# Post x_1017025848409550848

- Post ID: `x_1017025848409550848`
- Platform: X (Twitter)
- Posted: 2018-07-11T12:40:32.000Z (UTC)
- Deleted: no
- Repost: no
- Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/x_1017025848409550848
- Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/x_1017025848409550848/analysis
- Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/x_1017025848409550848.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording)

## Post text

> ...things up, better than ever before, but it can’t go too quickly. I am fighting for a level playing field for our farmers, and will win!

## Engagement

- Likes: 70,612
- Reposts: 13,687
- Replies: 0
- Views: unknown
- Metrics collected: 2026-01-31T23:43:13.400Z (UTC)

# Analysis

_Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-03-15T06:16:47.762Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._

# Analysis: x_1017025848409550848 (2018-07-11)

## Overview

This post is the terminal fragment of a two-part thread continuation, immediately following the tweet ending "I will open..." The text reads: "...things up, better than ever before, but it can't go too quickly. I am fighting for a level playing field for our farmers, and will win!" As a split-tweet construction, it must be read in conjunction with its predecessor to constitute a complete semantic unit.

## Authorship Attribution

**Local time assessment:** Trump was in Brussels, Belgium (UTC+2, CEST) for the NATO Summit. UTC 12:40 converts to 14:40 local — mid-afternoon, within normal business hours. This timing pattern is consistent with aide-managed posting. However, several stylistic markers complicate that reading:

- The split-tweet structure (using "I will open... / ...things up") is a distinctively informal, stream-of-consciousness construction rarely employed by professional communications staff
- The emotional first-person framing ("I am fighting... I am in Brussels, but always thinking") is consistent with authentic Trump voice
- "will win!" — no hedging, no qualifiers — matches Trump's characteristic assertive register
- The topical segue from NATO grievance to domestic agricultural populism mid-trip is emotionally authentic (the prior tweet explicitly signals this: "I am in Brussels, *but always thinking about our farmers*")

**Verdict:** Likely authentic Trump, possibly with light aide coordination given the summit context, but the split-tweet construction and emotional directness are strong authenticity indicators. Confidence: medium.

## Level 1: Dispositional Traits (Big Five)

- **Extraversion (high):** Dominant, assertive declarative stance. "I am fighting... will win!" is high-dominance signaling.
- **Agreeableness (low):** Adversarial framing ("fighting," "level playing field" implying unfair opposition) with no cooperative language.
- **Conscientiousness (low-moderate):** The split-tweet suggests impulsive posting rather than planned communication. Content itself references policy continuity, but form is spontaneous.
- **Neuroticism (low-moderate):** No panic or vulnerability markers; controlled combativeness.
- **Openness (low):** Rigid us/them framing; zero acknowledgment of complexity in agricultural trade negotiations.

## Level 2: Characteristic Adaptations

**Agency motives dominate:** Power ("will win!"), achievement ("better than ever before"), status ("I am fighting" positions him as champion-proxy for farmers). Zero communion language — no warmth, no empathy for the farmers beyond instrumental political framing.

**Schemas:**
- Self: Lone fighter, undefeatable champion
- World: Rigged against Americans; requires a powerful corrector
- Others: Farmers as sympathetic victims; unnamed foreign adversaries as exploiters

**Goal structure:** The post reveals a dual strategic goal — validating his Brussels confrontational posture on trade while maintaining domestic base identification with the agricultural Midwest, a critical electoral constituency facing tariff blowback from his own China trade war policies at this time.

## Level 3: Narrative Identity

**Protagonist role:** Classic Warrior/Champion — "I am fighting for" positions farmers as the persecuted constituency and Trump as their proxy combatant. The language of combat ("fighting," "level playing field") evokes a just-war frame.

**Narrative sequence:** Contamination-to-redemption arc compressed into two tweets: *15 years of decline + foreign exploitation → Trump arrives → "things up, better than ever before" → and will win more.* This is a classic populist rescue narrative.

**Identity claims:** Fighter for the forgotten; someone who acts rather than talks; winner.

**Contrasting other:** Unnamed foreign governments operating unfair trade barriers. The villain is diffuse (unnamed), which broadens the grievance while avoiding diplomatic specificity during an active summit.

## Level 4: Clinical Indicators

### Narcissistic State: Grandiose (mild-moderate)
The post is confident, forward-projecting, and victory-certain without notable vulnerability markers. The guarantee ("will win!") without qualification is consistent with grandiose narcissistic presentation but at a baseline level for this subject — not an acute episode.

