Patrick Bateman would be Trump's Secretary of Defense

I read American Psycho

In many ways, Patrick Bateman would be very at home in the America of 2025: he would love the morning shed and constantly be looksmaxxing (he is already doing it in 1989!), he would hate-watch the shrill New York City restaurant influencers (and then maybe murder them), he would likely be a crypto bro. Even Bret Easton Ellis’s style of prose in this novel feels very in tune with the cultural environment of today: Bateman goes into extensive, exhausting detail about the clothes he’s wearing and the foods he’s eating, and in the midst of languorous descriptions he drops in mentions of horrifically violent crimes he has committed. It feels a bit like scrolling through Twitter these days, where materialistic frivolity is treated with the same weight (or often, less) as horrific tragedies.

But perhaps the most striking and prophetic thing about Ellis’s infamous protagonist is his idolization of Donald Trump. Bateman loves and looks up to Trump, keeping tabs on his comings and goings in newspapers, and storing a copy of The Art of The Deal in his office, which he recommends to people. Multiple times in the novel, when he is preparing to go to one of New York’s hottest restaurants or out to a party, he muses about the possibility of Trump being there. Donald Trump is perhaps the only person besides himself that Patrick Bateman holds in esteem.

The first time I read Trump’s name in the 1991 book I said “oh brother” out loud. Because, truly, oh brother. Ellis’s novel is a biting commentary on the wealth and hedonistic extravagance of the ‘80s that eventually transformed into the nihilism of the ‘90s, and it feels like the current American culture is beginning to go through that cycle once again as we fall into an economic recession and watch the regression of the “wokeness” of the late 2010s and early 2020s. Donald Trump has been a major and undeniable part of that process. It feels like Ellis was graced with the unfortunate gift of foresight when he wrote Bateman, a psychotic serial killer, as a Trump fanboy. How did he know how relevant that would be thirty years later! How did he know how many other violent men would find inspiration in Trump!

And so, of course, I began to imagine Bateman superimposed into the reality of America today. His hypothetical role in it was immediately clear to me: if Patrick Bateman was a real human being living in America in 2025, he would be Secretary of Defense in Trump’s second administration. And they’re looking for a new one anyway, so it works out! Bateman would make a perfect replacement for ex-Fox News Anchor turned national security risk Pete Hegseth. Let me explain:

Based on the fact that Patrick’s background is in finance, he is not qualified for the job. This makes him perfectly qualified for him to have it in Trump’s admin, because actually none of the current cabinet members are qualified for the positions they hold. So, check. He loathes women and poor people and people of color, so check check check. He has everything he’d need for the job.

Patrick also has a lust for money and violence that makes him an ideal fit for a position overseeing the US military aka the largest drain of taxpayer money in the United States and headquarters of state sanctioned violence. He commits brutal murders with no remorse, often justifying them in his mind or more often, not even acknowledging the morality enough to need a justification at all.

But the most important thing that makes Patrick Bateman perfect for this position is his willingness to change his opinions based on Trump’s. There is a scene in the novel where Bateman is arguing with his friend about the quality of pizza at Pastels, a hot Manhattan restaurant. Bateman calls the pizza “brittle”, and his friend is offended by this, adamant that it’s good. Later, the friend comes back with an article where Trump says the pizza at Pastels is his favorite in the city, and Bateman reluctantly relinquishes, saying that if the pizza at Pastels is okay with “Donny”, it’s okay with him. And with that, Patrick Bateman has displayed the most necessary trait for a member of Trump’s administration: he is strong and rigid in all things, and yet somehow easily swayed by the opinions of Donald Trump. Bateman would find a happy home in the Trump admin until eventually being thrown under the bus for war crimes or embezzlement or something. But, just like in Ellis’s novel, he would be fine. Bateman and Trump share a lucky trait of being somehow above the law. I think they would be good friends, actually.