Donald Trump Has No Friends

He is a sad, lonely, angry man so unlike the Americans I know

Donald Trump has no friends.

When someone’s in elementary, middle, or high school and they have no friends, it’s compassionate to talk to them, bring them into the circle, and give them a chance to shine.

When someone’s in college or mid-career and has no friends from their upbringing, we can only wonder what traumas unfolded to sever the adult from their youth. Sometimes the person without friends in college is a good person who was raised in intolerant communities, as can be the case with many LGBTQ folk who come out in college. Sometimes, however, the lack of lifelong friends is the consequence of character flaws that dug the person into a rut of isolation and distrust.

Donald Trump is 78 years old and appears to have no friends. You might like his policies, you might love his anti-establishment rage, you might think he’s funny and you might want to ‘own the libs’, but that doesn’t mean you’re his friend. If you tried to start a friendship with him, would he like you back? Would he be there for you in your time of need?

If you upset him once, would he forgive you?

When I say “friend”, I’m not talking about acquaintances, I’m talking about ride-or-die homies. Some friends of mine come to mind. When one of my ride-or-die friends and I were kids, we got in trouble together and could always trust the other to stick to the story, we played soccer together and always knew we could count on the other one to make that run that scored the goal. We got in a stupid fight in middle school and, within a month, we were back to skating together and we overcame every infrequent disagreement since. We went to college together and helped each other excel with contagious love of math and science, we rock climbed together and trusted the other to hold the rope that kept us from death, we snowboarded together and waited for the other one at the lift to share whiskey on the ride back up hill, and we hiked giant mountains together to touch the sun, together.

When I left home for grad school, we stayed in touch by sending each other nerdy memes and outrageous, exclamation-marked messages at uncivilized hours of the night, we said we loved each other. When his close friend from college passed away in an accident, I couldn’t make the funeral but shortly afterwards we were on the phone, hatched an idea, and I hopped on a plane the next morning to fly to Mexico.

We brought our crampons and ice axes, sleeping bags and backpacks, we hopped on a bus to a small town, found a ride up a dirt road to a hut, and we marched up moraines and couloirs to an expansive 45 degree glacier, kicking steps to the top of the third highest peak in North America. At 18,500 feet, with me coming from sea level a few days prior, my friend laughed at how “out of shape” I was… and then, as the sun rose, we took ashes of my homie’s good friend and cast them into the air. Despite being “out of shape”, we got to the summit an hour before sunrise and huddled together beneath a cornice, a wave of ice at the summit, and we sang songs, goofed off, and suffered the -40 degree temps in style, together.

Tossing ashes at 18,500 feet above sea level

The ashes swirled into the air above the gaping maw of the volcano’s caldera, as if the monster had come to life and the updrafts from sun hitting the stone were its first breaths in centuries. As the sun rose like an ember above the gulf of Mexico 18,500 feet below, it lit the clouds on fire like a sea of gasoline and behind us you could see the shadow of the prominent, triangular mountain on which we stood stretching towards the horizon to infinity, and we could imagine our shadows on the top of the volcano dancing there, crying there, together.

My dear friend passed away December, 2023. He was a ride-or-die homie, a true friend. Even with him gone, I consoled his family as we moved his clothes, furniture, and every private thing out of his home. Another one of my homie’s close friends and I organized the funeral, I MC’d the service wearing a rainbow tutu, we knew everyone who knew him well-enough to bring his spirit to life in that church, including his uncle who swore loudly and beautifully in church that day, and I wore that rainbow tutu for the homie because I know he’d do the same ridiculous shit for me.

That’s what friends do.

The specifics of true friendship, the hobbies that bring us together, the memories that we form together, and the ways we experience friendship together are less important than the simple fact that one is capable of having friends and being a true friend. Maintaining friendships requires work, commitment, compassion, and an ability to compromise, to prioritize the friendship over whatever bullshit stands in the way.

