By Shloimy Lowy, Photographer and Staff Writer
That didn’t happen.
And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.
And if it was, that’s not a big deal.
And if it is, that’s not my fault.
And if it was, I didn’t mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
Published in 2016 by Dayna Craig, “A Narcissist’s Prayer” is a glimpse into the mind of a narcissist — a person so self-centered that they cannot fathom themselves having done anything wrong. The poem stands out to me as a wonderful and tragic encapsulation of the political landscape of the past decade. But reflecting on the news lately, I think we have come to a point where those in power no longer feel it necessary to invoke this poem, and that should worry you.
When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, the world reacted in shock. Yet those in the anti-Israel camp reacted with precisely this poem. The first line of defense is always to say that it did not happen. They were going to “wait for the facts to come out.” Then, when it turned out that it did happen, it simply wasn’t that bad. Babies weren’t murdered, most of those affected were military personnel. And if a couple babies were burned alive, well, no biggie. It’s just a few babies. Oh, and if it was terrible, it was not Hamas’ fault.
This was all a big misunderstanding. Hamas was not intending to kill this many people, they were caught up in the chaos. They did not mean to. And when it turned out that they definitely did mean to, it was actually deserved. Years of colonization and occupation led to a situation where this had to happen, where those babies deserved to die. This was the song sung by people like Bassem Youssef and Mehdi Hassan, and parroted by masses of both uneducated and educated fellow sapiens.
A similar thing happened on the Israeli side of the war, where this poem became the Israeli government and its defenders’ preferred way of dealing with inevitable military tragedies. On August 25, 2025, troops of the Golani brigade struck the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis twice in 10 minutes. This was alleged to be a double tap strike, which although not unique to Israel, is arguably a war crime.
Initially, the Israel Defense Forces claimed the soldiers were shelling a camera used by Hamas, though later investigations showed it was actually a Reuters camera. The rhetoric that unfolded immediately was tragic and predictable. The IDF claimed that 6 of the 20 killed had actually been Hamas members, a claim that has been disputed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later called the attacks a “tragic mishap.” In the public square, responses were similar. In almost every instance of alleged Israeli crimes, people first claim the situation isn’t as bad as it seems, that the blame lies elsewhere and it was all a big mistake. Until, actually, they deserve it. They deserve it because of what their people did. They deserve it because of who they elected. They deserve it because we have a God-given right.
Many more examples can be given to illustrate this point, but this is a hallmark of “normal” politics. Politics is all about saying the right thing at the right time in order to get the most votes and the least cancellations. That is fine. Or maybe it isn’t fine, but it is the way of the world. No system can do it better. Or maybe that obscure governmental structure you read about on wikipedia last night is actually the solution to everything and they’re covering it up, whatever.
California State Senator Scott Wiener was not going to call the Israel-Gaza war a genocide, but when he began losing votes, definitions of words ceased to matter, and he changed course. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was never going to interact directly with President Donald Trump, until Trump called him smart, and then they were besties. Sure, sometimes people’s views change, and progress is real, but forgive me for being a bit skeptical of these sudden changes of heart when it benefits careers. Regardless, this is politics as it has always been practiced. But what happens when this model of post-hoc justified and morally bankrupt politics is pushed to even further extremes?
Well, a scary thing has been happening recently. The poem has been inverted, and the narcissists have convinced themselves of the ending so much that they seem to be skipping the first five steps. High-level cabinet officials within the Trump administration have become so self-obsessed that they assume that they are by default good, and that any seeming actually evil requires justification not to be done. Consider the responses of the Trump administration to recent events in Minnesota.
The details of the Renee Good and Alex Pretti shootings in Minneapolis are probably still fresh in your mind. For a brief recap, on January 7, Jonathan Roth, a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old citizen and mother at point-blank range. Good’s car was stopped sideways in the street when she was approached by the agent and ordered out of the car. It is unclear why she did not step out, either due to confusion or simple refusal, but she reversed a bit and then drove forward to the right. The officer fired first toward the front of the car and then at extreme close range at the driver’s side window as the car passed him by. Just over two weeks later, on January 24, Alex Pretti — a 37-year-old nurse — was shot 10 times, once again at extreme close range, by two Border Patrol agents. This happened after, during a scuffle, the agents found a concealed weapon on him. Pretti did not brandish the weapon and had a license to carry it.
