The President’s Fantasies Are Killing Us, When Rhetoric Collides with Deadly Reality
In the arena of modern American politics, few figures have weaponized the power of narrative quite like Donald Trump. His entire public persona, from his days as a real estate mogul to his current tenure in the White House, has been built on the art of the sell—the ability to craft a fantasy so compelling that it obscures, and eventually replaces, an inconvenient reality. Nearly forty years ago, in his book “The Art of the Deal,” Trump revealed this philosophy explicitly, describing how he marketed Trump Tower as “the hottest ticket in town” by “selling fantasy.” Today, as President of the United States, he continues to sell that fantasy on a national scale. But the consequences are no longer about real estate prices or brand prestige. They are about life and death. As a winter storm recently battered the nation with snow and ice, Trump stood before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and declared America “the hottest country anywhere in the world.” This disconnect between the president’s rhetorical fever dream and the freezing, violent reality on the ground is not just a matter of political spin; it is a dangerous delusion that is leading to tragedy, eroding trust in institutions, and turning American cities into battlegrounds.
The fantasy of American “hotness” is a multi-layered construction. It begins with the economy. In Davos, Trump painted a picture of unprecedented prosperity, describing an economy that is “booming,” “exploding,” “surging,” and “soaring” its way towards “the fastest and most dramatic economic turnaround in our country’s history.” This is the language of a carnival barker, not a sober policymaker. The reality, however, is far more nuanced and, for many, far less triumphant. The economy Trump inherited from the Biden administration was already one of low unemployment, a trend that has continued. The persistent concerns over affordability, inflation, and the cost of living that worry millions of American families do not simply vanish because the president declares them to be gone. The fantasy of a “booming” economy for all is contradicted by the lived experience of those struggling to pay rent, buy groceries, or afford a home. It is a fantasy that allows the administration to claim credit for trends it didn’t create while ignoring the pain it fails to alleviate.
This economic fantasy is part of a larger, more grandiose delusion: the fantasy of a popular and overwhelmingly successful presidency. “People are doing very well,” Trump assured his Davos audience. “They’re very happy with me.” Yet, the empirical data tells a starkly different story. A New York Times/Siena national poll conducted in mid-January found that more than half of registered voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance. More than half believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. These are not the numbers of a leader basking in the warm glow of national adoration. They are the numbers of a deeply divided and anxious nation. To maintain his fantasy, Trump must constantly sell a series of supporting fantasies: that he settled eight wars (a claim that ignores simmering global conflicts), that he single-handedly brought down prescription drug prices by mathematically impossible margins, and, most perniciously, that he won the 2020 election. This last fantasy, the “big lie,” requires him to now pledge to prosecute people for the imaginary crime of rigging it. Each of these fantasies is a brick in the wall he builds to separate himself from a reality that does not conform to his preferred narrative.
Nowhere is the deadly collision between presidential fantasy and grim reality more apparent than in the ongoing immigration enforcement actions carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Polling on immigration is complex. While a majority of Americans may agree with the abstract goal of deporting individuals who are in the country unlawfully, the support collapses when confronted with the messy, violent, and often brutal reality of enforcement. The same New York Times/Siena poll found that a striking 63 percent of respondents disapproved of how ICE is handling its task. This is not a poll of “open borders” activists; it is a reflection of a public growing increasingly horrified by the tactics being employed in their name.
The horror is not abstract. It has names and faces. There is Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three in Minneapolis, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent. There is Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive-care nurse, who was killed by Customs and Border Protection agents. These were not nameless, faceless statistics. They were American citizens, going about their lives, who ended up dead at the hands of federal law enforcement. In the fantasy world of the Trump administration, such tragedies cannot be allowed to exist. They must be explained away. And so, the official response was not an acknowledgment of a tragic error, not an expression of condolence to grieving families. Instead, administration officials immediately moved to denigrate the slain citizens, labeling them as domestic terrorists. This is perhaps the most insidious fantasy of all: the transformation of victims into villains to protect the narrative. If the person killed was a “terrorist,” then the killing was justified, and the system remains unblemished. The reality of a mother gunned down, a nurse killed, is buried under a mountain of official slander.
The backlash to these tactics has been swift and widespread. Protests against ICE and what many are calling its “state-terror tactics” have spread from Minneapolis, the epicenter of the outrage, to cities across the country. Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Omaha, San Antonio, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., have all seen demonstrations. The imagery is powerful and deeply resonant. For decades, American politicians have endlessly debated the wisdom of putting “boots on the ground” in foreign conflicts, from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan. Now, a significant portion of the American public is looking at federal agents in tactical gear patrolling their own streets, their own neighborhoods, and they are saying: we reject these boots on the ground here. The foreign war has, in a very real sense, come home.