### Trigger Assessment
- **Type:** Maintenance/supply-seeking, with a reactive defensive component
- **Source:** The prior context is significant: Trump was at the NATO summit, openly attacking Germany and European allies. Agricultural tariff retaliations from China and the EU (affecting his rural base) were producing real political costs. This tweet represents proactive base-management — reassuring farmers that the trade disruption is purposeful and temporary.
- **Injury type:** None acute in this post; this is anticipatory narrative management

### Defense Mechanisms
- **Rationalization (neurotic):** "it can't go too quickly" — acknowledging the pain of tariff disruptions while framing slowness as strategic virtue rather than policy consequence
- **Distortion (pathological, mild):** The claim that things are already "better than ever before" for farmers is empirically contestable given real-time soybean price declines from Chinese retaliatory tariffs

### Narcissistic Rage: Absent
No rage markers in this post. Controlled, forward-looking.

## Cognitive Status

**Complexity score (vs. 2018 baseline):** Within normal range for this period. Simple syntax, short declarative sentences, minimal subordinate clauses — consistent with Trump's established baseline rather than deviation from it.

**Language production:** No word-finding difficulty, paraphasia, or tangentiality apparent. The split-tweet construction may superficially suggest incoherence but is a deliberate (if informal) threading technique.

**Perseveration:** The agricultural/trade theme appears across multiple consecutive posts — consistent with thematic focus during a trade-policy trip rather than pathological perseveration.

## Rhetorical & Propaganda Techniques

- **Populist appeal:** Farmers as sympathetic proxy constituency
- **Hyperbole:** "better than ever before" — superlative claiming improvement over any prior period
- **Implied false dichotomy:** Fighting vs. not fighting; level vs. rigged
- **Victimhood attribution (to constituency):** "15 years" of neglect by prior administrations (not stated in this fragment but fully present in preceding tweet)
- **Victory guarantee:** "will win!" — builds parasocial confidence; discourages doubt or alternative analysis
- **Urgency modulation:** "can't go too quickly" — rare instance of restraint framing, likely intended to pre-manage expectations about tariff relief timeline

**Dehumanizing language:** Absent  
**Violent imagery:** Absent  
**Stochastic terrorism indicators:** Absent

## Gaslighting & Reality Distortion

- **Mild distortion:** Claiming things are already "better than ever before" for farmers while soybean prices were declining sharply due to Chinese retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural exports is a documented reality inversion — but rhetorically constructed as future trajectory rather than present fact, providing plausible deniability.
- **No DARVO pattern present**
- **No epistemic closure demands in this post**

## Order/Chaos Dynamics

- **Role:** Order restorer — positioning himself as correcting decades of trade disorder that disadvantaged American farmers
- **Grievance mapping:** Intense, specific (15 years, soybean prices), directed at foreign trade practices and implicitly prior administrations
- **Hierarchy dynamics:** Elevates farmers (traditionally mid-status constituency); implicitly diminishes foreign governments and prior U.S. trade negotiators

## Archetypal Analysis

**Primary:** Warrior/Champion — active combat mode, fighting on behalf of an aggrieved constituency  
**Secondary:** Savior — the one who returns/arrives to fix what was broken for 15 years  
**Shadow projection:** The "rigged" playing field projects the subject's own zero-sum competitive psychology onto international trade systems

## Danger Assessment

**Level: None**  
Standard policy rhetoric. No eliminationist language, no target + grievance + action triad, no mobilization signals.

## Fact Verification

| Claim | Verdict | Evidence |
|-------|---------|----------|
| "Things are better than ever before (for farmers)" | **Mostly False** | U.S. soybean futures fell approximately 20% from May to July 2018 due to Chinese retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural exports, a direct consequence of the administration's trade policies. Farm bankruptcy rates were rising in 2018. The trajectory was negative, not historically positive. |
| "I am fighting for a level playing field for our farmers" | **Unverifiable** | This is a characterization of intent and framing, not a verifiable factual claim. Whether tariff-based trade confrontation constitutes 'fighting for' farmers or imposing costs on them through retaliation is a contested policy judgment, not a factual assertion. |
| "Soy beans fell 50% from 2012 to my election (from prior tweet in thread)" | **Half True** | Soybean prices did fall from approximately $17/bushel in 2012 to approximately $9-10/bushel in 2016, a decline of roughly 40-50%. The numerical approximation is defensible. However, the causal framing — implying foreign trade barriers were responsible — is misleading; the primary drivers were record U.S. production yields and global supply increases, not trade barriers. |

