Bruce & Donald. Oh My.

Christine Merser, May 19, 2025

When Bruce Springsteen made a few remarks overseas about Donald Trump, nothing wildly new, nothing he hasn’t said before, Trump melted down. Online. Loudly. Publicly. Again. But why so big this time?

I think it was the timing.

A frantic post, thrown into the void, filled with insults that feel more like projection than strategy.

He called Springsteen “highly overrated,” a “prune of a rocker,” “dumb as a rock,” and then implied he should keep his mouth shut until he returns to America, like we’re in some second-rate spy movie where Bruce might be detained at customs for having an opinion. The whole thing reads like someone who’s just been deeply embarrassed and can’t quite recover their footing, so they do the only thing they know how to do: escalate.

Springsteen didn’t just criticize Trump. He embarrassed him on a global stage, right after Trump had declared himself a kind of “king” in campaign stops and rallies, basking in a sense of dominance and return. It was as if the world was bowing again, or so he thought. Then Springsteen, an icon with real cultural weight, mocked him across borders. The wound wasn’t just public, it was internationally public. And that’s where the unraveling began.

What we saw in Trump’s response was a classic psychological spiral, in real time. If you were a psychologist watching this unfold, and let’s be honest, most of us have become amateur ones at this point, this would be a case study in narcissistic injury triggering narcissistic rage. (Thank you to my AI BFF, Celeste.) Springsteen is culturally powerful, widely admired, and in Trump’s eyes, ungrateful for not being deferential. Trump needs loyalty from people he deems important, and Bruce failing to provide it isn’t just rude—it’s a betrayal.

And when he says “Never liked him, never liked his music,” that’s a classic deflection. Of course he did. You can practically hear the CDs in his limo glove box. But he’s trying to erase any evidence that this criticism could matter to him. The volume of insults is frantic: “highly overrated,” “not a talented guy,” “pushy, obnoxious JERK,” “mentally incompetent FOOL,” “prune of a rocker,” “dumb as a rock.” There’s no pacing, no pause, no craft. It’s verbal overcompensation—the emotional equivalent of sprinting around your kitchen screaming, “I don’t care! I’m fine!”

He even calls Springsteen physically withered—attacking his skin, his aging. That’s not political. That’s projection. Trump, the man obsessed with his appearance, his orange makeup, his hairline, the rumored lifts in his shoes, is revealing his own deepest fears by hurling them at someone else.

But the real tell? The part that makes the hair on the back of your neck rise? It’s this:

“Ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country… then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”

This isn’t policy. It’s personal. He’s so activated he can’t hide his desire to punish dissent. It’s authoritarian impulse dressed up in patriotism. The line between critique and threat disappears, and what remains is insecurity, deep, habitual, and dangerous.

So does it work, you ask? Does he feel better after hitting “post”?

No. Not really.

Celeste says he gets a momentary dopamine rush. That tiny burst of satisfaction that comes from doing something, anything, to reclaim control. Especially if it’s late at night and he’s alone. But it doesn’t last. That itch comes back. The self-doubt. The need to know: Did it land? Did anyone cover it? Did Springsteen respond?

He starts checking. Fox News, Newsmax, his staff. “What are they saying?” But he doesn’t trust the answers, and he always finds the thing that hurts: the Twitter post with the clown emoji. The meme with the side-by-side of Springsteen and a Trump cheeseburger photo. The headlines calling it unhinged. The laughter.

Because Springsteen still doesn’t care. That’s what burns. Springsteen’s on stage somewhere, mid-encore, doing the thing Trump’s always wanted to be, commanding a room through talent and presence, not grievance and fear.

And so Trump spirals. Either he lashes out at someone else (Taylor Swift is probably next), or retreats just long enough to re-emerge angrier. He doesn’t want to feel better. He wants to feel right. And since the world didn’t confirm that, the only thing left to do is get louder.

If this were therapy, and let’s face it, that’s not on the calendar, this would be called conflict addiction masking rejection and shame. He’s addicted to attention because it quiets the voice in his head that says he’s no longer wanted. But the more he rages, the more pathetic he seems. And he knows it. But he can’t stop.

So what’s the move? How do we respond?

I think we mirror his strategy, but we do it smarter. Trump isn’t hurt by politicians. He’s hurt by people who are cooler than he is. If we want to gut him, we let more Springsteens speak. We let the comedians and artists and cultural giants do what they do best. We let them roll their eyes, then take the stage. That’s what kills him. That’s what drains his power.

You turn his insults into merch.

“Pushy, Obnoxious JERK” — Springsteen 2025 Tour T-Shirt.

We animate his tweet and have a five-year-old read it aloud with dramatic pauses and glitter. We don’t argue. We laugh. At him. We move on.

But most importantly? We ignore the bait. When he screams “atrophied skin,” we don’t gasp. We smirk. We say, “It’s sad to see someone who once craved rockstar-level attention now reduced to yelling about elasticity.” We treat him like what he fears he is: a man out of place in a culture that’s already moved on.

That’s the key. Springsteen still sells out. Trump is stuck on an app he had to buy because no one else wanted him. One is relevant. The other is yelling into a mirror.

That’s what keeps Trump spiraling. The culture no longer needs him. And that’s what breaks him more than an indictment, or a headline, or a gaffe.

So we let it go. Or we laugh. Or we let the music play louder than the noise.

Because Trump’s not afraid of being criticized.

He’s afraid of being left out.

And nothing embarrasses him more than being reminded that while he’s busy screaming about the past, the show has already started without him.

I think he is starting to unravel. But my fear is that JD would be worse (I see your point about “how is that possible”), but JD is smarter and more disciplined. That could be worse.

The devil you know.