The Aging Narcissus: Trump's Desperate War on Mirrors
Narcissus, the myth tells us, fell in love with his own reflection. He was so consumed by the beauty he saw that he perished, unable to look away. But what happens when the reflection begins to betray the myth? What happens when the water ripples, and the image that stares back is not one of eternal youth and vigour, but of a man succumbing to the inescapable gravity of time? The story of Donald Trump has entered this final, tragic act. When confronted with a mirror showing not the strongman of his imagination but an old man, tired and fading, he does not pine away. He rages. He seeks to shatter the mirror and punish the one holding it.
This is the real story behind his latest tirade. The New York Times published an article (Rogers and Freedman, 2025) that was, in essence, a mirror. It detailed, with data and first-hand observation, what many have seen but few in the mainstream press had so bluntly articulated: at 79, Donald Trump is showing clear “signs of fatigue.” The article noted his drooping eyelids, his shorter public schedules, and a general decline in the frenetic energy that once defined his political brand. It was a factual, dispassionate reflection of reality.
For a man whose entire political identity is built on the performance of dominance, this reflection was an intolerable narcissistic injury. And so, he lashed out. The target was not the data, nor the male co-author of the piece. It was the woman, New York Times reporter Katie Rogers, whom he branded “a third rate reporter who is ugly, both inside and out” (Trump, 2025). The insult was not a political strategy, but the primal scream of an aging Narcissus confronted with a truth he cannot abide: the reflection in the water is no longer perfect.
From ‘Piggy’ to ‘Ugly’: The War on Mirrors
The attack on Rogers was not an isolated incident. It was an escalation, a doubling-down on a tactic he had deployed just days earlier. When Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey asked a pointed question about the Jeffrey Epstein files - another unflattering mirror reflecting a past he cannot control - he snapped, “Quiet. Quiet, piggy” (Plague Island, 2025). In both instances, a female journalist presented an uncomfortable truth, and in both instances, Trump’s response was to attack the woman’s appearance, to reduce her professional authority to a crude, misogynistic caricature.
This pattern is not new, but its acceleration is revealing. Within the span of less than two weeks, we have witnessed two high-profile attacks on female journalists for doing their jobs. The first involved a question about Epstein - a subject that has haunted Trump for years, a shadow he cannot fully escape. The second involved a straightforward analysis of his schedule and his visible signs of aging. Both questions were legitimate. Both journalists were doing what journalists are supposed to do: asking the powerful to account for themselves.
Yet Trump’s response to both was identical: attack the woman. Not the argument. Not the facts. The woman. This is the core of his methodology. The insults are not random; they are a desperate attempt to discredit the mirror by defiling the person holding it. If the reporter is “ugly” or a “piggy,” then her reflection of him as a tired, aging man must also be distorted and false. It is a pathetic but revealing psychological manoeuvre. He cannot engage with the substance of the reporting - that he is, in fact, getting older, that his schedule is lighter, that he appeared to doze off during a public event - so he attacks the messenger’s face.
This is the last resort of a man who has lost the argument with reality. And it is a tactic that works on a particular audience: those who have already decided that the truth is whatever he says it is, and that any contradiction must be the product of malice or dishonesty. But for the broader public, for the institutions of the press, for the historical record, these attacks serve only to confirm what the reporting already established. He is not a man at peace with himself. He is not a man secure in his vitality or his accomplishments. He is a man terrified of aging, of irrelevance, of being seen for what he actually is.
The Obsession with Vitality: A Man at War with Time
This obsession with his own vitality, contrasted with his attacks on others, is a spectacle of operatic irony. This is the man who relentlessly mocked his political opponents for their age and perceived frailty. During his first term, he was savage in his attacks on Hillary Clinton’s stamina, on Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, on anyone he perceived as weak or diminished. He built an entire political brand around the performance of strength, of dominance, of an almost superhuman capacity for work and endurance.
