The Stories We Tell About Ourselves Versus The Truth
Stories Have Power
Story is what I do as an author & screenwriter. Create and craft stories. For me, it's a noble calling. Because they permeate our lives. Even non-writers. They drive us. Both true & fictional. We are all authors of our own stories and past, present, and future.
This is about our Former President (who I shall refer to as TrP from here on).
I don't admire TrP, never have. Never bought into his BS. I saw him for what he's always been: Fraud. Liar. Cheat. Thief. That's the true story behind the suit and red tie. Banks knew it, too.
So did the one Russian bank that often backed him.
But TrP told a different story about himself. TrP projected a picture of an incredibly successful real estate magnate. Rich beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. Shits on a gold toilet, for example. Bragged about his huge deals. Bragged about money, power, and influence. None of which he actually truly had (beyond the gold toilet).
But he told the story relentlessly. Anywhere and everywhere. Even in the face of facts contrary. He pushed that narrative every waking moment of his life.
His BS story hid the true story from many. That he went bankrupt many times. That he stiffed contractors. Couldn't get loans from legit banks. That he wasn't smart or trustworthy. That's not the story he told.
In the stories about himself, he was always the hero.
New York City knew, of course. In public life, nothing is secret. People talk. We all know which stars are assholes, which ones you don't leave alone with your daughters, and which ones are angels.
NYC knew he was a bad apple. That's the real reason he was rejected by the "elite."
"Elite" is a loaded word that we'll come back to.
NYC knew he was awful. But regular folks who only read the papers or watch gossip TV news shows did not. TrP worked those venues; he learned how to work this BS from a master, Roy Cohn. TrP planted stories himself in gossip columns. For real, he’d call up papers and writers pretending to be a publicist pushing TrP. Just one of the stories about that HERE. You can even listen to him doing it if you haven’t yet eaten today, that is. He was relentless. He also made it a requirement that if any film production wanted to shoot on one of his properties, then he had to be given a cameo in the film. This is how he ended up in HOME ALONE 2, GHOSTBUSTERS 2, and so on. And he was always playing himself and always presented as successful. Always.
He flooded the media so thoroughly that it overwhelmed those who had no resources to fact-check his BS. It kept him afloat. It made investors want to invest in his many ideas. He simply kept peddling his BS, and enough people bought it. And at least six bankruptcies were the result (that’s just TrP’s bankruptcies btw, he also bankrupted many, many others, investors, contractors, workers, and so on.)
His only real talent lay in the relentless flogging of his selfish fiction and a complete lack of shame or moral compass. No lie was too big or too brazen for him to embrace, and even when caught in a lie, he’d lie and say he never said what he said.
There was one common characteristic. TrP was god in his tales, and he was always rich. The fiction that he was the smartest, savviest billionaire out there could never be questioned. It’s common knowledge that when he appeared on SNL and as the subject of one of Comedy Central’s Celebrity Roasts, the writers could make jokes about anything they wanted, his suits, his ties, his fake hair and tan, all of it was fair game… the only thing they WEREN’T allowed to do was suggest or even imply he wasn’t rich.
He was sensitive to that. Because the truth was, he wasn’t a billionaire like he pretended to be. He was skating on very thin ice, financially.
TrP caught two very lucky breaks. One, a ghost author wrote ART OF THE DEAL, and the writer was much better at crafting fiction and story than TrP was (he was never a good salesman or thinker, I always took issue with those who claimed he was a good salesman… he wasn’t, he was supremely good at lying about himself, and that’s it)... that book, which he compared to the Bible, no lie, took his BS to another level.
It gave him a north star to aim his lies at. And that leveled him up.
Even then, his world was failing around him. Businesses crashing... no banks would do business with him, except for the one bank sponsored by Russian mob money… then TrP caught another lucky break.
TV producer Mark Burnett created a reality SHOW around TrP’s own fiction. One that took his lies and gave them a platform for millions of viewers.
It kept TrP out of poverty and gave him next-level fame.
I cannot tell you how much this changed the game for TrP. It put him in every household at least once a week, if not more than that. It pictured him as in charge of it all, as all-powerful, wise, and above all else, incredibly successful. It was a sad and cruel lie, but welcome to reality TV, folks; that’s what it is.
TrP was somewhat famous before, more so locally than anything else, but now he was TV famous. Very different kind of fame. Huge. It’s everywhere-in-America famous. But the thing about reality TV is that it's not nor has it ever been real. It's all authored behind the scenes; it's nearly all written. In other words, it's all lies. So perfect for TrP.