Overall Veracity: 40%

## Authorship Analysis

**Self-Written** (score: 72%)

### Indicators

- Split-tweet threading construction ('I will open... / ...things up') is informal and stream-of-consciousness, atypical of professional aide drafting
- Emotional first-person anchoring ('I am in Brussels, but always thinking about our farmers') suggests authentic internal monologue
- Unconditional victory assertion ('will win!') matches Trump's authentic register; aides typically hedge
- Post timing (14:40 Brussels local) falls in business hours — a weak aide-authorship indicator
- Active NATO summit context suggests some communications staff oversight, reducing full authenticity confidence

## Psychological Profile

### State

**Grandiose State**

**Trigger:** Maintenance (Agricultural base managing retaliation costs from trade war; proactive narrative before farmer blowback materializes)

Sentiment: +0.38

### Clinical

**Malignant Narcissism:**
- Narcissistic: 55%
- Antisocial: 20%
- Paranoid: 20%
- Sadism: 0%

**Defense Mechanisms:**
- rationalization (neurotic)
- distortion (pathological)

**Cognitive Complexity:**
- Complexity: 28%

**Parasocial Techniques:**
- Proxy warrior positioning ('I am fighting FOR our farmers') builds parasocial bond through vicarious representation
- Victory guarantee ('will win!') creates shared anticipated triumph
- Geographic anchoring ('I am in Brussels, but always thinking about our farmers') simulates personal intimacy across distance

## Danger Assessment

**NONE**

### Gaslighting

- Claims conditions are 'better than ever before' for farmers while soybean prices had fallen ~20% since May 2018 due to retaliatory tariffs from the subject's own trade policies — mild reality inversion constructed as optimistic trajectory rather than present fact

## Fact Checks (3)

_The model's verdicts from 2026-03-15._

> Things are better than ever before (for farmers)

**MOSTLY FALSE**

U.S. soybean futures fell approximately 20% from May to July 2018 due to Chinese retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural exports, a direct consequence of the administration's trade policies. Farm bankruptcy rates were rising in 2018. The trajectory was negative, not historically positive.

Sources: USDA commodity price data 2018; Farm Bureau reports on retaliatory tariff impacts Q2 2018

> I am fighting for a level playing field for our farmers

**UNVERIFIABLE**

This is a characterization of intent and framing, not a verifiable factual claim. Whether tariff-based trade confrontation constitutes 'fighting for' farmers or imposing costs on them through retaliation is a contested policy judgment, not a factual assertion.

> Soy beans fell 50% from 2012 to my election (from prior tweet in thread)

**HALF TRUE**

Soybean prices did fall from approximately $17/bushel in 2012 to approximately $9-10/bushel in 2016, a decline of roughly 40-50%. The numerical approximation is defensible. However, the causal framing — implying foreign trade barriers were responsible — is misleading; the primary drivers were record U.S. production yields and global supply increases, not trade barriers.

Sources: CBOT soybean historical price data 2012-2016; USDA crop production reports

Overall Veracity: 40%

## Tags

- agricultural-populism (90%)
- trade-war-messaging (85%)
- warrior-archetype (75%)
- base-maintenance (80%)
- split-tweet (60%)
- victory-guarantee (70%)
- nato-summit-context (50%)
- grandiose-baseline (45%)

## That day

_From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._

**NATO Summit Becomes Stage for Escalating Grievance Arc as Trump Posts Past Midnight in Brussels**

Trump spent the day at the NATO Summit in Brussels, dominating the news cycle by publicly attacking allies over defense spending and German energy ties to Russia — posting the same complaint three times, once to fix a typo. Between diplomatic salvos, he pivoted to domestic grievances about immigration and the Mueller investigation, naming FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok in sharply personal attacks late at night. The mood was combative throughout, with brief interludes of self-congratulatory messaging aimed at farmers and Democrats. He was still posting past 1:30 AM local time, capping a 15-hour streak that grew more aggressive as the night wore on.

Full digest for 2018-07-11: https://trump.fm/date/2018-07-11/analysis

## Citation

- APA: Trump, D. J. (2018, July 11). ...things up, better than ever before, but it... [Social media post]. X (Twitter). trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/x_1017025848409550848
- MLA: Trump, Donald J. "...things up, better than ever before, but it can’t go too..." X (Twitter), 11 Jul. 2018. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/x_1017025848409550848. Accessed 24 Oct. 2026.
- Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "...things up, better than ever before, but it can’t go too...," X (Twitter), July 11, 2018, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/x_1017025848409550848.

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