Now, as the same lens is turned on him, he cannot bear it. The New York Times article was not an attack; it was an observation. But for Trump, observation is attack. Scrutiny is persecution. And the truth, when it does not align with his self-mythology, is the ultimate betrayal. He has spent his entire life constructing an image of himself as a man of unparalleled vitality and power. To have that image questioned, to have his own body betray the narrative he has so carefully constructed, is a form of existential crisis.
The Times’ reporting was meticulous and restrained. The article actually noted that Trump “remains almost omnipresent in American life” and takes questions from the press “far more often” than his predecessor (Rogers and Freedman, 2025). It was not a hatchet job. It was a measured analysis of observable facts. Yet Trump could not accept even this qualified assessment. He could not tolerate the suggestion that his energy levels have changed, that his schedule has shifted, that the demands of the presidency are taking their toll. Because to accept these things would be to accept that he is, after all, human. That he is subject to the same forces of time and mortality that affect everyone else.
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The Fortress of Lies: “A PERFECT PHYSICAL EXAM”
Confronted with the undeniable evidence of his own aging, the aging Narcissus does not retreat into quiet contemplation. He builds a fortress of lies. In the same social media post where he attacked Katie Rogers, Trump insisted, “I have never worked so hard in my life,” and boasted of a “PERFECT PHYSICAL EXAM AND A COMPREHENSIVE COGNITIVE TEST (’That was aced’) JUST RECENTLY TAKEN” (Trump, 2025).
This is the sound of a man shouting at his own reflection. The secrecy surrounding his recent health, including an MRI scan whose purpose remains undisclosed (Darcy, 2025), stands in stark contrast to these grandiose claims of perfect health. A man secure in his vitality does not need to protest so loudly. He does not need to invent perfect test scores or lash out at reporters for noticing he looks tired. The performance of strength has become a frantic, almost manic, pantomime. The more the physical evidence contradicts the myth, the more furiously he must insist on the myth’s reality.
Consider the psychology at work here. Trump has spent decades cultivating an image of himself as a man of exceptional physical and mental capacity. His supporters have internalised this image. It is central to his political appeal. He is not just a politician; he is a strongman, a man of action, a man who can work 18-hour days and still dominate a room. To admit to fatigue, to acknowledge the normal processes of aging, would be to undermine the entire foundation of his political brand.
Yet the evidence is mounting. The Times article cited specific instances: Trump appeared “drowsy” at a November 6 Oval Office event, with his “eyelids drooped until his eyes were almost closed, and he appeared to doze on and off for several seconds” (Rogers and Freedman, 2025). These are not subjective impressions. These are observations from people in the room, documented and reported. They are the kind of details that cannot be wished away or attacked into irrelevance.
Misogyny as a Weapon of Distraction
This is where the misogyny serves its most crucial function. It is a diversion. He wants the conversation to be about his “politically incorrect” language, about the “nasty” female reporters, about anything other than the simple, observable fact that he is an old man, and the immense pressures of the presidency are taking their toll. He is attempting to swap one reflection for another: instead of the mirror showing his decline, he wants a mirror that shows him as a powerful man battling a hostile press.
It is a tactic that has worked before. Throughout his political career, Trump has used personal attacks on women as a way to dominate the news cycle and distract from substantive criticism. When confronted with facts he cannot refute, he reaches for the most primitive weapons in his arsenal: attacks on appearance, on tone, on femininity itself. He called women “nasty,” referenced menstruation to dismiss a journalist’s questions, and has consistently reserved his harshest language for women who challenge him.
The pattern is global and it is consistent. Strongmen fear scrutiny, and they reserve a special kind of venom for female journalists who represent a dual threat: they challenge the leader’s narrative (the job of the press) and they challenge his patriarchal authority (the perceived role of women). Trump’s “piggy” comment and his “ugly inside and out” insult are direct echoes of this global chorus of misogynistic intimidation. They are the language of a club of bullies who believe that their power grants them the right to define reality and to punish anyone who dares to disagree.
