Donald Trump has always mistaken spite for strength. His latest act - hanging a self-aggrandising black-and-white portrait of himself beside a flimsy photo of President Joe Biden’s autopen signature - is not the gesture of a titan, but of a terrified man.
This is not power. Nor is it even theatre. It is petty vandalism dressed up in gaudy gold leaf. Trump wants to delegitimise his predecessor, but in the process, he has only exposed himself: a feeble little man-baby whose ego is so fragile he must cling to trivia to big himself up.
The scene is absurd. On the wall of his new presidential gallery, Trump’s own face stares down in monochrome solemnity, framed in a tacky gilt border fit for a Vegas casino lobby. Next to it, Biden is represented not by a portrait, not even by a candid photograph, but by a sheet of paper bearing his machine-produced signature. A Xerox with pretensions, hung beside a vanity project. It would be funny if it weren’t so revealing.
The Pettiness of Power
Presidential portraiture is one of the rituals of American democracy. It is about continuity, respect for the office, and a recognition that leadership belongs to the nation, not just the man who holds it. Trump, of course, has no respect for any of that. He reduces the tradition to another opportunity for personal score-settling. In his world, the presidency is not a responsibility, but a mirror: every institution exists only to reflect him back at himself.
By granting himself a proper portrait while humiliating President Biden with an autopen photo, Trump thinks he is delivering a masterstroke of dominance. In truth, it reeks of desperation. A man who boasts of ‘strength’ does not need to rely on cheap tricks to diminish his rivals. But Trump has always been terrified of being overshadowed. He is incapable of magnanimity because he is incapable of security. You see it when he keeps wittering on about the Nobel Peace Prize, for example – it gets to him that President Obama has one, but he does not. The pettiness is the point.
A Weak Man’s Fear of History
Why this obsession with belittling Biden? Because Trump knows, in the quiet corners of his very small mind, how history will view him. He knows that his presidency will be remembered not for achievements but for scandals, lies, impeachments, and an insurrection incited in his name. He knows he has been weighed and found wanting.
History will not remember him as the strongman he pretends to be, but as a cautionary tale; the carnival barker who stumbled into the Oval Office, gutted institutions, and left wreckage in his wake. That knowledge surely gnaws at him. It explains why he is forever straining for validation, staging scenes, and clinging to trivia. Every tantrum is an attempt to outrun his legacy. Every insult is a bandage for his insecurity.
Projection, Always Projection
Trump’s gallery is a confession as well as an exercise in spite. He tries to delegitimise Biden because he knows how illegitimate he feels. He calls Biden weak, but only to mask his own weakness. He insists that Biden is unworthy of the office, because he knows the same charge sticks more firmly to himself.
This is Trump’s entire psychology in miniature: projection as strategy, insecurity masquerading as confidence. He is a bully in the schoolyard sense, desperate to humiliate others in order to hide his own terror of being laughed at. The joke, as ever, is that the cruelty does not conceal the fear. It advertises it.
The Gold Frame Illusion
The frames themselves tell the story. Ornate, excessive, gaudy to the point of parody - they are pure Trump. He has spent his life cloaking failure in gold plating, turning bankruptcy and scandal into towers and casinos with his name in 20-foot letters. The gallery continues the tradition.
Beneath the gilding lies hollowness. Just as his casinos collapsed, just as his ‘university’ was a scam, just as his businesses have been propped up by debt and bluster, this gallery is another monument to insecurity. It is the aesthetic of fake grandeur, the delusion of permanence. Trump thinks that if he puts his image in a gold frame, history will treat him with reverence. In reality, it only emphasises how desperate he is to be taken seriously.
Pettiness Versus Reality
It would almost be laughable if it weren’t so grotesque. Trump is deploying the U.S. National Guard against his own citizens - but sure, Biden used an autopen. Trump is a convicted felon, including for sexual assault - but sure, Biden used an autopen. Trump enjoyed a long and well-documented friendship with convicted paedophile and sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. He moved Epstein’s right-hand woman - convicted sex trafficker and sexual abuser, Ghislaine Maxwell, to a country club prison to keep her favour. Trump is now actively blocking the release of the Epstein files - but sure, Biden used an autopen.
These contrasts are as scandalous as they are ludicrous. A man who has left a trail of crime, corruption, and cruelty wants us to believe that his rival is illegitimate because of a machine-signed photograph. This trolling masquerades as politics, and it reveals a truth Trump cannot escape: he has no achievements to stand on, only stunts to perform.
Conclusion: A Legacy in Tantrums
Trump thinks he is writing history with his insults and his little autopen joke. He imagines future generations will look at his gallery and see a man of stature, towering above a diminished Biden.
But history is not written in gold frames. It is written in deeds.
This is Trump’s legacy: not strength but spite, not greatness but grievance. He will not be remembered as a colossus bestriding history. He will be remembered as a small man in a big frame, desperately gilding over his failures while history strips them bare.
Donald J. Trump, the self-styled strongman, has revealed himself once again. He is not strong. He is not dominant. He is not secure. He is petty, spiteful, and small, and no amount of gold leaf will cover it.
And every time you see a distraction like this, just remember to ask: Where are the Epstein Files?