For Donald Trump, the presidency will be a vast stage for accommodating his megalomania and insatiable appetite for money. Those who mock, defy or anger him will feel the wrath of the state. Those who are not obsequious will be cast aside. He will invest most of his energy in his brand. Self-promotion is the only real talent he possesses. Corruption, already rife within the political system, will explode into a full-blown kleptocracy. Manufactured stories about Trump's prowess, brilliance, sexual allure and goodness, as well as how America is becoming "great again," will be pumped out by the White House smoke machine. He will demand encomiums that will become ever more outrageous. All love, devotion and allegiance will be to Trump.
Trump is the sick expression of a dysfunctional political system and mass culture that celebrate the most depraved aspects of human naturegreed, a lust for power, a thirst for adulation and celebrity, a penchant for the manipulation of others, dishonesty, a lack of remorse and a frightening pathology in which reality is ignored. He is the product of our escapist world of constant entertainment. He embodies the mutation of values in American society that has culminated in an enormous cult of the self and the abandonment of the common good.
"When a population becomes distracted by trivia," wrote Neil Postman, "when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people becomes an audience and their public business a vaudeville, then a nation finds itself at risk: cultural-death is a clear possibility."
Demagoguesinsecure and crippled by an unbridled narcissism and seldom of high intelligenceplay to the inverted values of a decayed society. They attack all who do not kneel before the idol of "the great leader." "Saturday Night Live" can continue to go after Trump, but Trump, as president, will use every tool in his arsenal, no matter how devious, to banish such public ridicule. He will seek to domesticate the press and critics first through the awarding of special privileges, flattery, gifts and access. Those who cannot be bought off will be destroyed. His petulant, childish taunts, given authority by the machinery of the security and surveillance state, will be dangerous.
Trump's fight with the Fox News host Megyn Kelly illustrates his vindictiveness. Kelly, who was sexually harassed by Roger Ailes when Ailes was Fox News chief, questioned Trump on her television program about allegations of rape made by Trump's first wife, Ivana. Ivana Trump later recanted the allegations, although she had provided graphic details of the rape in a signed deposition during divorce proceedings. Trump was furious with Kelly for raising the matter.
In an interview by Terry Gross on "Fresh Air" that was posted last week, Kelly said that for months Trump attempted "to woo menot romantically, but just, you know, into favorable coverage." Trump demanded that she phone him, Kelly said, and she did so. There was a moment in that telephone conversation when he realized he had failed to persuade her, she said. "He became very angry. He told me I was a disgrace, that I ought to be ashamed of myself, and that's when he said, I almost unleashed my beautiful twitter account against you and I still may.' "
The conflict between the two exploded after the first Republican primary debate, in August of 2015, in which Kelly asked Trump about his derogatory comments about women.
Kelly was savagely attacked by Trump for nine months after the debate, including repeatedly on Trump's "beautiful twitter account." The attacks ended when Kelly went to Trump Tower to film what she called "a softer focus interview" with Trump but which in journalism slang is called a "puff piece," one that flatters the subject of the interview.
Kelly told Gross that the attacks by Trump "unleashed a chaos in my life unlike any I have ever experienced."
"I was receiving death threats regularly, serious death threat against me, against my family," she said. "Strange men showed up at my apartment building demanding to see me in a threatening manner. People started casing my home. Photographers were found on my property. I don't know if they were private investigators or what they were, but people started digging into my past, bothering my mother, bothering my closest friends, bothering my high school friends, trying to dig up dirt on me."
"The c-word was in thousands of tweets directed at me," she said. "Lots of threats to beat the hell out of me, to rape me, honestly the ugliest things you can imagine."
"The thing I was most worried aboutI have a seven, a five and a three-year-oldand I was worried I would be walking down the street with my kids and somebody would do something to me in front of them, that they would see me get punched in the face, or get hurt."
Kelly said the "crescendo of anger" sent "my life into lockdown."
When Gross asked Kelly about the "alt-right" figures gathered around Trump, including Steve Bannon, Kelly was unequivocal. "They will come after you," she said. "They will target you. And they will be relentless about it."
