Writing in today's New York Times, at least in the on-line version, novelist Ben Dolnick notes:

"At the core of Buddhism is the concept of non-self. The idea, basically, is that the thing you think of as you — the entity whose well-being occupies your every waking thought — is an illusion. This doesn’t mean that your body is a hologram . . . What non-self refers to, rather, is the thing that you think of as your true self — the little captain who lives somewhere behind your forehead and looks out through your eyes. The thing that says, 'I hope people like me' or 'I can’t stand another minute on this train' — that, Buddhists believe, is what needs to be seen through and rooted out.

This teaching, Buddhists insist, has the potential to eliminate your suffering entirely. But it is destined to remain so much inert philosophy, no more life-changing than the quadratic equation, until you’re able to actually glimpse your little impostor, to fix him in your mental cross hairs." 

Amusingly, Dolnick notes that Donald Trump seems to be doing exactly that, as his constant references to himself in the third person suggests a sort of detachment from the ego-self.  When Paul Manafort was indicted, Trump remarked, "There’s not a mention of Trump in there.” When discussing potential Russian interference during the election, he asked, “Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?” Back in 2009, he tweeted, “Be sure to tune in and watch Donald Trump on Late Night with David Letterman ….”

Referring to oneself in the third person is usually seen as abnormal, almost pathological. When the writers of a drama wish to signal that someone suffers from a terminal case of self-regard, they have him refer to himself in the third person.  But when we refer to ourselves in the third person, Dolnick says, the very thing that we're used to thinking of as ourselves appears separate from the one doing the speaking. Which means that shifting into the speech patterns of a narcissistic lunatic can be a means of realizing a life-altering truth - you are not your thoughts; you are not your feelings. 

No one thinks, even for a minute, that Donald Trump is an enlightened bodhisattva, or that when he refers to himself in the third person, he is expressing not a personality disorder but an intuitive grasp of the subtlest of Buddhist teachings. But thinking along Dolnick's lines makes Trump's bombastic, braggadocios speech seem somehow humorous, which in turn relieves some of our suffering.  And since the end of suffering was the goal of  the Buddha, Dolnick is doing the work of a bodhisattva by teaching us how to laugh at the oppressor.