These shootings occurred during Trump’s show of force involving increased Department of Homeland Security and ICE presence in Democratic cities across the U.S., what his administration called Operation Metro Surge. This has been particularly pronounced in Minnesota, where Trump has had some long running conflict with Democratic Governor Tim Walz.
That innocent lives were ended in these petty political fights for power is despicable and lamentable, and demands more serious attention to how we structure domestic policy. But what I want to focus on is the response from the Trump administration following these shootings, especially in the Pretti case. It is this response which I, and many others, have found to be a telltale sign of an administration that has completely neglected the people it serves in exchange for a pointless, hateful and increasingly violent agenda.
Almost immediately after the shooting, before anything was known about Pretti or his possible intentions, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin released a statement saying, “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” This was echoed by Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, who called Pretti a “would-be assassin” and said that “the official Democrat account sides with the terrorists,” a statement reposted by Vice President J.D. Vance. This kind of talk was amplified by then Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem in a press conference, where she said that Pretti “committed an act of domestic terrorism,” a statement parroted from a post on official DHS social media accounts.
Later that week, the Trump administration walked back some of that rhetoric. By that I mean Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that she “has not heard the president characterize Mr. Pretti in that way” and that “he wants to let the facts and the investigation lead itself.” Eventually, the backlash was severe enough that the DHS partially pulled out of Minneapolis, but that was after irrefutable evidence of wrongdoing was evident to everyone.
A similar, albeit not as extreme, reaction came out of the Trump White House after the Renee Good shooting. Trump posted on Truth Social that Good “violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE agent, who seems to have shot her in self defense” and “based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he [the agent] is alive.”
Based on the clip, it is, in fact, not difficult to believe that the officer is alive. The officer was barely swiped by the car, and he was perfectly able to get out of the way — which he did anyway — without taking a life. Not to milk a dehydrated cow or regurgitate an overused trope, but in typical Orwellian fashion, the videos of both events, which officials in the administration had access to just like the rest of us, told completely different stories from the ones the administration spun. The footage clearly depicted poorly trained officers murdering civilians in chaotic but cold blood. Yet this did not stop them from pushing these lies about domestic terrorism and the unbelievable heroism of the officers. Despite the evidence of our eyes and ears, they thought that perhaps if they screamed loud enough, we wouldn’t notice their crimes.
This is the complete inversion of the typical narcissistic line of reasoning, and not in a good way. Instead of going through the motions, instead of invoking the poem, they went right to the end. The first thing said was that they deserved it. He was a terrorist. She was violent and vicious. They died because they deserved to die. Never mind that Good was shot a second time when she was no longer a threat to the officer. Never mind that Pretti was shot after the officers had already disarmed him. They deserved it. The Trump administration has become so comfortable being the narcissist that they forgot to justify their actions by the usual toxic lines of reasoning, ones which have historically indicated that politicians are bound to their constituents.
When those in power no longer feel the need to defend the indefensible, it means authoritarianism is here. When they can murder people in the streets of Minneapolis and refuse to apologize for calling the victims terrorists. When their version of the secret police can march our streets in masks, arresting citizens and noncitizens alike, demanding papers and denying accountability. When an administration can instill so much fear in a population that people are afraid to step outside, lest they be arrested, lest they be shot or tear-gassed, that administration has fundamentally failed its people, and has made alienable their inalienable rights: the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those rights that should have been inalienable even to “illegal aliens.”
Let us hope for the day when politicians continue to do terrible things, but at least feel compelled to pretend they aren’t doing them. A day when unabashed crime will be cleared from our streets, bad actors ashamed of their actions. Politicians will continue to be unjust, but at least we can ask that they have shame. On that day, the narcissist will return to their prayer, and the rest of us will know that the performance of accountability has returned. In our current climate, even that will feel like progress.
Photo Credit: Shloimy Lowy