Politicians are routinely compared to fictional villains, but Donald Trump is one of only a few to actively court these comparisons. Sometimes this is an ordinary act of reclaiming someone else’s insults, but often, it’s more like a quasi-ironic attempt to appropriate the coolness and machismo of villainy. Trump is the presidential version of 4chan denizens adopting Bane and the Joker as patron saints: some men want to watch the world burn, others salivate at the prospect of beating up protestors. This goes a long way toward explaining why Trump might decide to make a policy announcement by tweeting a Game of Thrones meme.
Earlier today, Trump tweeted a steely looking picture of himself overlaid with HBO’s Game of Thrones font, declaring...
