Between the Mirror & the Megaphone: Iris Murdoch, Donald Trump, & Me

I’ve spent years trying to make sense of the fractured world we live in. And lately, I’ve found myself thinking about three very different voices that have shaped, resisted, or exploited this fracture: Iris Murdoch, Donald Trump, and, well, me. The contrast among us isn’t just philosophical; it’s existential. Murdoch with her metaphysical commitment to the Good, Trump with his unapologetic embrace of leverage and winning, and myself, standing somewhere in between with a clipboard, a smoothie shop, and the stubborn hope that discernment and self-reflection might still matter in a world increasingly allergic to both.

Murdoch once wrote that "love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real." She believed moral clarity begins with attention—a quiet, unselfish regard toward the world and the people in it. Contrast that with Trump’s worldview, where people are not ends in themselves but props in a theater of dominance. In my own journey, I’ve often felt like a reluctant protagonist in that same play—coached by philosophers, challenged by pragmatists, and always trying to see clearly, even when the fog of modern distraction creeps in.

Let me give you an example. Imagine you’re building a sandcastle. You put time into shaping towers and carving moats, believing the waves will respect your hard work. But the ocean doesn’t care—it washes everything away. As a kid, this seems unfair. As an adult, it still stings when your efforts vanish overnight. Murdoch might say the moral task is to keep building, not out of hope that the sea will change, but out of love for the act of building itself. Trump would tell you to sell tickets to your sandcastle, brand it, and then sue the tide for breach of contract. I? I’d try to save a few seashells for the next kid, hoping they might learn from the wreckage.

In Thinking for Yourself in a World That Tells You What to Believe, I argue that reflection is not just a personal luxury but a civic necessity. I describe how distraction—whether in the form of social media, partisan loyalty, or consumer culture—undermines our ability to think independently. Murdoch would likely agree. She saw the inner life as the battleground of morality. But where she saw metaphysical order, I see sociopolitical entropy. She asks us to gaze at the Good; I ask my readers to grab a mirror.

And then there’s Trump, who doesn’t ask you to reflect at all. His philosophy, if you can call it that, is the rejection of introspection. In Balancing the Pendulum, I constructed an imagined dialogue with Trump. He tells me, "Success isn’t about morality—it’s about leverage." That line still haunts me. It captures the spirit of an era where outcome matters more than process, and truth bends to will.
When I coach baseball, I see this contrast in how players respond to failure. One kid strikes out and throws his helmet—angry that he didn’t "win." Another strikes out and walks back, head high, asking what he can do better. The first is Trump’s disciple, taught to equate performance with worth. The second? A quiet Murdochian, though he doesn’t know it. He’s practicing attention—looking clearly at what went wrong, resisting the urge to make excuses, and caring enough to improve.
Murdoch teaches that illusion stems from ego. Trump weaponizes illusion through ego. And I, having grown up with the ghosts of both absence and ambition, try to help others recognize illusion as both external manipulation and internal blindness. Murdoch’s solution is attention. Mine is storytelling, irony, and the strategic use of self-deprecating humor.

Here’s another story. In my twenties, I worked in wholesale jewelry sales. I sold to jewelers, many of whom were rude or dismissive, often exhausted from spending their days pandering to retail customers. When buying from me, they dropped the charm. There was no need to flatter the guy they didn’t see as essential. One rainy Thursday afternoon, a man—shabby coat, cracked shoes—walked into our office. Everyone ignored him. He wasn’t a buyer. But something in me—maybe the ghost of Murdoch, maybe the tired remnants of conscience—nudged me to offer him a seat and a glass of water. We talked. He had stories. He didn’t buy anything, and I didn’t try to sell. But I left work that day feeling more human than I had all week. That moment didn’t improve our numbers, but it did sharpen my vision.

In that same piece, I write: "Maybe my job isn’t to convince them the ocean is unfair, but to leave behind a few sturdy seashells—tiny clues that, when the time comes, might help them build something that lasts a little longer." I still believe that. Trump would likely mock such humility. Murdoch might nod quietly in approval.

In Balancing the Pendulum, I write about my confrontation with Trump as an internal mirror—a test of my own blind spots. When he says, "Trust is a commodity," I recoil, but I also reflect. Am I projecting my own fear of decisiveness onto him? Is my love of nuance a form of cowardice? Murdoch warns that self-scrutiny can turn into self-indulgence. She might call me out for romanticizing my own struggle. Yet unlike Trump, I don’t think uncertainty is a weakness—it’s the soil from which wisdom grows.

