Hitler dreamed of a 1,000-year Reich; Putin is said to have baroque dreams of territorial conquest meant to restore a dubiously historical empire he calls “Greater Russia”. Sure, there are people around Donald Trump who imagine using his rise to power to establish some sort of grand, civilizational project: there are the white nationalists who dream of a country purged of those they deem racially impure; there are the Christian nationalists who imagine a future theocracy in which women wear long braids and skirts, and don’t vote; there are the techno-reactionaries who imagine a future of interplanetary colonies, techno-assisted eugenics, and polygamous harems.

But Trump himself is conspicuously small in his dreams: his are comparatively little ambitions, not extending far beyond the reach of his ego and his senses.

He wants praise. He wants to see his name and his portrait everywhere. He wants to feel like a big man, to see those he feels have wronged him be penitent and upset. Maybe most of all, he wants to indulge in his own bad taste, repeatedly visiting the lowbrow staples of the 1980s, when he was young and at the height of his tabloid fame.

He loves the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber. He loves the music of Bon Jovi and the Village People. And he loves the gaudy, clownish tokens of masculinity that appeal to very small children: big trucks, big muscles, and demonstrations of physical strength.

And so it felt fitting that on Trump’s 80th birthday, at an event nominally meant to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the nation’s........

© The Guardian