# Post ts_111905284428670197 - Post ID: `ts_111905284428670197` - Platform: Truth Social - Posted: 2024-02-10T04:25:30.069Z (UTC) - Deleted: no - Repost: no - Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111905284428670197 - Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111905284428670197/analysis ## Post text > https://thenationalpulse.com/2024/01/24/wag-the-dog-writer-says-trump-the-best-prez-since-honest-abe/ ## Engagement - Likes: 10,384 - Reposts: 2,415 - Replies: 178 - Views: unknown - Metrics collected: 2026-02-01T01:19:51.372Z (UTC) # Analysis _Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-03-21T03:50:28.709Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._ ## Summary This bare-URL post — sharing a National Pulse article in which playwright David Mamet (Wag the Dog, Glengarry Glen Ross) calls Trump "the best president since Abraham Lincoln" — represents low-intensity, high-value narcissistic supply delivery. The post's mechanism is proxy grandiosity: outsourcing a maximal self-aggrandizing claim to a credentialed cultural figure, thereby importing the claim's legitimacy while maintaining deniability of immodesty. The cultural weight of Mamet specifically — a Pulitzer Prize winner representing the intellectual establishment — makes this supply delivery unusually potent for a subject who combines contempt for elites with deep craving for their validation. The post's most clinically interesting feature is the apparent unawareness of the Wag the Dog irony: that film is a satire of presidential reality-manufacture and distraction, a template critics regularly apply to Trump. That the author's prestige overrides any filtering for self-referential irony is consistent with documented patterns of supply-seeking bypassing reflective cognition. The post appears in a same-evening cluster preoccupied with the Trump-Lincoln / Biden-cognitive-decline contrast, timed to the Special Counsel Hur report. Late-night timing (11:25 PM ET) suggests authentic posting. Claims embedded in the shared article — particularly that Trump "closed the border" and "brought peace to the Middle East" — are factually false to mostly false, endorsed by implication. # Analysis: Truth Social Post — February 10, 2024 (04:25 UTC) ## Overview This post consists solely of a URL to a *National Pulse* article reporting that David Mamet — Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter of the 1997 political satire *Wag the Dog* — called Trump "the best president since Abraham Lincoln" in an *UnHerd* interview. There is no added text. The post functions as pure narcissistic supply delivery via proxy endorsement. --- ## Authorship Attribution **Local time:** UTC 04:25 = **11:25 PM EST** on Feb 9. Trump had been in Harrisburg, PA for an NRA event that evening; he was likely still in the Eastern time zone or en route back to Mar-a-Lago. **Timing verdict:** Late-night posting is a strong authentic-Trump indicator. However, the complete absence of any text, caption, or commentary is atypical of Trump's authentic posts, which almost always contain some verbal framing even when sharing links. This tension creates moderate uncertainty. The late hour nudges toward authenticity; the absence of language nudges toward an aide queuing a pre-found article. **Best estimate: authentic, low-medium confidence.** Trump may have found the article and simply dropped the link, letting the headline speak for itself — a known pattern when the headline does all the emotional work for him. --- ## Level 1: Dispositional Traits The post activates primarily **low agreeableness** (self-elevation via external comparison to Lincoln, the apex of presidential status), **high extraversion** (public broadcasting of self-validating content), and **high neuroticism** (the supply-seeking behavior itself is insecurity-driven). Conscientiousness is not salient. The bare URL form suggests impulse over deliberation. --- ## Level 2: Characteristic Adaptations **Agency motives** dominate entirely — specifically **status** and **validation**. The post seeks to inject into the audience's minds the association: *Trump = Lincoln-tier president*, without Trump having to say it himself. This is a sophisticated (if habitual) technique: proxy grandiosity, where the grandiose claim is laundered through a third-party cultural authority. The cultural currency of Mamet specifically is significant. He is not a political operative; he is a Pulitzer Prize winner with serious literary credentials. For Trump, whose relationship with cultural/intellectual elites is one of chronic resentment and yearning, a Mamet endorsement carries unusual supply value. This is not just any pundit — it is the kind of validation Trump believes he is owed from the establishment that has always looked down on him. **Schema:** Self as historical titan; world as a place where the truth of his greatness is finally being recognized by even the most credentialed cultural arbiters. --- ## Level 3: Narrative Identity - **Protagonist role:** World-historical figure; vindicated statesman on par with Lincoln - **Narrative sequence:** Redemption — cultural elites who once dismissed him are coming around; the comeback narrative is being validated from unexpected quarters - **Identity claim:** "I am the best president since Abraham Lincoln" (via proxy) - **Contrasting other:** Biden, framed in the sourced article as "a senile old bag-man" — a characterization Trump implicitly endorses by sharing without caveat The Lincoln comparison is the apex of presidential self-narrative. Lincoln is the near-universal #1 in scholarly presidential rankings, associated with moral courage, saving the union, and abolition. Deploying this comparison — even via proxy — represents maximum grandiosity within the genre. --- ## Level 4: Clinical Indicators ### Malignant Narcissism - **Narcissistic features:** Grandiosity (Lincoln comparison), need for excessive admiration (supply-seeking post), belief in being special/unique (best since Lincoln = historically exceptional). High salience. - **Antisocial features:** Minimal direct expression here; the article's attack on Biden ("senile bag-man") carries an antisocial flavor by implicit endorsement. - **Paranoid features:** Absent in this post. - **Ego-syntonic sadism:** Low; the derogation of Biden is incidental rather than the focus. ### Narcissistic Dynamics - **Trigger:** Supply-seeking. No apparent injury. The post is affirmative, not defensive. - **Narcissistic state:** Grandiose. Expansive, self-aggrandizing, historically positioned. - **Rage:** Absent. ### Defense Mechanisms - **Idealization** (neurotic-immature): Self-idealization via proxy — allowing Mamet to articulate the grandiose self-image Trump believes but cannot always directly assert without seeming immodest. - **Denial** (pathological): By sharing, Trump implicitly endorses claims (e.g., "closed the border," "brought peace to the Middle East") that are factually disputed or false — a denial of the documentary record. --- ## The "Wag the Dog" Irony — Analytically Significant This warrants extended treatment. *Wag the Dog* (1997, screenplay by David Mamet) is a political satire in which a president facing a sex scandal days before an election enlists a spin doctor and a Hollywood producer to fabricate a fake war with Albania as distraction. The film is widely cited as a cultural template for manufactured political crisis and media manipulation. The phrase "wag the dog" has become shorthand for exactly the kind of reality-construction that critics attribute to Trump. Trump sharing praise from this film's author — without any apparent awareness of the self-referential irony — is psychologically revealing. Three interpretations: 1. **Unawareness:** Trump does not connect "Wag the Dog" to its satirical content and sees only "Pulitzer Prize winner says I'm like Lincoln." Most likely. 2. **Indifference:** Trump is aware of the irony but does not care; the supply value overrides any reputational consideration. Also plausible. 3. **Deliberate provocation:** Trump enjoys the transgressive quality of the association. Less likely. The most probable reading (option 1) illuminates a consistent pattern: the supply value of external validation bypasses any filtering for contextual irony or self-awareness. When the headline feeds the grandiosity, the source's associations are irrelevant. --- ## Rhetorical Techniques - **Appeal to authority:** Pulitzer Prize-winning cultural figure as endorser — unusually high-status proxy - **Hyperbole/superlative:** "Best prez since Honest Abe" — maximum comparative claim - **Ad hominem via proxy:** Biden characterized as "a senile old bag-man" — Trump does not say this himself but amplifies it - **Juxtaposition:** Lincoln (titan of history) vs. Biden (cognitively impaired) — implicit in sharing - **Laundered grandiosity:** Third-party framing of claims Trump cannot directly assert without appearing immodest --- ## Contextual Integration This post appears within a cluster on the same day that includes: 1. An attack on Haley as "Birdbrain" dying in polls 2. A joke about using Biden's "bad memory" defense if he "loses his marbles" in 25 years The Biden memory joke is particularly telling. The Special Counsel Hur report calling Biden an "elderly man with poor memory" had just dropped. The Mamet article, written weeks earlier, contains the same Biden-cognitive-decline framing ("senile old bag-man"). Trump's sharing it at 11:25 PM — shortly after posting the Biden "marbles" joke — suggests a thematic evening preoccupied with the cognitive competence contrast: *Biden is mentally failing; I am Lincoln-tier.* The two posts work as a pair even if not consciously constructed that way. --- ## Fact Verification | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |-------|---------|----------| | "Trump brought peace to the Middle East" | **Half True** | Abraham Accords (2020) normalized Israel-UAE, Israel-Bahrain, Israel-Morocco, Israel-Sudan relations — a genuine diplomatic achievement. However, the Israel-Palestine conflict was unresolved and the region was not 'at peace' comprehensively. Gaza/West Bank tensions continued throughout. Claim is accurate as shorthand for the Accords but false as a general regional characterization. | | "He closed the border" | **Mostly False** | Border encounters and crossings fluctuated significantly during Trump's term and were not 'closed' in any sustained policy sense. CBP data shows various periods of high encounters. While Trump pursued aggressive enforcement measures (Remain in Mexico, Title 42 usage began COVID era), the border was never operationally closed. | | "He made the US an energy exporter" | **Mostly True** | The US became a net total energy exporter in 2019-2020. This is accurate. However, the trajectory began under Obama's fracking boom; Trump's deregulatory policies accelerated it. Attribution to Trump alone is an oversimplification, but the factual core is correct. | | "Trump is the best president since Abraham Lincoln" | **Unverifiable** | This is an opinion claim. Academic presidential ranking surveys (APSA, C-SPAN, Siena) consistently place Trump near the bottom of presidential rankings, below Lincoln by a wide margin. Mamet's claim contradicts scholarly consensus but cannot be fact-checked as opinion. | Overall Veracity: 50% ## Summary Minimal danger indicators. No cognitive anomalies assessable