When I say Donald Trump has no friends, I say it with sadness and concern. I’m sad because the man was born rich and powerful and famous, and who knows what manner of wealth-induced isolation, difference from his peers, or independence and perceived lack of need for friends has prevented him from having friends that speak up for him and say good things about who he was as a kid, as a college student, and beyond. Far from having friends, Trump has a history of people who were close to him, only to experience a hideous falling out. Michael Cohen, Tularosa, Pompeo, Rilley, Scaramucci, … heck, almost everyone from Trump’s first term. Isn’t it strange this man of patronage hasn’t brought his old friends into office - all those short-term “friendships” went up in flames. Now he’s surrounded by a new crowd of sycophants riding his coattails to power, most likely to experience a similar fat.e

Venture Capital broligarchs huddle and chest-bump around Trump on a mission to deregulate their industries are not Donald Trump’s friends but self-interested people bound to Trump in a venture that could easily go awry. The VC Bros should’ve done due diligence and checked out the cap tables: Trump owns 100% of the presidency, they own none. Trump can steal the strategy & vision from whoever shares it, take all the credit, give nothing in return, and leave the VC bro’s on the curb the second it suits Donald Trump.

Elon Musk is not Trump’s friend. Elon also appears to lack friends, but, even more strange, tweets obsessively in a ketamine-fueled rage while playing video games with weapons, armor, and experience points he bought to make himself look like a good gamer… if it were coming from a high schooler, the desperate need for affirmation and admiration from the richest man in the world would seem like a cry from help. Who with beloved family and dear friends beside them gives a shit what people on the internet think? While Elon has many people who like his posts, others who haves hared interest due to investments in Elon’s companies, others with shared political interests, and others who’ve worked with him for SpaceX or Tesla, he also has a long list of people he’s screwed over in his quest for power, Ramaswamy being the latest short-term situationship of Elon’s gone bust, and precious few friends with all the signs that the man is doomed to always feel unpopular and alone, that there’s nothing he can do that would impress people enough to make them want to be his friend.

It’s sad to see someone have no friends. I want nothing but the fullest experience for every human being. On Christmas this past year, I was with family members on a somber occasion. We were crying together, holding hands and praying in the face of medical challenges we’re facing… but between the tears we laughed together and expressed full, heartfelt love because we feel that love. Life is so much better together. On this somber yet magical Christmas, we received a Christmas card from Trump:

"Merry Christmas to the Radical Left Lunatics, who are constantly trying to obstruct our Court System and our Elections, and are always going after the Great Citizens and Patriots of the United States but, in particular, their Political Opponent, ME. They know that their only chance of survival is getting pardons from a man who has absolutely no idea what he is doing… Also, to the 37 most violent criminals, who killed, raped, and plundered like virtually no one before them, but were just given, incredibly, a pardon by Sleepy Joe Biden. I refuse to wish a Merry Christmas to those lucky ‘souls’ but, instead, will say, GO TO HELL! We had the Greatest Election in the History of our Country, a bright light is now shining over the U.S.A. and, in 26 days, we will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

Umm… Merry Christmas to you too?

Can you not read that and feel the sadness and isolation of the man? Where was his family to hold his tiny hands and fill him with love that day? Where were his friends to make him laugh, to wish him a Merry Christmas and help him feel the love and gratitude we’re supposed to feel on the day of Jesus’ birth? Then again… read the letter one more time.

Who would be friends with the man who, despite all the wealth and power a human could ever ask for, a month after winning the presidency of the United States of America, is consumed with retributive fury at political opponents and compelled to write “GO TO HELL” on Christmas day?

I’m sad that Donald Trump has no friends and I hope he can someday feel the love, comfort, acceptance, and peace one feels in the company of true friends.

