Almost 250 years ago, William Blake provided prophetic reassurance and guidance for metastasizing Trump-era trauma. "If the fool," he wrote in Proverbs of Hell, "would persist in his folly, he would become wise." And, also, "without contraries there is no progression."
Blake affirmed a truth I’ve come to appreciate in 50 years of therapeutic work with severely traumatized individuals and whole populations, and in my study of the rise and fall of religious cults. The devastation caused by psychological trauma can, as the Greek origin of the word tells us, offer opportunities as well as danger. And often enough it's only the most dramatic personal and collective devastation — addicts and alcoholics "hitting bottom," adults facing a cancer diagnosis or losing children to gun violence, cult members betrayed by charismatic leaders, and whole populations devastated by wars and dictators — that alert people to this possibility.
This, I believe, is what's happening as Trump's offenses to decency, justice, our present well-being, and future prospects as a species, grow more menacing: as repeated insults and progressively more grandiose behavior wake a fearful, somnolent people to cataclysmic dangers we have ignored or denied.
Russell Vought, the Director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, proclaimed and deliberately precipitated this modern American crisis. Gleeful about the damage and apparently oblivious of the long-term consequences, he famously vowed to "put [federal employees] in trauma."
Elon Musk’s raised chainsaw at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference was an early and grotesque emblem: His DOGE ripped apart USAID programs that preserved the lives of millions of the world’s poorest children, decimated potentially life-saving NIH research, and hobbled services to veterans, and the poor and disabled who depend on Medicaid.
Meanwhile, Trump’s promiscuous self-aggrandizement began to shock people of all political persuasions who value modesty and decorum: a bellicose revenge seeker claiming the Institute of Peace as his own; a man insensitive to fine art, plastering his name on the façade of the Kennedy Center, and preening over models of a massive, ugly White House ballroom.
More recently, Trump’s destructive actions have taken center stage in areas of the country that were vital to his election: foreign-born doctors, currently one quarter of the medical workforce, are being denied visas and forced out of rural areas where they are desperately needed; cuts to the forest service and environmental protections are making the red states in the Midwest and West more vulnerable to fires; and the exploitation and destruction of federal lands is shocking Trump-supporting gun enthusiasts who were accustomed to hunting freely.
Trauma caused by terrible losses and great disorder obliterates dependable security and shatters previous beliefs and norms. It can also, especially if it is appreciated and nurtured by trusted others, open the door to a new identity, to wider understanding, deeper wisdom, and more creative and compassionate action — to what psychologists have come to recognize as “post-traumatic growth.” As the trauma deepens and widens, it's happening now in the United States.
ICE actions in Minnesota made previous excesses and aggression crystal-clear and fueled the fire of community resistance. The indiscriminate brutality of poorly trained, heavily armed, and masked officers and the murder and subsequent demonization of innocent American citizens united the previously fragmented local populace and inspired disgust across the country. Two-thirds of Americans, including half of all Republicans, disapprove of ICE cruelty to vulnerable children and their families. Veterans with whom I’ve spoken, including former Trump supporters, are appalled by what they feel is bringing disgrace to the uniform they once wore.
In recent months, the war in Iran, utterly incoherent in its conception, brutal in its prosecution, calamitous in its economic consequences, and shameful in its triumphant celebration of destruction — bizarrely mixing lethality with Christian piety — is bringing inescapable trauma to America and the whole world.
Each No Kings Day demonstration turns out an additional million participants, including more and more who say they voted for Trump. Christians are horrified by the President’s profane and blasphemous Easter Sunday threat to "destroy Iranian civilization" and his AI-generated image presenting himself as Jesus healing the sick. Right-wing influencers, including Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene, are railing against the war. Despairing calls from deeply troubled active-duty military to the GI Rights Hotline are doubling. Even a few timorous Republican officials are voicing concerns.
The casual cruelty of Trump’s first term has now curdled into programmatic viciousness, and his grandiosity has inflated to megalomania: the man who said he was the only one "who could save America" now tells us that was "saved by God to make America great again." And every day now, the parade of offenses to common sense and decency is accelerating and provoking ever greater disbelief and disgust.
The proposed $1.8 billion fund to compensate those with grievances against the government, including January 6th rioters who assaulted police officers, disappeared under bipartisan accusations of “slush.” The Trump Administration’s proposed regulations to make it easier to mail guns, profiting Grab A Gun and Donald Trump Jr., paired with Trump urging Congress to make mail-in voting more difficult, sent heads spinning. Meanwhile, the slime accumulating on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pond, a residue of Trump-ordered “improvement” provides a visible symbol of administration actions.
When Trump took office in 2017, I compared him in The Guardian to the Fool, the archetypal character whose antics puncture inflated authority and challenge perceived pieties. He was, even then, colossally self-absorbed and dangerously vengeful to the most vulnerable. But he was also, I suggested, our teacher — holding a mirror up to those of us who judged and condemned him, compelling us to examine ourselves for evidence of the greed and cruelty, the self-absorption and mendacity, which he shamelessly exhibited. He invited us to learn from him, even as many of us opposed his policies.
I believe the President still serves this function, still invites us to recognize and deal with the characterological shortcomings we share with him. But in his second term, the Fool’s illumination has dimmed to the ominous darkness of the Fool’s malign descendant, the Joker — familiar to most of us as Batman’s diabolical antagonist. The Fool invites and challenges us to self-knowledge. Trump, the Joker, threatens order and values we hold dear, delights in chaos, produces outcomes that are ever more widely regarded as repugnant, and demands resistance.
Blake prophesied that the Fool’s folly would bring him wisdom. I would amend his words for this time of Trump trauma. As our President bathes in his triumphantly destructive folly, we who are witnessing and suffering its consequences — including those he lulled to sleep with professions of care and protection, and those who cheered his promises to put us first — are the ones who can become wise. Wise enough to see how dangerously disturbed our President is, how little he cares about us, how shamelessly he embodies self-absorption, greed, and revenge. Wise enough perhaps to heal the divisiveness and destruction he is bringing, to be the self-aware, compassionate change so many of us hope for.
James S. Gordon, MD, a psychiatrist, is the author of Transforming Trauma: The Path to Hope and Healing.
