Can the American Scheherazade Survive 1001 Nights?
By Tom Kagy | 19 Aug, 2025

Donald Trump is unlikely to match Scheherazade's success in keeping her audience enthralled.

Donald Trump loves to tell whoppers.  Some are fabricated to justify policies based on deep-seated prejudices combined with staggering ignorance about global socio-economics.  Examples include accusing Harvard and other elite, heavily Jewish colleges of anti-semitism, alleging that migrants comprise our nation's criminal elements, that the US is suffering an economic emergency by being "ripped off" in trade, that Los Angeles had fallen victim to mob violence, among many others.

Some of his best fabrications are born of his pathological need to have his vanity stroked with sycophant fawning and media attention.  Some examples include claiming Xi promised not to invade Taiwan as long as he, Trump, is in power, that dozens of foreign countries were "kissing his a&&" to make trade deals, that he's due for the Nobel Peace Prize, that he would raise enough tariffs to rid the US of income tax, that he's obliterated Iran's nuclear program, etc.

Fortunately for Trump, his supporters are mostly as ignorant as he is and tend to believe his proclamations.  What's more, their news source is either wingnut social media sites or Fox News, both of which carefully avoid substantive news about economics, geopolitics or domestic issues.  The result is that Trump's fabrications get him "wins" with his base who rarely learn the actual outcome of his policies. 

In that respect, Trump can be likened to a modern day Scheherazade.  But Scheherazade managed to keep her audience, a cynical king, enthralled with cliffhangers for 1,001 nights until he fell in love and married her.  The outcome is likely to be quite different for Trump.

The reason is that Scheherazade was telling tales from the remote past that couldn't be contradicted by current events.  Trump, on the other, hand is fabricating tales about current events that can easily be verified by anyone with access to the internet and actual news sites rather than clickbait sites filled with material cannibalized from other wingnut sites.

The policies that Trump has been installing based on his tall tales are inevitably having real-world impact on the lives of even — especially — his followers.  The inflation that has begun rising from his tariffs and mass deportations of essential workers will be felt in the pocket books of even the most reality-challenged.  The rising unemployment rates will be felt hardest by his backward-looking base.  When the US is forced to ship off more soldiers overseas to face the consequences of Trump's weakness toward other tyrants like Putin and Kim, their ranks will be filled mostly with youth from Trump's base.

Come the midterm elections next November Trump will have served about 650 days.  There will be enough in his base who will have felt the unreality of Trump's fabrications and have the good sense of keep him away from the cookie jar.  The impeachment and trial will take about 100 days, giving Trump about 750 days, only 75% of Scheherazade's run.  And of course the end won't be a wedding but possible imprisonment once details emerge of just how gross has been his violations of the Constitution's emuluments clause.