I’m also concerned because Donald Trump is the President of the United States of America. To the extent we’ll anthropomorphize states, “United” states are each others’ friends. Our country has been an incredible friend to democracies and the free world for a long time before Donald Trump. Back-to-back World War Champs, the US has been friends of Europe for a long time. We’ve also been friends with our neighbors, Mexico and Canada, negotiating trade deals that help goods flow just like my neighbors will lend me eggs should I run out, even if eggs are somewhat expensive today.

Many of our global institutions are, in a simple sense, friendships. While laced with ostentatious diplomatic flair and expressed in lengthy, legalistic prose, everything from NATO to AUKUS, Five Eyes to NAFTA are institutions - regular patterns of human behavior - that amount to friendships between countries, friendships bound by specific hobbies like national security or shared interests like trading oil or cars.

The man who has no friends does not properly value the friendships he now manages as President of the United States. After 9/11, Canada sent troops to Afghanistan because Canada had our back. So, too, did Denmark and many other countries that felt our pain when the Twin Towers fell. These deep friendships between the US and Europe go back before the first World War, all the way to France helping us during the Revolutionary War. Our country’s lasting, true friendships can continue long after everyone reading this passes away, but only if we maintain friends with the integrity of someone capable of having (and, as a first step, valuing) true friendships.

We can see why Trump has no friends. Donald Trump is already finding tiny wedges that differentiate his interests from those close to him, and he turns tiny wedges into a power struggle that he must win. He obsesses over trade deficits without looking at the magnitude of trade far exceeding deficits, the tiny wedge used to fracture a far larger foundation on which the friendship is based.

Tariffs for Mexico and Canada slap our friends in the face when the reported purpose of the tariffs to stop the flow of fentanyl should target China, the primary producer of fentanyl that comes to the US and Canada and Mexico. Canada and Mexico share long borders with us and as surely as we have difficulty controlling these borders against organized criminals, so do they. This tiny wedge is the thing that could unify friends and those capable of keeping them, but Trump is using this wedge to drive us apart in pursuit of American isolationism.

Everywhere we look, Donald Trump has trouble making & keeping friends.

Threats to reclaim the Panama Canal, dehumanization of migrant human beings, humiliating threats of tariffs against any Latin American president that disagrees or wants to negotiate deportations on mutual terms, are making enemies out of friends and pitting America against The Americas.

Threats to claim Greenland are triggering Denmark - the NATO ally who sent its troops to die besides our own in Afghanistan - to invest billions in troops for Greenland at a time when Eastern Europe is under siege by Putin’s troops invading Ukraine and testing the resolve of NATO. To deprive Ukrainians of aid during their time of need while threatening allies and old friends like Denmark over an economically irrelevant mass of rock and ice is, sadly, the sort of isolationist, self-defeating and alienating behavior we might expect from a 78 year old with no friends. Can you not imagine Trump, with a room full of Legos, fighting over a friend holding a batmobile Lego because that’s the Lego Trump Wants NOW! Good lord child, Greenland isn’t worth it any more than the batmobile was.

Donald Trump has no friends because, for ultimate reasons I won’t psychoanalyze, he lacks compassion, he is unable to find compromise, he is not generous or giving, and he thinks he doesn’t need anybody else because he’s rich and powerful.

But there’s more to geopolitics than one nation’s wealth and power. We live in a multipolar world. The United States a global superpower, but authoritarian regimes like Russia, China, North Korea and Iran are like wolves testing the fences of the international order our ancestors and their friendships have built, and one nation could have difficulty taking on four wolves alone. In a multipolar world, Donald Trump’s isolationism is the weakest and most self-defeating strategy game theorists could ever conceive. It’s as if Donald Trump became captain of our football team, hiked the ball, and proceeded to sprint towards the wrong end-zone, spiking the ball as all cameras are on him and bootlicking commentators try to bullshit ways that his strategy is somehow brilliant and others just can’t see it yet.

