Trump's Desperate Turn to Mythology.

I've been saying for months that Trump's collapse is getting worse.

His erratic behaviors and decisions.

His worsening emotional regulation.

His growing reality distortion.

How political setbacks and humiliations intensified his need for ever-larger acts of psychological compensation.

So he escalated. Nothing like a good war to flex power. To change the narrative.

But it failed. It became greater injury to his psyche.

As a result, he’s been moving into a growing fantasy world, but now, it’s taken a desperate turn.

His latest barrage of fantasy images isn’t just another step. It’s a change in direction.

I thought I knew where the escalation was going. Like many, I was too focused on erratic and dangerous decisions. This was wrong. He’s escalated somewhere much more psychologically interesting.

If you worked through the previous assignment, you already know the goal wasn't to argue with his recent Thursday night speech. It was to observe it calmly, like a psychologist. Many of you told me it worked. Good. Because this week we're going to use those same skills in a different way.

Because his latest stream of some fifty AI images suggests something else is happening.

The fantasy is no longer confined to speeches.

It’s become visual.

Historical.

Religious.

Architectural.

If you’re enjoying watching or reading The Gaslight Report, please restack and like it. It’s a great way to help me reach as many as possible with my message.

The first time you see Trump portrayed as George Washington, it’s easy to laugh.

Then comes the Revolutionary War commander.

Then Trump kissing a golden Jesus on a golden cross.

Then an older Trump sharing a narcissistic moment with his younger self.

Eventually you stop asking whether the individual images are ridiculous.

You start asking about why the symbolism pattern keeps expanding.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been avoiding writing about Trump’s collapse.

Not because there wasn’t anything to write about.

Quite the opposite.

Every day brought another grievance, another distortion, another escalation. But, after a while I found myself staring at a blank screen wondering how many different ways I could write, "The collapse continues."

Then these new images appeared.

And I realized...

This isn’t more of the same.

This is something new.

Forget labels for a minute.

Every image I’m showing collapses the boundary between Donald Trump the person and Donald Trump the symbol.

That’s the common thread.

He’s becoming his own mythology.

Myths don’t simply celebrate a person. They transform the person into something larger than ordinary human life.

This image isn’t inviting us to see a president inspired by Washington.

It’s inviting us to see Trump as Washington.

This Revolutionary War image isn’t showing Trump supporting our Founders.

It’s showing him leading our Founders

The crucifix isn’t functioning as a religious symbol.

It’s a symbol of Trump’s identity.

And the younger-self image?

This may be the most psychologically revealing of them all. At first it looks sentimental, almost nostalgic.

But look more closely.

This isn't an older man reflecting on his life.

There’s no humility, no regret, no sense that time has taught him anything.

Instead, the younger Trump appears to validate the older one. Past and present become equally perfect versions of the same heroic figure.

Time itself ceases to matter because he has become timeless.

For years the dominant narrative was the successful businessman. Then came the greatest president. That evolved into the only person who could save America. Now the imagery has expanded again.

The important point isn't that any one image is bizarre (they are). It's that the symbolic scope keeps expanding. Trump no longer seems content to be remembered as a successful president. Increasingly, he portrays himself as something much larger: founder, savior, timeless hero, even the embodiment of the nation itself.

The AI images aren’t telling this story alone. The physical environment has been telling it for months. The oversized ballroom. The monumental arches. The endless gold. The portraits. Architecture is symbolic communication, and throughout history rulers have understood that buildings tell stories long after speeches are forgotten.

These aren’t about construction.

They’re attempts to make mythology tangible. He doesn’t want to occupy history.

Increasingly, he’s redesigning history to occupy him.

Wow. Just. Wow.

The image of him kissing the golden crucifix stopped me cold.

I’ve seen comments on whether Christians should be offended. I found myself asking a different question.

What’s the symbolism?

A central tenet of Christian theology is one of humility, sacrifice, and redemption. Yet those themes are absent.

Christian art traditionally makes the worshipper almost anonymous. It almost always draws attention away from the worshipper...

...toward Christ. The purpose is to point beyond the individual toward Christ.

In Trump’s image, the visual grammar is reversed. The religious symbol lends legitimacy to Trump instead of Trump expressing devotion to the religious symbol.

The symbolism has been appropriated into Trump’s mythology.

That’s a profound blasphemic inversion.

Then I noticed something else.

If you’ve followed my work, you had to have caught this one.

The crucifix isn’t wooden.

Jesus and the crucifix are GOLD!

Suddenly I remembered the “Scissorgate” article I wrote a few weeks ago. The point wasn’t the scissors. It was the gold. Decades of gilded buildings, gilded décor, gilded branding, gold sneakers, gold phones, gold everything. The object changes. The pattern doesn’t.

Christianity’s central symbol of humility, sacrifice, and love is transformed into an appropriated object of wealth, power, and spectacle.

Here’s the broad pattern over time you can see:

Biography becomes Mythology

Mythology becomes appropriation

Appropriation becomes absorption.

At first, the mythology borrows symbols.

Eventually it appropriates them.

Washington is no longer simply Washington.

The Presidency is no longer just an office.

The crucifix is no longer about Christ.

Each has been absorbed into a larger symbolic identity centered on Trump.

In Past the Event Horizon, I argued that severe malignant narcissism begins pulling reality itself into the orbit of the false self. Looking at these images, I found myself thinking about that metaphor again. It's no longer just facts that are being absorbed. It's history. Religion. Patriotism. Even time itself.