from a bare URL post. Longitudinal note: the Lincoln comparison is a recurring element of Trump's grandiose self-narrative; this post outsources it to a credentialed cultural voice, amplifying its legitimacy signal. ## Authorship Analysis **Uncertain** (score: 60%) ### Indicators - Late-night posting: 11:25 PM EST strongly favors authentic Trump - Bare URL with zero added text is atypical of authentic posts that usually frame content verbally - Emotional valence of headline (Lincoln comparison) may have made commentary feel unnecessary - Article found likely by Trump himself or shared by staff queuing favorable coverage ## Psychological Profile ### State **Grandiose State** **Trigger:** Supply Seeking (David Mamet / National Pulse article) Sentiment: +0.72 ### Clinical **Malignant Narcissism:** - Narcissistic: 72% - Antisocial: 18% - Paranoid: 5% - Sadism: 10% **Defense Mechanisms:** - idealization (immature) - denial (pathological) **Cognitive Complexity:** - Complexity: 10% **Parasocial Techniques:** - Proxy validation: outsourcing grandiose self-claim to credentialed cultural authority - Implicit comparison frame: Lincoln (self) vs. cognitively impaired Biden (rival) - Supply injection without direct boasting — plausible deniability of immodesty ## Fact Checks (4) _The model's verdicts from 2026-03-21._ > Trump brought peace to the Middle East **HALF TRUE** Abraham Accords (2020) normalized Israel-UAE, Israel-Bahrain, Israel-Morocco, Israel-Sudan relations — a genuine diplomatic achievement. However, the Israel-Palestine conflict was unresolved and the region was not 'at peace' comprehensively. Gaza/West Bank tensions continued throughout. Claim is accurate as shorthand for the Accords but false as a general regional characterization. Sources: Abraham Accords, September 2020; General knowledge of Middle East conflict history > He closed the border **MOSTLY FALSE** Border encounters and crossings fluctuated significantly during Trump's term and were not 'closed' in any sustained policy sense. CBP data shows various periods of high encounters. While Trump pursued aggressive enforcement measures (Remain in Mexico, Title 42 usage began COVID era), the border was never operationally closed. Sources: CBP historical encounter data (general knowledge) > He made the US an energy exporter **MOSTLY TRUE** The US became a net total energy exporter in 2019-2020. This is accurate. However, the trajectory began under Obama's fracking boom; Trump's deregulatory policies accelerated it. Attribution to Trump alone is an oversimplification, but the factual core is correct. Sources: EIA energy export data (general knowledge) > Trump is the best president since Abraham Lincoln **UNVERIFIABLE** This is an opinion claim. Academic presidential ranking surveys (APSA, C-SPAN, Siena) consistently place Trump near the bottom of presidential rankings, below Lincoln by a wide margin. Mamet's claim contradicts scholarly consensus but cannot be fact-checked as opinion. Sources: APSA/C-SPAN presidential ranking surveys (general knowledge) Overall Veracity: 50% ## Tags - narcissistic-supply-seeking (92%) - proxy-grandiosity (88%) - lincoln-comparison (85%) - appeal-to-authority (80%) - wag-the-dog-irony (75%) - biden-contrast (70%) - late-night-authentic (60%) - false-record-claims (65%) ## That day _From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._ **Rally-Fueled Grandiosity Builds to Apocalyptic "Final Battle" Climax as Hur Report Injury Gets Metabolized into Mobilization Fuel** Trump spent the day barnstorming from an NRA forum in Pennsylvania to a get-out-the-vote rally in South Carolina, posting 30 times across both events. He was in a largely dominant, confident mood — mocking Nikki Haley in five separate posts despite holding an 80% primary lead, and toasting his Nevada caucus blowout. The one sore spot was the Special Counsel Hur report on Biden's classified documents, which triggered a burst of real anger about double standards in prosecution. The day closed with escalating rally rhetoric that peaked in a sweeping "Final Battle" post naming eight enemy groups for elimination — the most dangerous language of the day, delivered not in anger but in triumph. Full digest for 2024-02-10: https://trump.fm/date/2024-02-10/analysis ## Citation - APA: Trump, D. J. (2024, February 10). https://thenationalpulse.com/2024/01/24/wag-the-do... [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_111905284428670197 - MLA: Trump, Donald J. "https://thenationalpulse.com/2024/01/24/wag-the-dog-writer-s..." Truth Social, 10 Feb. 2024. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_111905284428670197. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026. - Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "https://thenationalpulse.com/2024/01/24/wag-the-dog-writer-s...," Truth Social, February 10, 2024, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_111905284428670197. ## For agents - Site overview: https://trump.fm/llms.txt - API specification: https://trump.fm/openapi.json - MCP server: https://trump.fm/mcp (search and fetch tools, no auth) - This post as JSON: https://trump.fm/api/posts/ts_111905284428670197 - Analysis as JSON: https://trump.fm/api/analysis/ts_111905284428670197 - All citation formats: https://trump.fm/api/cite/ts_111905284428670197 - Same day: https://trump.fm/date/2024-02-10 - The record alone, without the analysis: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111905284428670197.md?analysis=false _Markdown view of a trump.fm page. Post, analysis, date, feed, contradictions, search and about pages answer in markdown at their URL with `.md` appended (`/index.md` for the home page), or when sent `Accept: text/markdown`._