Donald J. Trump is a man who needs no introduction, a two-time president of the United States, who is likely to go down in history as one of the most memorable figures. He has been described by people as both visionary and unfit for office. We have praised him and shamed him, trying to ignore him and wishing him away, but he is still here and perhaps more relevant than ever. Certainly, his many successes, failures, and presidency will be a case study for many generations to come.
I have certainly learned a lot from this one individual, and since there has already been much said about Trump, today I want to add to this discussion from the point of view of happiness, such as:
- Is Trump happy?
- Will he make people’s lives happier?
In other words, what kind of benefits and threats to our collective happiness and well-being can we foresee coming from him being in power for the next three years?
The Man Who Needs No Introduction
Firstly, we know that Trump is a businessman and now a politician. Many of his decisions for the upcoming future will be based on who he promised what, such as the deals he made to be in power today. As such, I personally don’t foresee these being completely innocent transactions. For example, he is giving positions of power to questionable people, meaning that it won’t all be done for the greater good of humanity or the USA specifically.
On the other hand, I don’t particularly see Trump being too concerned with this, as he has already dodged the bullet of being almost arrested on multiple charges. This is one reason why we can say that Trump is happy today. He walked a dangerous path and played a dangerous game, dodging metaphorical and physical bullets, but now he is ultimately in power and gets to do what he wants.
In a way, the question of Trump’s happiness is a relative one, related to the moment in time we consider him. For instance, during his first presidency, he seemed to have been a different person than he is today, almost less energetic, probably thinking at that time that he had made it, unable to foresee future problems later on. He learned from his past mistakes and applied himself with new energy to his second presidency.
Trump’s Fury and Ego
Furthermore, we find Trump to be driven by his ego, as honestly speaking, no one without an ego runs for office, and arguably, almost everyone has an ego. However, in Trump’s case, we can see a lot of ego when we consider how vengeful he is towards the people who wronged him, such as firing a large part of the FBI responsible for investigating him, while praising those who helped him along the way and giving them undeserving positions of power.
This egoism also seems to be reflected in his desire to gain and keep power for its own sake. He is interested in increasing his net worth, gaining more attention, and providing himself and his supporters with even more power and wealth first, often being unmoved by the damage he is causing to everyone else.
In this way, from happiness literature, we know that egoism is often negatively correlated with personal happiness, suggesting that more success, money, and power don’t automatically lead to happiness. In fact, in many ways, there is a reverse correlation between money and happiness, such as the fear of losing it all, making unethical decisions to gain and keep power, and people trying to question and undermine Trump at every turn, which is not a good position for mental health.
Conversely, the opposite of ego is altruism, such as the desire to make everyone’s life better, often sacrificing one’s own well-being to do so. This includes a concern for fellow humans, animals, and the planet—something that Trump isn’t doing, as exemplified by his exit from the Paris Agreement on Climate.
Progress and Regress in Trump’s Hands
At the same time, while we are complaining about some very harsh decisions being made by Trump and his administration, we can also say that finally, something major is happening. Before Trump, people would make small improvements, trying to maintain the status quo, for the most part reacting to events as they see them happening, complaining that their hands are tied by bureaucracy and past decisions made by previous leaders.
Conversely, Trump doesn’t seem to be concerned with small improvements. Instead, he looks at the bigger picture, connecting dots that other people wouldn’t connect, testing his ideas on the general public, and seeing if they will stick, such as his idea to take over Gaza, build a wall between Mexico and the USA, buy or invade Greenland, and much more. In this way, he is certainly thinking outside the box, which many people consider “crazy,” while Trump is making power moves that aren’t designed to improve public well-being in small percentages but rather multiply it several times over.
This characteristic of Trump reminds me of the world through the eyes of a supermodel—someone who seems to be living in a different universe where normal rules of society just don’t apply to them. This is also why he is able to say things that other people would think are crazy or borderline insane, as he seems to live in another world where what he says goes, and people move mountains to make it happen. From this perspective, it is less surprising that he actually says these things, as he has a lot of experience making things work, which is something that wouldn’t work for most other people. In his mind, the question is often, “why not?” with nothing to do with the perceived feasibility of the task.
He is an idea man whose job is not to understand if something is possible but rather to grow exponentially regardless of where he finds himself. This is indeed an important characteristic that many former presidents lacked, as most people played within a box, shying away from major decisions, even when they seemed to be forced to do something or faced with something that didn’t work.
What Democrats Can Learn From Trump
Interestingly, the education system in the USA has been a subject of jokes on an international level, as the US population often doesn’t seem to know some basic things about geography or how the world works. This is also reflected in the low international level of education, while at the same time having the highest cost of study in the world. This has been a long-standing concern, with several educational reforms achieving almost nothing worth mentioning, while at the same time, no one seemed to want to do anything about it. This situation persisted until Trump, who finally decided to bring the whole education system down, not offering anything substantial as an alternative but at least addressing the major issue.
He also did the same thing by defunding other organizations that are probably working but at the same time underperforming in so many ways. This is because governments are often working very inefficiently, being given too much or too little budget, while everyone just assumes it to be the normal part of things, and no one really looks at why this is the case.
In the case of Trump, he is shaking the hornets’ nests, and naturally, people are complaining about it. However, it is being done smartly, in a way, although it is not always possible to address all the problems that come with trying to change an old, outdated, and in many ways inefficient organization.
In this way, personally, I like this approach as many things need to be changed. However, at the same time, I question if this approach could not be taken to its logical extreme by addressing other parts of US governance, such as the taboo of touching military spending. The government is saving relative pennies, for example, on foreign aid while being afraid and unwilling to touch the biggest hornets’ nests of them all due to the fear of public backlash.
