Thread by @RobertEllsberg

1. This marks the 400th posting of #TolstoysTalesofTrump! Learning that even my own father @DanielEllsberg was mystified by this saga, perhaps some explanation is in order. First: These are not actually written by Tolstoy (1828-1910), who did not live to see the rise of Twitter.

2. The conceit of this series was to imagine a commentary on the age of Trump by transposing him into the world of Tolstoy’s “moral tales”—the world of vain and corrupt landowners, petty aristocrats, and capricious masters who mistake servility and fear for real love.

3. Others have much better explored the psychopathology of the president (@yourauntemma @gtconway3d @MaryLTrump). Instead of simply noting that “Trump is a lying amoral narcissist,” I would reflect on our time thru the story of the master of a 19th cen Russian estate.

4. I would imagine a man with no regard for anyone but himself, utterly incapable of empathy, remorse, insight, or fellow feeling, with no comprehension of truth or ordinary decency, who lives enclosed in the unreflective bubble of his own lies and delusions.

5. I would depict a man who embodies the contrary of the faith he claims to espouse, and who imparts his moral decay to everyone who aspires to a share in his attention, power, or reflected glory.

6. I imagined such a person, and every day found fresh illustrative material in the daily news or in the president’s tweets. And I imagined how Tolstoy would respond if confined to a genre based on 240 characters per tale. Hence: #TolstoysTalesofTrump

7. In Tolstoy’s tales, his depiction of moral failure serves by way of contrast to highlight authentic spiritual truths. By the same token it can be hoped that history will record our time as having inspired a deep hunger for goodness, decency, and truth.

8. How long will this series continue? Not long, I trust. Because the arc of the universe is long but it bends toward Justice. And as Tolstoy wrote: God sees the Truth but waits.