We’re only two weeks into this mess, and the man with no friends has already pissed of Canada. CANADA. Do you know how badly you have to screw up to make Canada mad at you? Canada is like the Ned Flanders of the world, they play hockey (badass!), say nice things always so much that it’s annoying, they ship us oil and they fight beside our troops. Every time we’ve been too drunk with power, Canada would hold our hair as we got it all out, they would get along with us no matter how belligerent we’ve been, laugh about it, show us compassion, and find ways to do fun things together the next term. We’re just two weeks in and we’ve already pissed off Canada. We’re being Americanos feos, idiotas y gringos estupidos to most of Latin America. We’re upsetting Europe to the point where NATO allies allocate resources to protect against not Russia or China… but Donald Trump.

If something bad were to happen, such as Russia acting on its nuclear threats in Ukraine or China invading Taiwan, and the US sought to respond in order to uphold firm red lines, who would come to Donald Trump’s aid?

Friendship isn’t just about the good times, it’s about being there for people when they’ve hit rock bottom, and knowing they’ll be there for you too. Donald Trump has never hit rock bottom in his life, although he came close when he was impeached twice and then convicted as a felon. Instead of facing the music and having to seek redemption the old-fashioned way (jail time, pleading to parole boards, sitting in a corner and thinking about what he’s done, etc.), he pulled a remarkable stunt and became president, a president who evidently did not learn anything. He remains a bitter, friendless man who is more vindictive than ever before.

To all the people who support Donald Trump, I implore you to look beyond domestic politics, the red-vs-blue battle that has you all seeing red and think about the big wide world of our country’s friends. Imagine the closest, longest, dearest friend you have. Imagine what you would do for that friend, and what that friend would do for you, and then, please, know that Europe is our friend. Canada is our friend. Latin American countries can be our friends if we only humanize their joyful and fun citizens, love them and their culture, and find ways to use our unfathomable wealth and power to lift them up and expand the opportunity of their citizens.

People may fear America more if we flex our muscles and shadowbox the air with nuclear-powered brass knuckles, but they’ll love us more if we unfurl our fists and lend them a hand to help them up and they’ll love us even more if we bring out the brass knuckles when they ask us for help as Europe is doing today. In a world full of rising distrust and menacing authoritarian wolves testing fences with lawless invasions of neighboring countries, true strength is having the courage to stick with your values and stand beside your friends.

Donald Trump has no friends, but most Americans have friends. I hope every European, Latin American, Canadian, and freedom-loving person the world can be reminded that the United States, in aggregate, aims to be a better friend than Donald Trump could ever be. The US is going through some family shit right now and it’s ugly, but behind the lonely, isolated, friendless man in the oval office there are 340 million Americans who have friends, who know what it takes to be there for you.

We don’t show the world the good, soft side of America enough, from the South Dakotan stranger who helped me pull my truck out of ditch to members of my own family with different political views who have helped us in our times of need. When we get a flat tire, we see the friends in our community who help us out. The rest of the world, however, isn’t driving in our streets and having us hold the doors open for them. Instead, they stare at their phones with fear of a sad, 78 year old red-white-and-blue man with a spray tan and no friends.

We can Make America Great Again by remembering that what made us Great were the great friends who worked with us to win WWII (including Russia, once Putin abandons his own friendless, pathetic, Napoleonic small-man ambitions), to form the UN, to establish NATO, to draft NAFTA, and more. We didn’t build this new world order alone, we held hands and worked with other countries and gave them the assurances only our brass knuckles could provide.

I know these institutions are imperfect. Our world has changed, and globalization has upset our industrial base. The economic pains behind Trump’s populist appeal are very real, and we have to address them. When friends encounter difficulties, they don’t bail out, they work it out. In fact, it would warm Americans’ hearts to know that our friends are experiencing similar difficulties, they feel our pain, and we could find lasting solutions if only we had the courage to work this out with our friends and not hold these pains against our friends.

Donald Trump has no friends, but if he could learn to value and maintain true friendships at the age of 78, it would be a beautiful thing for our country & the world.