The Profound Selfishness of Trumpers

Demanding Compassion While Giving None to Others

What never ceases to amaze me is the victimhood mentality of Trump supporters. I am not someone who shames genuine victims for speaking out. Many marginalized groups are unfairly accused of indulging in victimhood when they highlight the injustices they face.

Ironically, those doing the shaming are often the most privileged—people who have never truly known hardship. But I will criticize self-victimization when it comes from those who are, in reality, a privileged class.

Take Elon Musk, for example. Watching him in interviews, welling up with emotion, almost in tears over his companies' struggles—all caused by his own actions—he plays the part of a misunderstood hero. With a quivering voice and feigned sincerity, he tells us he's just trying to eliminate waste and fraud in government.

Yet, this is the same man who laughs like a supervillain, cracking jokes about the thousands he has fired. He mocked the millions of poor people affected by USAID cuts, dismissing them as being thrown into the "wood chipper." These cuts impact Ebola prevention, AIDS treatment, hunger relief, and more.

Let me quote Mother Jones on the dramatic consequences:

The U.S. Agency for International Development, the foreign assistance program he has all but dismantled, saw its Ebola prevention project overseas abruptly halted. Musk claimed the error was quickly fixed and that service continued uninterrupted. However, former and current USAID staff told The Washington Post that Musk was wrong—the Ebola response remained severely curtailed. The Bulwark reported that Nicholas Enrich, the acting assistant administrator for global health at USAID, had drafted an unfinished memo predicting that the demolition of USAID would lead to more than 28,000 cases of Ebola and related diseases, a 28-32% increase in tuberculosis, up to 18 million cases of malaria (with as many as 166,000 deaths annually), and an additional 200,000 cases of paralytic polio per year.

Hundreds of thousands will face real hardship. In America, families will suffer job losses after being demonized by Musk as leeches and enemies of the people simply for working in the federal government. These are individuals who ensure aviation safety, safeguard nuclear weapons, and maintain national parks—yet they are vilified wholesale.

Meanwhile, we are expected to sympathize with a billionaire who merely has fewer billions than before?

I'm not saying layoffs are never necessary. Both governments and businesses must make difficult decisions. But where I come from—Norway—such actions are handled with dignity. Layoffs are never met with glee and schadenfreude. Musk, however, openly revels in firing people, disregarding the fact that these are lives and families at stake. Unlike him, they don't have billions in the bank.

The first time I was laid off, it was during the dot-com bubble. I had just started my first consulting job at Accenture in Norway when the market crashed. Many of us had to leave. Yet, I will always remember how respectfully we were treated. Each of us had a one-on-one meeting where the situation was explained. They even apologized for taking this step and promised to help us find new jobs. We were allowed to use company facilities for job hunting and were considered for rehire as soon as business improved.

I never held a grudge against Accenture. Quite the contrary—I gained respect for how they handled a difficult situation. They conveyed regret and a sincere willingness to help.

Contrast that with Elon Musk’s approach: employees are locked out of company premises, unable to log in, often left wondering whether they have even been fired. During the Twitter layoffs, communication was so poor that many couldn't determine their employment status.

Consider Haraldur Thorleifsson’s case, as reported by CNN:

Thorleifsson, a senior director at Twitter based in Iceland, tweeted at Musk that his access had been cut off nine days earlier when Twitter laid off about 200 employees. When Musk responded, instead of clarifying, he mocked Thorleifsson’s work and disability.

Musk tweeted, "What work have you been doing?" When Thorleifsson listed his tasks, Musk cast doubt, replying, "Pics or it didn’t happen." In a separate tweet, Musk falsely claimed Thorleifsson “did no actual work” and "used his disability as an excuse."

The point is not to fixate on Musk but to illustrate a broader trend: privileged individuals casting themselves as victims while showing no compassion for those facing real struggles.

This extends beyond billionaires. Recently, I saw a group of conservative, white, straight, Christian men lamenting how difficult it was to be attacked for their identity. They patted each other on the back for enduring such hardship.

There is something deeply infuriating about people victimizing themselves while a Trumpian movement dismantles the very values decent Americans hold dear. These men claim marginalization while those in power overwhelmingly represent them. Trump is an old white man, surrounded by other powerful white men.

Meanwhile, minorities are being purged from workplaces under the pretext that they must have been diversity hires who didn’t deserve their jobs. Years ago, I envisioned how a dystopia could emerge in America. I imagined segregation being reintroduced under the guise of anti-DEI policies. While I don’t think literal segregation will return, the rhetoric and policies of the anti-DEI movement certainly echo disturbing historical patterns.

The Trump administration is dominated by old white men, and the Supreme Court frequently upholds their worldview—including rolling back women's rights.

This erosion of rights extends far beyond what many realize. Below is a graphic from The New York Times article Tracking Abortion Bans Across the Country:

From New York Times article by By Allison McCann and Amy Schoenfeld Walker

We are not talking about shortening the number of weeks where abortion can be carried out. We are talking about straight out bans with practically no exceptions.

Likewise affirmative action has been struck down by US supreme court. Add how the same supreme court sided with KKK in the 1960s to protect hate speech in Brandenburg v. Ohio case and it is hart to see how straight white men are somehow the victims in America.

Are there downsides to being white and male? Of course, and we should not ignore those challenges. But there is quite another thing to portray yourself as the most marginalized one. Only with a very deep narcissism can one fail to see ones own privilege and only see every minute little manner in which one is wronged or disadvantaged.