Ridicule especially antagonizes the demagogue. It deflates the pretentious and the powerful. It reduces to human size those puffed up by their self-importance. It exposes them for who they are. It affirms the self-respect and dignity of the oppressed. Demagogues, lacking the capacity for self-transcendence, cannot see the ludicrousness and absurdity of their pretensions. They cannot distinguish between their inner fantasies and reality. They can belittle and ridicule others, as Trump does, with great cruelty, but they see nothing humorous about similar treatment directed at the self-created edifice of their own glory.
"There are people who tell jokes," goes a joke illustrating the morbid humor prevalent among the populace in East Germany during the communist rule. "There are people who collect jokes and tell jokes. And there are people who collect people who tell jokes."

A professor who gave a lecture criticizing Donald Trump, and the divisiveness and racist rhetoric of his presidential campaign, has gone into hiding after receiving death threats.
Olga Perez Stable Cox, a psychology instructor at Orange Coast College, was secretly recorded by a student during a class days after the presidential election. In a video posted to YouTube on December 6, Cox expresses disappointment, fear and to a lesser degree, hopefulness about the future. The footage begins with Cox stating the incoming administration is led by a "white supremacist and a vice president that is one of the most anti-gay humans in this country." She goes on to say that, "Our nation is divided, we have been assaulted, it's an act of terrorism….And so we are in for a difficult time, but again, I do believe that we can get past that."
The student who surreptitiously filmed Cox remains anonymous, but Joshua Recalde-Martinez, whom the Los Angeles Timesidentifies as the president of the Orange Coast College Republicans Club, released the video publicly. In the weeks since its appearance online, Cox has been subject to "more than 1,000 emails, calls and Facebook comments." Almost all of those messages have been critical, and some have included threats to Cox's life, according to the Orange County Register.
Rob Schneiderman, president of the local teachers' union, said Cox identifies as a "lesbian, Latina woman living in [conservative] Orange County." Schneiderman told the Register that though Cox is "pretty strong," the sheer number of harassing messages, as well as the violence some expressed, was frightening enough to force Cox to leave the state for a period.
"Someone emailed her a picture of her house, with her address," Schneiderman told the Register. He said the letter warned that Cox's "home address is now going to be sent everywhere."
Another email reportedly read, "You want communism, go to Cuba…try to bring it to America and we'll put a (expletive) bullet in your face."
Earlier this week, a group of 60 students and faculty held a rally in support of Cox. Some held signs reading "We support academic freedom" and "OCC for Olga," according to the LA Times. Later in the day, a group of conservative students, including Recalde-Martinez, showed up in counterprotest.
Elias Altamirano, an OCC student who organized the demonstration, told the Register he hoped to reassure Cox her presence on campus was welcome. "She has been here 30 years and impacted over 30,000 lives," Altamirano said. "I want to let Olga know this is her home and she doesn't have to feel threatened."
"Some of us were upset that the media was only showing one side…I think her comments were taken out of context," OCC student Autumn Durand, told the Times. "Undocumented students are scared, women are scared. Olga's speech was about protecting students."
A lawyer has filed a complaint against Cox with OCC president Dennis Harkins. The Times reports the "complaint suggested that Cox attend anger management classes and apologize to her students, and that the complaint be placed in her personnel file." The college is currently reviewing the request. The school is also trying to determine if the student who secretly made the video violated any rules by recording without Cox's consent. This may be due partly to the content of the class. A student who previously took the course, which is focused on human sexuality, told the Times it was a forum where "students can share their sexual experiences during class discussions."
Cox has an entry on the Professor Watchlist, a right-wing websitethat asserts its mission is to "Expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values, and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom." Conservatives have long condemned institutions of higher learning as bastions of liberal ideology. The political winds may be blowing in a direction that leaves many professors vulnerable to attacks from conserative, Republican and other right-wing groups.
"My experience talking to students is that they want a diverse range of professors and opinions in class," said union president Rob Schneiderman. "The problem here is the lack of dialogue, with students turning the classroom into a reality TV show when they surreptitiously videotape and publish it."