Trump sees the world like a chessboard—cold, calculated, all about power. Murdoch sees it as a canvas—where the brushstrokes of character matter more than the final picture. Me? I see it as a classroom. We’re all still learning. Some cheat. Some sleep through the lecture. Some raise their hands, even when the answer’s hard. I write not to declare what’s true, but to ask better questions. Because I believe asking good questions is how we learn to see what’s real.

In Thinking for Yourself, I touch on how economic systems shape our perception of fairness. Murdoch might say that such concerns are secondary to spiritual purification. But that’s where I diverge. I can’t meditate on the Good while watching families priced out of their neighborhoods. For me, introspection is only powerful if it leads to empathy, and empathy only matters if it leads to action. Trump might say action is everything. But for him, action is conquest. For me, it’s connection.

Trump reduces morality to efficiency and persuasion. Murdoch elevates it to a metaphysical posture. I try to hold both truths: that morality must adapt to history and that discernment must survive spectacle. When I say, "My goal isn’t to persuade outright but to leave a trail of stories," I am not ceding the battle. I am choosing a different kind of war—one that is won not with force but with presence.

And speaking of presence, let me tell you about my mom. She’s 76, watches the news like it’s her job, and has no patience for political correctness. But she loves her neighbors—checks on them, shares her soup, even if they voted differently. She doesn’t quote Murdoch or Trump. But she lives the paradox: fiercely opinionated, deeply compassionate. She’s proof that complexity lives in ordinary people, not just philosophers.

Murdoch, Trump, and I are each speaking to different parts of the human psyche. She speaks to our yearning for transcendence. He speaks to our hunger for validation. I try to speak to our capacity for contradiction—and the quiet revolution that comes when we stop demanding the world be simple.
And maybe that’s why I keep writing. Not because I believe I’ll convince a critical mass, but because somewhere, someone might stumble across one of those seashells and realize they, too, have the power to reflect, question, and imagine a different way forward.
That’s what Murdoch tried to teach. That’s what Trump refuses to understand. And that’s the messy middle I inhabit.

If any of these ideas resonate, I invite you to download all my writings for free at www.stoopjuice.com. There, you’ll find essays, meditations, and more stories like this—offered without a paywall, in the spirit of accessibility and reflection.

As a courtesy to those who find philosophical density overwhelming and to those who find simplification insulting, I asked ChatGPT to respond to this piece objectively—then translated its findings into my own words to offer clarity without condescension.

Here’s what I learned when I asked ChatGPT to step outside my perspective and offer an honest assessment:

First, my work sits in a strange but purposeful place—between Iris Murdoch’s metaphysical idealism and Donald Trump’s transactional realism. Murdoch believes in the inner moral life, in striving toward “the Good” by unselfing ourselves through sustained attention to others and reality. Trump, in contrast, defines value by results, leverage, and winning. He doesn’t reject morality so much as regard it as optional when weighed against dominance and momentum.

I occupy the middle—an uncomfortable, necessary place. I value Murdoch’s moral vision, but I also acknowledge Trump’s understanding of systems that reward confidence over conscience. I try to create a language that honors both complexity and accessibility, blending philosophy with sandcastle metaphors, Plato with playground puzzles.

According to ChatGPT, this blend works best when I personalize it—when I describe the lonely mirror of coaching a teenager, the frustration of buying $40 worth of groceries that don’t stretch, or the spiritual humility of breathing through hardship. These moments invite empathy. They don’t lecture. They build trust.

Where I differ most from Murdoch is in tone. She’s priestly. I’m part street philosopher, part stand-up comic. Where I differ from Trump is in aim. He aims to win; I aim to understand—even if that means losing on the scoreboard. He sees trust as leverage. I see trust as sacred. He builds towers. I leave seashells.

ChatGPT also noted that my use of imagined dialogues—with Trump, Murdoch, or even my own younger self—is a unique philosophical device. It democratizes the debate. It invites readers into conversation rather than pronouncing conclusions. In a polarized world where everyone’s shouting, my approach is to whisper just loud enough to be heard by those still willing to listen.

Finally, if Murdoch’s work is a cathedral and Trump’s a casino, mine might be a treehouse—rickety, heartfelt, and built by hand with scraps of philosophy, street wisdom, and spiritual hope. It's not perfect. But it’s real. And it’s open to anyone willing to climb the rope ladder.

That’s what ChatGPT helped me see.

And maybe that’s the greatest irony of all: I used a machine to help me see my humanity more clearly.