Maureen Dowd in The New York Times:
Studying “Hamlet,” the revenge play about a rotten kingdom, I tried for years to fathom Hamlet’s motives, state of mind, family web, obsessions.
His consciousness was so complex, Harold Bloom wrote, it seemed bigger than the play itself. Now I’m mired in another revenge play about a rotten kingdom, “Trump.” I’ve tried for years to fathom Donald Trump’s motives, state of mind, family web, obsessions. The man who dumbed down the office of the presidency is a less gratifying subject than the smarty-pants doomed prince. Hamlet is transcendent, while Trump is merely transgressive. But we can’t shuffle off the mortal coil of Trump. He has burrowed, tick-like, into the national bloodstream, causing all kinds of septic responses. Trump is feral, focused on his own survival, with no sense of shame or boundaries or restraint.
“In that sense,” David Axelrod told me, “being a sociopath really works for him.”
More here.