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you know I’ve spent the past year exploring Malignant Narcissism — its grandiosity, manipulation, paranoia, sadism, and profound lack of empathy. Erich Fromm called it “the quintessence of evil.” I’ve argued that it behaves like a cancer of the soul, consuming not only the individual but everyone caught in its orbit.

This article is the next chapter.

Up until now we’ve focused on language, behavior, projection, and reality distortion.

Today I wanted to introduce something different.

Symbolism.

Because myths aren’t built with facts.

They’re built with symbols.

And once you learn to recognize those symbols, it’s remarkably difficult to be manipulated by them again.

A couple of weeks ago, before Trump’s speech, I asked you to listen like a psychologist. Instead of reacting emotionally, I wanted you to notice the language—the grandiosity, the grievances, the projection, the persecution narratives, and the reality distortion.

This week, I want you to do something different.

I want you to view him like a psychologist.

Because words are only one way people construct reality.

Symbols are another.

As you scroll through news clips, campaign videos, memes, and social media this week, resist the urge to immediately agree, disagree, laugh, or get angry.

(And please don’t throw your phone at the wall. They’re not cheap.)

Instead, become a removed observer.

Start with three simple questions.

Not what does it show.

What does it mean?

When you see George Washington, ask “why Washington?”

When you see a crucifix, ask “why a crucifix?”

When you see a giant flag, a ballroom, endless gold, military images, endless patriotic symbols, or a monument, ask “why were those symbols chosen instead of others?”

Symbols are never random.

Does the symbol point beyond the individual...

...or has the symbol itself been recruited to elevate the individual?

(Think crucifixes or currency, for example)

That’s a subtle distinction, but once you see it, you won’t unsee it.

But, one image doesn’t tell you much.

Patterns tell you everything.

Notice whether the symbolism keeps expanding.

From success...

...to greatness...

...to history...

...to religion...

...to something even larger.

That’s the progression we’ve been following together.

That’s the fantasy land expanding.

That’s collapsing “Past The Event Horizon.”

And that’s the type of evidence pychologists learn to watch for.

…or to identify?

There’s a profound psychological difference there.

Admiration says, “He’s a good leader of the nation.”

Identification says, “He is the nation.”

The first is politics.

The second is mythology.

If you've worked through my workbook, you've already been practicing these skills without realizing it. The exercises aren't as much about politics, as they’re about slowing your thinking down long enough to see patterns instead of getting swept away by them.

That’s the bigger goal.

You might discover that the same reality-testing exercises work just as well with pictures as they do with speeches.

Because every illusion, whether it’s created with words or images, depends on one thing:

Keeping you from noticing how the trick works.

What’s next? Where can he go? The better question is:

Where else can his mythology go?

His false self has recognized that reality is uncomfortable. Reality pushes back.

• Elections end.

• People age.

• Critics appear.

• Failure accumulates.

Reality has limits.

Mythology doesn’t.

In the same way that collapse can’t go back, it only escalates, Mythology only expands.

• Washington never grows old.

• Heroes never admit mistakes.

• Messiahs never lose elections.

Mythology offers unlimited expansion of the fantasy.

When today becomes too limited, appropriate history.

When history becomes too small, appropriate religion.

When religion becomes too small, appropriate Earth.

And when Earth becomes too small...

Each step expands the symbolic stage until ordinary human life is no longer large enough to contain the fantasy.

That’s why these images are so much more than “just” consistent with Narcissistic Collapse.

They’re glimpses of an emerging mythology.

And mythology doesn’t simply grow.

It absorbs.

One symbol after another is pulled into the gravitational field of the false self until it no longer exists independently.

It’s what I described in Past the Event Horizon

Once something crosses the event horizon, it doesn’t simply get closer.

It gets absorbed.

Perhaps that’s the most revealing pattern of all.

His mythology isn’t getting stranger.

It’s getting larger.

And the larger it becomes, the more his reality has to shrink to make room for it.

The assignment above is about much more than Donald Trump.

It’s about learning to recognize how symbols get appropriated and myths get built.

That’s a skill.

Like any skill, it gets stronger with practice.

One of the unexpected things I’ve heard from so many of you over the past few weeks is that these exercises don’t just change the way you watch politics. They change the way you watch advertising, scroll social media, and observe even difficult people in your own lives. You become a little less reactive and a little more observant.

That’s exactly the point.

If you’ve been working through my workbook, you’ve probably recognized that pattern already. It isn’t a workbook only about politics. It’s a workbook about training your brain to slow down, recognize manipulation, and separate emotional reactions from objective observation.

This week’s assignment is simply the next exercise.

The workbook is available simply by clicking the button below. It’s designed to help you apply these tools in real time, so you can think clearly without getting pulled into the noise.

Here’s a sneak peak:

Click Here To Get The Workbook

When you purchase the workbook, it’s immediately available to save, use, download, or print.

Paid subscribers already support this work, so they can grab it at a 60% discount when purchasing it. It’s simply a way of thanking you for your support.

In this week’s bonus section, paid subscribers get :

Three immediately useful critical thinking approaches psychologists use to analyze symbols.

A related nugget of Neuroscience

An explanation of Critical Thinking And Observing Patterns In Science

And how I can relate to pictures of Trump as Elvis.