rhetoric vs reality

Back in JC, my Lit teachers P and C used to go on about tragic heroes (usually the political figures) who end up believing their own rhetoric. It was a fatal mistake, they told us, one that we should always guard against. Perhaps theirs was a very Brit way of looking at things. i cannot imagine Americans seeing the hubris of those Shakespearean characters as "falling for one's own propaganda". They wouldn't see it as self-deception, i suspect, but as self-confidence, having good self-esteem.
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Anyway, the more i find out about America, the more i think that collectively as a nation they seem to have ended up believing their own rhetoric -- and now they have a President who thinks that way too, about himself. Interesting times indeed, when the rhetoric starts to peel away, and the reality begins to show.
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