There is something almost childlike about Donald Trump’s obsession with being the first, the biggest, the greatest, the most unprecedented human phenomenon to have ever walked the earth. In Trump’s world, history did not merely pause before him, it barely existed. America, apparently, was wandering around in darkness until a golden escalator descended from heaven in 2015 carrying a man with hairspray, grievance and a permanent need for applause.
Everything with Trump must be “like nobody has ever seen before.”
His inauguration crowd? Bigger than anyone else’s. Even the photographs, stubbornly showing acres of empty space, were treated like traitors to the revolution. Sean Spicer marched into the White House briefing room like an exhausted Soviet propagandist announcing that black was white and rain was dry. The crowd, he declared angrily, was the “largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period.”
Period.
Reality was instructed to sit down and shut up.
Trump’s fixation is not merely ego. Plenty of politicians are vain. Politics attracts narcissists the way kebab shops attract drunk students at 2 a.m. But Trump’s relationship with scale, novelty and “firstness” is different. He requires permanent historical uniqueness the way a drug addict requires another hit. Every event must be civilisation-defining. Every speech must be world-changing. Every policy must be revolutionary. Every criticism must be the greatest witch hunt in human history.
Not American history.
Human history.
The man speaks as if Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte and Winston Churchill were merely warm-up acts for Mar-a-Lago.
Even his legal troubles had to be unprecedented. Not just unfair, historic. Not just politically motivated, never seen before. One suspects that if Trump were issued a parking ticket, he would describe it as the greatest assault on automobile freedom since the invention of the wheel.
What makes this fascinating is that America itself quietly encourages this behaviour. The country has always loved spectacle dressed as destiny. Trump merely industrialised it. Modern politics no longer rewards steady administration or competent governance. Nobody goes viral for understanding wastewater infrastructure or pension liabilities. Social media rewards emotional theatre. Trump understood before most politicians that in the algorithmic age perception matters more than continuity.
And so he turned politics into WWE with nuclear codes.
Every day requires a cliffhanger. Every statement must sound like the trailer for an apocalyptic summer blockbuster. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like this.” “The likes of which you’ve never seen before.” “Many people are saying.” America became trapped in an endless season finale.
The irony is that Trump is rarely original. He repackages ancient political instincts with television instincts. The cult of personality is old. Strongman politics is old. National grievance politics is old. Even his slogans are old wine in a red baseball cap. What is new is the relentless marketing of himself as a man standing outside history while simultaneously demanding to dominate it.
He behaves less like a president and more like a company attempting hostile takeover of reality itself.
Facts become negotiable because they interfere with branding.
The problem with living as though history begins with you is that eventually you stop learning from history altogether. Institutions become inconveniences. Expertise becomes elitism. Process becomes weakness. Tradition becomes obstruction. Every constitutional restraint starts to look like a personal insult.
Trump’s presidency often carried the atmosphere of a man shocked to discover America had other branches of government. Courts existed. Civil servants existed. Congress occasionally existed when awake. He approached the machinery of state like a property developer discovering the local council had planning regulations.
And yet millions adore him precisely because of this historical vandalism. Trump gives supporters emotional permission to believe that only their moment matters. The past is irrelevant. Expertise is irrelevant. Experience is irrelevant. Everything can be bulldozed and rebuilt around instinct, loyalty and confidence.
He sells not conservatism but permanent disruption.
That is why even obvious contradictions rarely hurt him. He can denounce elites while living in a gilded penthouse. He can attack corruption while filling rooms with lobbyists. He can market himself as anti-establishment despite having been president of the United States. Consistency belongs to normal politicians operating in linear time. Trump exists in a cinematic universe where each day resets around his latest declaration.
He is both protagonist and narrator.
The tragedy is that democratic societies eventually become exhausted by permanent historical emergency. A public fed on adrenaline eventually loses the ability to distinguish between genuine crises and manufactured drama. Everything becomes existential. Every election becomes the “most important in history.” Every opponent becomes a tyrant. Every supporter becomes a patriot defending civilisation itself.
Politics ceases to be governance and becomes content creation.
Trump did not invent this condition, but he perfected it.
For him, history is not something to inherit, study or respect. It is a branding opportunity. The past exists merely as scenery for his entrance music. America, in Trump’s imagination, is not a republic with institutions stretching back centuries. It is a television series that finally became interesting when he joined the cast.
And somewhere deep down, perhaps that is the real fear beneath the boasting. A man constantly insisting he is unprecedented may secretly fear being ordinary.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 