But there is something particularly desperate about these attacks now. In his younger years, Trump could deploy misogyny as a tool of dominance, a way to assert his power over women who challenged him. Now, the misogyny has become a tool of desperation, a way to distract from the undeniable evidence of his decline. The insults are no longer the confident barbs of a man secure in his power. They are the frantic shouts of a man losing control.
The Unforgiving Reflection
But the strategy is failing. The insults no longer land with the same disruptive force. The world is becoming accustomed to the tantrums. The New York Times’ firm defence of its reporter shows that institutions are less willing to be cowed. A spokesperson for the paper stated: “The Times’s reporting is accurate and built on first hand reporting of the facts. Name-calling and personal insults don’t change that, nor will our journalists hesitate to cover this administration in the face of intimidation tactics like this” (Darcy, 2025). This is a statement of resolve.
Each outburst, each juvenile insult, serves only to reinforce the central point of the reporting he despises: he is a man losing control. He can call Katie Rogers “ugly,” and he can call Catherine Lucey a “piggy.” He can scream about his perfect health and his boundless energy. But he cannot change the reflection in the water. The image of him leaning on the wall of Air Force One, his face a mask of exhaustion and fury, is more powerful than any of his insults. It is the true reflection, the one he cannot escape.
This is the tragedy of the aging Narcissus. He has built his entire political identity on the performance of strength, on the cultivation of an image of himself as a man of unparalleled vitality and power. But the body does not lie. The schedule does not lie. The photographs do not lie. And no amount of shouting at female journalists can change these facts. The mirror continues to reflect the truth, and the truth is that he is an old man, growing older, struggling under the weight of the presidency, and increasingly desperate to deny what everyone can see.
The misogyny is not a side effect of his aging. It is a symptom of it. It is what emerges when the myth collides with reality, when the carefully constructed image of dominance begins to crack. He lashes out at women because they are the ones holding the mirrors. They are the ones asking the questions he cannot answer. They are the ones refusing to participate in the fiction he is trying to maintain.
The Path Forward
What does this mean for the future? It means that the attacks will likely continue. A man confronted with the undeniable evidence of his own decline, unable to accept it, will continue to rage against the mirrors. He will continue to attack female journalists. He will continue to insist on his perfect health and his boundless energy. He will continue to build fortresses of lies around himself, each one more elaborate and desperate than the last.
But it also means that the strategy is increasingly transparent. The public is learning to see through the distraction. The institutions of the press are learning to stand firm. And the historical record is being written in real time, documenting not just the attacks, but the desperation that produces them.
The ultimate tragedy of Narcissus was not his vanity, but his inability to distinguish between the image and the reality. He was destroyed by a love for something that was not real. Trump, our aging Narcissus, is being destroyed by his hatred for something that is: the undeniable, unforgiving truth of his own decline. He can shatter every mirror he sees, but he will never escape the reflection. And the more frantically he attacks the mirrors, the more clearly the world can see what he is trying to hide.
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References
Darcy, O. (2025) ‘First ‘piggy,’ now ‘ugly’: Trump continues attacks on female reporters’, CNN, 26 November. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/26/media/trump-piggy-ugly-reporter-insult-ny-times [Accessed: 26 November 2025].
Plague Island (2025) ‘Fear and Loathing on Air Force One: The Real Meaning of “Quiet. Quiet, Piggy.”’, Plague Island, 19 November. Available at: https://www.plagueisland.com/p/fear-and-loathing-on-air-force-one [Accessed: 26 November 2025].
Rogers, K. and Freedman, D. (2025) ‘Trump, Facing Realities of Aging in Office, Shows Signs of Fatigue’, The New York Times, 26 November. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/us/politics/trump-age-health.html [Accessed: 26 November 2025].
Trump, D. (2025) Truth Social Post, 26 November. Available at: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump [Accessed: 26 November 2025].