The news that Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol official widely seen as a key figure in inflaming the situation in Minnesota and elsewhere, is expected to leave Minneapolis can be interpreted as a sign that the administration is aware of the political damage. It is an attempt to turn down the temperature, to remove a lightning rod. But removing one person does not change the underlying policy or the fantasy that drives it. The core belief remains: that the nation can be secured through overwhelming, visible force, and that any death resulting from that force is, by definition, justified.
This reliance on fantasy is not new to the Trump era, but it has reached a dangerous apotheosis. From the earliest days of his political rise, with the racist birther lies about Barack Obama, to the patently false claims about the size of the crowd at his 2017 inauguration, to the invocation of “alternative facts” by his aides, the pattern has been consistent. The suggestion that something must be true if “many people are saying it” is an abandonment of empiricism in favor of vibes. The reimagining of the January 6th attack on the Capitol as a “day of love” is a gaslighting of the highest order. Even his vice president, JD Vance, let the veil slip during the 2024 campaign when he admitted a willingness to “create stories”—a polite term for fabricating narratives—to harness media attention around issues like the baseless claim that Haitian immigrants were eating their neighbors’ pets.
Fantasies are alluring, as Carlos Lozada’s original essay points out, because they are not just about belief; they are about allegiance. They create a tribal identity. The interpretation that suits your side is the one you are expected to accept, no matter how much video footage or eyewitness testimony indicates otherwise. To abandon the fantasy is to abandon your side, to admit that you were wrong, a cost that, for many, feels impossibly high. This is the psychological trap that Trump has masterfully built for his followers.
But when these fantasies involve life and death—when they are used to justify the killing of citizens, to slander the dead, and to send armed federal agents into American cities—the stakes become unbearably high. The fantasy of a “hot” country, of a booming economy, of a universally popular president, of a menace vanquished by force, is being used to mask a reality of tragedy, division, and fear. The president’s fantasies are not harmless boasts; they are a smokescreen behind which real people are dying. And until the nation collectively decides to step out of the smokescreen and confront the cold, hard truth, the killing will continue, and the protests will only grow. The fantasy is killing us, and it will not stop until we choose reality.
Questions and Answers
Q1: What does the article mean by Trump “selling fantasy,” and how does this relate to his current presidency?
A1: “Selling fantasy” refers to Trump’s long-standing practice of crafting a compelling but often false narrative that replaces an inconvenient reality. In his presidency, this manifests in his claims of a “booming” economy (despite persistent affordability concerns), a universally popular presidency (contradicted by polls), and that he won the 2020 election. These fantasies are used to prop up an image of success that does not align with the facts on the ground.
Q2: How does the article contrast Trump’s “hottest country” rhetoric with the reality of immigration enforcement?
A2: The article contrasts Trump’s fantasy of a “hot” and successful America with the grim reality of ICE and CBP actions. While Trump boasts of happiness and prosperity, polling shows 63% of Americans disapprove of how ICE is handling its job. This disapproval is fueled by real-world tragedies, including the killings of American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, which the administration then tried to justify by falsely labeling the victims as domestic terrorists.
Q3: Who were Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and how did the administration respond to their deaths?
A3: Renee Good was a 37-year-old mother of three killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Alex Pretti was a 37-year-old intensive-care nurse killed by Customs and Border Protection agents. In both cases, instead of acknowledging the tragedies, Trump administration officials immediately denigrated the slain American citizens, labeling them as domestic terrorists to protect the narrative that their enforcement actions are always justified.
Q4: What is the significance of the protests that spread after the Minneapolis killing?
A4: The protests, which spread to cities like Boston, Los Angeles, and New York, signify a powerful public rejection of federal law enforcement tactics on home soil. The article draws a parallel to debates over “boots on the ground” in foreign wars, noting that many Americans are now rejecting the presence of those same boots in their own neighborhoods. It represents a growing perception of federal overreach and “state-terror tactics.”
Q5: According to the article, why are fantasies so alluring and difficult to abandon for Trump’s supporters?
A5: Fantasies are alluring because they are about allegiance and tribal identity, not just belief. The interpretation that supports “your side” becomes the only acceptable one, regardless of contradictory evidence. Abandoning the fantasy feels like abandoning your side and admitting you were wrong, a psychological cost that, for many, feels impossibly high. This dynamic allows demonstrably false narratives to persist even in the face of life-and-death consequences.
