US President Donald Trump’s praise for New Delhi’s India Gate might, at first glance, appear like a harmless nod to another nation’s architecture. But context ruins the illusion. The social media post came just a day after Trump once again declared that Washington, DC, needed a triumphal arch – and not just any arch. The biggest one. Bigger than others. Bigger than history. Bigger than meaning itself.
This was not diplomacy. It was not admiration. It was a competition.
Trump does not look at monuments the way ordinary people do — as sites of memory, grief, or collective meaning. He looks at them the way a child looks at toys lined up on a shelf, measuring which one is larger, shinier, louder. India Gate, a war memorial honouring fallen soldiers, becomes in his mind not a solemn structure but a provocation: Can mine be bigger?
Welcome to the psychology of Donald Trump – where size substitutes for substance, and politics is little more than a global playground.
The Schoolyard Mind of Power
Psychologists have long noted that Trump’s personality is anchored in what is sometimes called arrested emotional development. The behavioural markers are familiar: compulsive boasting, hypersensitivity to perceived slights, obsession with winning, and a relentless need for external validation. These are not quirks; they are symptoms.
Trump’s language is tellingly repetitive. Everything must be “the biggest,” “the best,” “the greatest.” Nuance disappears. Complexity is intolerable. Like a child shouting across a schoolyard — my father is stronger than yours – Trump communicates power through exaggeration rather than explanation.
In this worldview, monuments are not civic artefacts. They are extensions of the self. His towers carry his name in gold letters. His ballrooms are famously described by him as the largest anywhere. Even grief must be outdone. Even history must be measured.
India Gate, then, is not a memorial – it is a rival.
One wonders what he would decide when he actually visits the Taj Mahal.
Architecture as Narcissism
There is something deeply revealing about Trump’s fixation on architecture. Real estate developers often equate buildings with legacy, but Trump takes this to an almost pathological extreme. Structures are not meant to serve people; people are meant to serve structures, which in turn serve him.
The proposed triumphal arch in Washington is not about honouring veterans, democracy, or the republic. It is about imprinting Trump’s ego onto the American skyline. Rome had its emperors. Paris has its Arc de Triomphe. Trump wants his own, stripped of history and soaked in self-regard.
That it must be bigger than India Gate matters enormously to him. Bigger equals better. Bigger equals victory. Bigger equals worth.
This is why his politics are theatrical rather than thoughtful. Walls are more important than immigration reform. Parades matter more than veterans’ care. Gold decor matters more than governance.
Infantilised Competition
Disguised as Nationalism
Trump’s supporters often mistake this behaviour for strength. In reality, it is insecurity masquerading as bravado. Mature leadership does not need constant comparison. It does not obsess over size. It does not reduce international relations to one-upmanship.
Trump’s nationalism is not rooted in civic pride or democratic values. It is competitive nationalism — a scoreboard mentality where countries are players, monuments are trophies, and humiliation is victory. This is why he treats diplomacy like a reality show. Allies are praised or punished based on flattery. Enemies are mocked like playground bullies. The world is divided not into just and unjust, but into winners and losers.
And Trump must always win.
The Nobel Peace Prize Fantasy
No discussion of Trump’s psychological landscape is complete without mentioning his obsession with the Nobel Peace Prize. He wants it not for ending wars, many of which expanded under his watch — but because Barack Obama received one. The comparison haunts him.
Like the arch, the prize is a symbol, not a substance. It is validation crystallised into metal and ceremony. Trump wants the Nobel the way a child wants a medal at a school sports day — not for excellence, but for recognition.
Peace, in this worldview, is performative. Justice is irrelevant. The suffering of Palestinians, Afghans, Yemenis, or Iranians is secondary to the optics of being seen as a “deal-maker.”
It is peace without accountability – a cheap Nobel for cheap theatre.
Senility or Strategy?
Is this behaviour the result of cognitive decline, or is it calculated performance? The uncomfortable answer may be: both.
Trump’s speeches increasingly show signs of cognitive looping – repetitive phrases, fixation on the same grievances, and difficulty processing complexity. At the same time, his team understands that bombast energises his base. Infantilism, it turns out, polls well.
But whether senility or strategy, the danger remains the same. When the world’s most powerful office is occupied by someone who thinks like a competitive child, global politics becomes dangerously unserious.
Nuclear arsenals are not toys. Climate collapse is not a game. War is not a branding opportunity.
Why Mockery is Necessary
Satire is not cruelty here; it is a civic duty. Power that insists on being taken seriously despite behaving absurdly must be punctured. Trump’s monumental obsession deserves ridicule because ridicule exposes the hollowness beneath the grandeur.
India Gate stands for remembrance and sacrifice. Trump’s imaginary arch would stand for nothing but himself.
History is littered with leaders who built grand structures to mask internal decay. Empires fall not when monuments crumble, but when leaders mistake size for greatness and noise for strength.
Trump’s tragedy is not that he wants a bigger arch. It is that he believes this is what legacy looks like.
The Final Measurement
India Gate will outlast Trump, not because it is taller or grander, but because it is anchored in meaning rather than ego. Trump’s monuments — real or imagined — will age like his boasts: loud at first, embarrassing in retrospect, and ultimately irrelevant.
History does not ask who built the biggest structures. It asks who understood restraint, responsibility, and humanity. And in that reckoning, no arch, however tall, can compensate for a leader who never grew up.
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Ranjan Solomon is a writer, researcher and activist based in Goa. He has worked in social movements since he was 19 years old. The views expressed here are the author’s own and Clarion India does not necessarily share or subscribe to them. He can be contacted at ranjan.solomon@gmail.com
