him. Doing so would force him to face his own shortcomings, something he can’t bring himself to do for one simple reason.

He’s petrified.

Consider also how Trump’s debilitating fear explains his unwillingness to confront autocrats like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He’s still the little boy currying favor with his father, trying to impress powerful men who scare him to death.*

What does he see in these tyrants? Simple: Unlike America’s allies, who will speak up if they disagree with him, people like Putin won’t. It’s not because Putin’s afraid of him, but because he knows what’s painfully obvious: Trump can be manipulated if you flatter him. Not because flattery is an end in itself, but because, more importantly, it shields him from criticism.

Flattery is, for Trump, a means of avoidance.

Trump portrays himself as a strong leader, someone who does what he wants when he wants. But the truth is he’s the weakest kind of leader:

• One who avoids problems instead of solving them, who wishes they’d just miraculously go away.

• One who refuses to submit to oversight by Congress or anyone else, for fear that his failures will be exposed for the world to see.

• One who ignores atrocities by bullies like Putin (killing American soldiers, poisoning opposition leaders) and white supremacists instead of calling them out.

Trump’s extreme reaction to protests over racism, his willingness to send in federal troops, isn’t a show of strength, it’s a display of irrational fear — the same kind of fear that motivates scared white people to cross to the other side of the street when they see a Black man. Because they think all Black men are scary, just like all protesters are violent.

There’s a word for that: prejudice.

Trump’s method of “doing business” is always transactional. He’d like you to think it’s because he’s a great dealmaker. But it’s not. How anyone can think a man who’s declared bankruptcy six times is a great dealmaker qualifies as one of the great mysteries of our time.

Trump doesn’t make deals to make money, which — for better or worse — is what defines a successful businessman (something he’s not). He makes deals to preserve his reputation. He’s admitted as much: “Money never was a big motivation for me,” he said, “except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game.”

The game, to Donald Trump, is avoidance. Avoidance of the truth. Avoidance of his own fear. Winning this game is all he cares about, and it’s what’s led him to lie about the coronavirus, cozy up to dictators, insult political opponents, threaten lawsuits, stonewall Congress, fire those who disagree with him, tune out everything but OANN and Fox News... the list goes on and on.

Donald Trump isn’t a tough-guy action hero like Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s not even Ronald Reagan. He’s a pathetic, craven coward, cringing and trembling in his dead father’s shadow, desperate to avoid the truth for one simple reason: It will force him to face his own failure.

That’s the thing that scares him most of all.

---

* If you’re wondering why in the world he would confide the truth about COVID-19 to Bob Woodward, here’s your answer: He wanted to impress a powerful man who scares him.