The Fragile Self in the Age of Trump

Lee Siegel and David Rieff take on Trump's cult of personality, using a surprising entry point: an American figure skater at the Olympics falling on the ice while skating to the sound of his own voice. For Lee, it's the perfect emblem of a society where people are so wrapped up in their heads that they have no idea what to do when the country is stolen from them. The conversation continues into a broad exploration of American public life. Lee argues that the "rugged individual" of an earlier era has given way to the "fragile self," with a dramatically lowered threshold for trauma and vulnerability and a correspondingly greater hunger for strong leaders. David dismisses this, excoriating the therapeutic and trauma-inflected language he believes has been manufactured by liberal elites. The two spar over where Trump fits into America history, discussing his recklessness, the question of Trump's luck, and the puzzle of why a period of peace and prosperity put the mad, autocratic Trump in the White House in the first place..

Executive producer Matty Rosenberg
Edited by Lee Siegel, David Rieff, and Matty Rosenberg
Additional video editing by Matty Rosenberg and Esther Martel
Music arrangement and performance by Matt Schreiber

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Civility and intelligence

It’s refreshing to hear literate, civil, intelligent conversation. Provokes rethinking, reflection. Keep it up. Period. End of story. R. F. Bogardus