He rode that BS train all the way to the WH, in fact.
How? Well, obviously, he had help from a hostile foreign power, but that's not the only reason. People saw him indulge in his worse tendencies (selfishness, bigotry, hate) and become a success. They saw him make cruel remarks about women constantly; they saw him question Obama’s birthright; they saw him embrace the worst of himself and still succeed.
They thought, if he can do that and be a success, I can too! If he can air his worst grievances and be famous, so can I!
TrP's TRUE superpower is resentment. He seethed it. Hated anyone who got in his way, irritated him, or was more successful. He could love you one day, then if you become a problem, hate you. He resented anyone who didn't worship him. But in particular, he resented and hated people who were better at anything, anything at all, than he was. Didn’t matter what it was; if they were good at something that he wasn’t good at, he hated them.
That played for people who felt the same.
People who wanted success without the work.
People who wanted to punish those more successful than they were.
People who felt those who worked hard and succeeded looked down upon them.
Resentment of the “other.”
That is key.
This brings us back to the “elite.”
It's supposedly about those folks who go to Ivy League schools, who are born rich and never have to work hard in life, who have everything given to them. Those who look down upon regular people while servants cater to their every whim. That’s who the average TrP supporter believes the “elite” is. That’s who TrP says the “elite” are, and he’s just a regular guy who is great at business.
But, of course, TrP was all of those things listed above, too. More than most. He didn’t start out as working-class, like Mark Cuban did, nor was he crazy brilliant in terms of coding and the like, like Bill Gates. TrP’s father made the family rich, and TrP used his money and connections for his start in business.
And he never uses “elite” to really mean that, either. Nor is it the proper use of the word, in my opinion.
Elite can also mean someone who is a master at their calling or craft.
Medicine. Law. Science. Story. Stephen King is a master storyteller at an elite level. King also started out dirt poor. King hates Trump, too. The men and women we send out in fighter planes are elite pilots. LeBron James is an elite athlete. Ali Wong is an elite comedian. Meryl Streep? Elite actress.
Surgeons have to be elite.
TrP hated Obama because Obama was really next-level at law, politics, and people. Obama is smart, very smart. Definitely smarter than TrP.
TrP hates anyone he suspects is smarter than he is, which is a lot of people.
It's childish but true.
TrP went from praising Fauci to insulting him as an elitist. That he’s out of touch with whatever it is he’s commenting on. Which overlooks the fact that Fauci put the work in to have the skills he has and knows more about the topic than the man insulting him about his work. Obama, too.
Journalists, and scientists, any craft in a field where it’s insanely difficult to reach the top, it only happens if one puts the work in. They have to put the work in to get to where they are in life. LeBron put the work in. Meryl, I can attest to, even with all her Oscars and awards, she puts the work in on every role she plays.
TrP never works at anything other than flogging his own fiction. TrP hates it when someone has an achievement at anything he hasn’t. Because in his world, HE'S THE BEST. No one else. Classic narcissism.
And that plays to people with the same tendencies. That’s his audience. This is what those who don’t understand TrP’s appeal to so many miss. They bought his BS.
They took his story and applied it to their own lives. And reveled in it.
No longer do they need to apologize for their bigotry, their failures, and mistakes. The real blame lies with the "liberal elite" who think they know more than "real people."
Which became tragic in a pandemic. When people were convinced that they knew more than Fauci, more than any doctor, when they took a horse dewormer because some nut on a podcast said so, and when they drank their own pee to cure Covid.
Their uninformed opinion, like TrP’s, was greater than any elite’s hard work. That was and still is TrP’s message because it’s how he lived his whole life.
They hated what he hated because he gave them permission to be awful as he was. Sad but true. They didn't want to hear the true story; the false one was more comforting. Still is, for some. Think of the power of that story, truly.
TrP bragged ON CAMERA of sexual assault.
TrP pled guilty to fraud before taking office. He paid off a pornstar with campaign funds. He admitted to obstruction of justice on camera. The guy lies like no one else, and yet millions bought his BS. Why?
To get what he has. His BS story was that powerful to them. That lie had power.
It was mindboggling to me to see rural folks call him a "real American who gets us." To see religious folk call him "sent by God" & a "true Christian."
All of it is nonsense, JUST ON THE SURFACE. But to them, it becomes real if they repeat the lie enough like TrP does. If they say it enough, to them, it is the truth.
