Unlearning the Myth of the Last Person
- john raymond
- 2 minutes ago
- 2 min read
The persistence of the “last person in the room” myth speaks to a deeper failure in how political observers still misunderstand President Trump. They treat him as if he were merely a narcissist buffeted by the winds of proximity—susceptible to whoever flatters or frightens him most recently.
This view is comfortable because it implies that Trump is weak, easily swayed, and perhaps redeemable through better counsel. But that is wishful thinking, not analysis.
Trump is not malleable. He is malevolent, deliberate, and disciplined in his deceit.
The Lie as a Method
Trump’s pathology is not inconstant lying but practiced lying—a calculated pattern of deception designed to maintain leverage. He understands that if he openly disregarded those who meet with him, no one would bother.
Thus, he simulates receptivity. He nods, flatters, repeats back fragments, and pretends to “take it under advisement.” It is theater meant to preserve the illusion of engagement.
But the end state is always the same: the re-assertion of the Kremlin line, the return to Putin’s frame, the betrayal of allies who believed their words could move him.
The Latest Proof
The recent sequence of events removes all doubt. Trump met with President Zelenskyy, nominally to discuss peace in Ukraine. But the meeting was shaped by his allegiance to Putin, and the output proved it.
Trump did not echo Zelenskyy’s appeals or acknowledge Ukrainian realities on the ground. He repeated Russian talking points verbatim: that both sides should “stop where they are,” that “Putin has already won territory,” that “further fighting is pointless.”
The man who supposedly “listens to the last person in the room” didn’t listen at all. He instead channeled the guy in Moscow—and he was thousands of miles away.
The Signal and the Noise
This pattern is the signal. Everything else—Trump’s performative engagement, his affectations of diplomacy, his oscillating tone—is noise. The signal is allegiance.
To confuse tactical mimicry for intellectual malleability is to misunderstand the operating system. Trump’s mind is not a vacuum waiting for input; it is a closed circuit wired to a single external master.
His pretense of listening is a control mechanism, not a vulnerability.
The Strategic Consequence
Believing Trump is easily influenced leads analysts and diplomats to waste time trying to influence him—when the only consistent influence is the Kremlin.
This misconception disarms the West twice over: first by fostering false hope, and second by masking the continuity of his betrayal.
When commentators shrug that “he just listens to whoever speaks last,” they absolve him of agency, converting conscious alignment into a personality quirk. It is the foolish error of treating treachery as temperament.
The Lesson
To unlearn the myth is to see Trump as he is: a practiced liar whose deceit is functional, not chaotic. He listens to no one because him pretending to listen itself is a lie.
Every meeting is performance art for maintaining access. Every word of apparent openness is camouflage for the same destination—Putin.
Trump always comes home to Putin. That is the fixed point. Everything else is noise.