And there are many other parts of the government that are not working correctly, while they are subjects of controversy (e.g., problems with US medicine, the legal apparatus, and the highest incarceration rate in the world), as no one is willing to touch them, complaining about them but unwilling to do anything about them, until Trump, who is making power moves to change things that were assumed to be broken but beyond the reach of anyone to fix.
Of course, it is possible that Trump will eventually address these points, as his hands are already busy with numerous other tasks, while at the same time, I also question how intentional the whole process is in the first place.
And this is where democrats can learn from Trump, as they are currently questioning themselves for losing to Trump, reviewing their values, how they work, what republicans, and specifically Trump, are doing better. They are also evaluating how they alienated a large part of their constituency by being too politically correct and unwilling to adopt, learn, and change, as they tend to play it too safe and strictly adhere to the rules, without questioning why certain rules exist in the first place, while Republicans are not afraid to play dirty, and as a result, they won in a major way, putting Democrats to shame in the process.
In this way, I see Trump’s tactic is to fire anyone who is blocking the decision-making process, replacing them with more willing candidates, and start changing things that he wants to change. This seems to be working, but somehow until today, no one was able to imagine and therefore do. This is the redeeming factor of Trump, as he knows how to change large organizations, making them more efficient, even if something is done less than ethically and parts of it have to be destroyed without giving clear guidance on how to fix them in return.
The Role of Elon Musk
Again, there seems to be a clear difference between Trump’s first and second terms. We don’t know if this is because Trump has learned the lessons from his first presidency or because he is now surrounded by new faces, such as Elon Musk, who seems to have his fingers in many parts of the government, making the country run not on one but on two businessmen.
However, because of who Elon Musk is, it seems that more innovation is coming with his improvements. He is, after all, a visionary who has been given all the power without any responsibilities, which is a truly great position to be in, as he is able to change everything with complete authority and no oversight. Again, this is probably not completely done by the books, as was the case with some private government information ending up in the hands of interns working for Elon Musk, but the results seem to speak for themselves. There appears to be an exponentially higher attention to detail compared to when governments are being run by just one politician.
Is It All an Act?
There is also a possibility that Trump has learned to say the most ridiculous things just to get attention. After all, it works, and people seem to fall off their chairs when they hear him speak. So when he says something new, people think he is serious, sometimes wondering if he has lost his mind, while Trump is still playing with ideas in his mind, testing to see if they stick.
However, the backlash some of the things Trump says creates a lot of attention, conversation, and therefore power for Trump. While other leaders are reacting to the world around them, Trump is leading his agenda, dictating events rather than being affected by them. It works too, as some of the smartest people in the world are losing their minds, time, and energy talking about Trump, while Trump is just generating ideas, changing the world in the process.
Is Trump Happy?
In a way, I started this blog post by asking whether Trump is happy, and in many ways, we concluded that he is and isn’t, such as my suggestion that being rich, famous, and powerful isn’t always an answer to many of life’s problems and certainly it doesn’t guarantee happiness.
However, we only live once, so we might as well live our lives to the fullest, with Donald J. Trump definitely doing a great job of not settling in, as no matter how far he gets, he still finds a way to go even further, making him a great example of how to live life and behave in politics. From him, we can learn both what we can and shouldn’t do, breaking a line of political stagnation that we have become so accustomed to.
And while we can and will continue to argue over some amazing and insane proposals of Trump, considering the benefit or damage it will do to US politics and, as a result, to the rest of the world for generations to come, one thing is for sure: we will learn a lot from Trump. He isn’t someone who we can control, tame, or ignore by conventional tactics, so he is definitely making us think a lot about the status quo, about how and why certain things should be done in a certain way. This personally gives me a missing puzzle piece in politics: how to make major changes in a system that often seems unchangeable while at the same time being rotten at its core.
Facing Criticism to the Extreme
So, is Trump happy? I would say that he is and isn’t. He now has absolute power, has squashed some of his harshest critics, and for the foreseeable future, he has the power to reshape the world as he sees fit. Surely, this will come with even more criticism, but Trump teaches us that sometimes it is better to do something than to overthink what other people will say about us in the process. Of course, we should try to do it all in the most ethical way possible, but at the same time, this has a risk of stagnation, as it makes us overly concerned with trying to please everyone, and not doing enough to take things to the next level.
However, if we simply silence this inner voice, we can achieve a lot in our lives. Often, we can address many of life’s problems by moving forward, seemingly leaving old problems behind, silencing old critics, while we are already reinventing the future.
In this way, happiness is found in progress, while stagnation often brings out problems and makes people unhappy. In this way, Trump does have many problems, people who hate him, and he is creating a lot of controversy everywhere he goes. However, at the same time, he is doing it all by constantly improving his situation, pushing forward, and trusting his teams and supporters to address some of these issues while he focuses on the bigger picture, living his life to the fullest and without personal regrets.
General Happiness Advice
Here, I’m forced to review my personal life and those of my students, as we are all often guilty of playing it too safe, not growing fast enough, and making mistakes by overthinking the necessary moves we need to make to be happy. Of course, we want to do it all in a controlled, logical, and ethical way, but this shouldn’t come at the cost of missing out on opportunities.
There are things that I have known I need to do for some time now, and now I will give them an extra level of commitment to achieve them. I know that living in the era of Trump, AI technologies, and other fast-moving markets, we are always at risk of being left behind, so we have to adjust our personal pace to keep up with it all.
In this way, I’m planning to match the growth of this blog, personal coaching, and my own personal growth to the discussed level. This is a commitment, but at the same time, this is exactly what I need to do to help my students to be happy in the modern world. So if you are ready to jump with me on a fast track to happiness and success, continue reading this blog and consider our happiness courses.
Stay happy.