The actual true story didn't have the same power. It involved hard work, drudgery, and patience for nuance and detail… none of which TrP or his supporters really care about.
They only want to be thought of as right and awesome without working for it.
This has happened often in history. Lots of powerful men get away with crimes because they control the story and no one else gets a voice (you see this in other fascist nations, but N. Korea comes to mind, and remember, TrP admires that dude).
Which makes what the Jan 6 committee is doing all the more remarkable.
They're showing the REAL story. And it's working.
Think of it like VH1's BEHIND THE MUSIC series, which showed how MC Hammer went bankrupt, or how NWA fought with each other BEHIND THE SCENES.
And in this instance, the fact that it's true makes what we are witnessing all the more powerful. They're showing his selfishness, his narcissism, lies, and BS. In real-time. They took control of the narrative from TrP. That's the real reason TrP is worried because he knows. It's the one thing he knows. They shattered his big lie, and America is in the middle of having what alcoholics call “a moment of clarity.”
A drunk will tell you, over and over again, that they don’t have a drinking problem… until the truth becomes too heavy to deny the lie. I’ve experienced this. I know many of you likely have, too. And we’ve borne witness to it happening in our culture, too.
Many people in entertainment knew about Cosby for YEARS. Years. But it was too hard to prove because Cosby's fiction was too powerful... a successful family man and beloved comic married to the same woman forever.
But the true stories of his countless rapes kept piling up until they hit critical mass.
It was Hannibal Burress who opened the floodgates, but it could have been anyone. Once the dam leaked, it became too hard to stop, and the truth ended Cosby's fiction. Think of all the true stories that came out after. You no longer think of Cliff Huxable when you hear him; you think that’s the dude who used his fame rape women.
Harvey Weinstein was no secret, either. I knew fifteen years ago when I worked on adapting Peter Buskin’s book DOWN AND DIRTY PICTURES into a film (it never happened, in the end, like many features). There was to be a chapter about Harvey’s habit of raping actresses in Biskind's book, but publishers forced him to remove it.
Harvey was powerful and often sued everybody who even thought to besmirch his reputation. I myself even have a letter from one of his lawyers somewhere due to the project I was attached to. Harvey controlled his story with zeal.
Ronan Farrow (and many brave women who came forward) finally brought Harvey down, but it could have been anyone at some point. The truth was too big and too heavy to hide for that long in this day and age.
And Harvey, like TrP, is a narcissistic monster, too.
It's not about D or R; it's about monsters.
And the only defense against a monster is the truth.
Many forget that truth HAS POWER in and of itself. That the power of truth is fearsome. Stories that last forever do so because of an element of truth therein.
I say this as a writer of fiction.
While I create imaginary events, my goal is to find human truth in story. Human truth, which is the shared gold of our human existence, is what we all value in the end.
It’s why I do what I do.
A story moved me so much that I learned about myself and others.
Even Christianity, which is very toxic in USA IMO, has an element of human truth which is why it has lasted. "Love each other" is the message. Think about it; that's the story of Christianity.
Is that the story that's being sold by those Christians in power, tho?
It's not. Not in my opinion. But that’s another story for another day.
TrP's fiction is falling apart under the weight of all the truths coming out.
TrP's true story is of a man consumed by greed and a thirst for power at any and all costs. It's not an admirable one. In fact, it's an awful one that many of us knew, but now others are just now realizing.
The committee is telling the truth.
I cannot tell you how rare that is to see from a government committee. It almost never happens. Telling the truth. Usually, the findings are muddled and flooded with shit, the truth having to compete with turds meant to distract (Benghazi, for example, and there are others).
The fact that the TRUTH of Trump is coming out of this investigation and that Liz Cheney is one of the authors boggles my mind... but as an author and committed storyteller, the one thing I have is admiration and respect for what they are accomplishing.
They are taking over the narrative, which rarely happens. I only remember it happening during the McCarthy hearings, in fact. They are letting the truth do its thing, and it's a joy to see and behold. Trump knows it, too, and that's why he's so desperate. There's not enough space to go on at length about the nuance of story and truth in this whole mess, and I am sure that many books will be written about it at some point, but one thing to keep in mind, in the days to come, is this:
TrP's superpower lies in his ability to lie about his story.
He's losing to the truth. It doesn't happen often. Enjoy it.
This essay began as a Twitter thread that many seemed to respond to (you can find the original thread HERE), and if you got anything out of this, please share and subscribe.
Once more, my good pup Kona, for you. Take care and stay safe.
