MSNBC's Chris Hayes presents a unified theory of Trump claiming to have won fake awards

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/MSNBC)

published 22 August 2019

President Trump may not have given himself the Medal of Honor, but he has awarded himself several fictitious prizes, like "Michigan Man of the Year."

"Donald Trump is lots of things, but Michigan Man of the Year is not one of them," Chris Hayes noted Wednesday night on MSNBC. "It's not even an award that exists in real life, just in Trump's brain. And in Trump's brain, he's won lots of awards."

Citing an essay by Deadspin's David Roth, Hayes provided video evidence of "the strange reality in which Donald Trump seems to live, an alternate universe in which he's the star and big winner in a never-ending, televised award show." It's all fake, he said, "but the real question is does Donald Trump believe it's true or does he just thing we're all stupid?" Trump provided one plausible answer back in 2011.

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Trump is a being of pure reaction and grievance and avarice, and as such is never really very difficult to parse. When he lies about money it's because he wants people to think he has more of it than he does; when he lies about golf it's because he wants people to think he's a better golfer than he is. Those lies tell you something about how Trump wants to be seen, but they're incidental to the bigger questions of who and what he is. Stranger lies like the Michigan Man one reveal more about how he sees the world and understands his relationship to the other people in it, which is fundamentally as someone cleaning up at an endless televised awards show. [David Roth, Deadspin]

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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