Renzatic on 29/11/2016 at 05:49
He's pretty much a textbook example of a narcissist, put into a situation where all his dysfunctions were laid bare for all to see. He'll say whatever he needs to say to whoever's ass needs the most kissing at that moment, damn the inconsistencies.
Nothing in his past, not even his discriminatory housing practices, points towards him being a closet white nationalist. He was at one time a fairly heavy leaning democrat, and tended to side with them on issues more often than not. He only started playing the part of the far right Tea Party Republican during the Obama administrator, when it became his most convenient (and possibly last) path to the presidency.
Now don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that this alleged "real" Donald J. Trump somehow excuses everything he's done up this point. It doesn't. He's done a great deal of damage simply for his own sake. What I'm saying is that his detractors have taken the entirely wrong tact in attacking him and his hangers-on, and I believe it's at least partially responsible for him winning the election.
Think about it. If you ran across some blue collar guy up in Wisconsin, voting for Trump because he's concerned about his bread and butter being shipped off to some sweatshop overseas, do you think getting up in his face, calling him a racist homophobe who's literally everything that's wrong with this country will do a damn thing to make him reconsider his position? Your wit and charm probably won't do much to sway him to your side.
If there's one thing that's wrong with our current war for social justice, it's that those on the right tend to deny the racist that cling to their underbelly, while those on the left always seem to find racism in every little thing they come across. It creates something of a feedback loop, with one side screaming ever increasingly random, shrill accusations that ultimately become easier and easier to dismiss the louder and more desperate they become.
demagogue on 29/11/2016 at 07:14
My first inkling about Trump was when he was the guest host for Turner movie classics, this was back in the late 90s or so, and he went at length why Gone with the Wind was his favorite movie of all time, since he was a child, and he was openly nostalgic about the aristocratic grandeur of 19th Century Southern plantations and the tragedy of its collapse during the civil war. I remember thinking at the time, holy shit, it's one thing to like grand scale things, but he's is expressing open admiration for deep south plantations in about the most tone deaf way imaginable.
And part of me wanted to think that segment was misrepresenting him, but the fact he went on and on about it, and now with the glut of speeches on him from this election now make it impossible to miss. That wasn't just him being tone deaf. The grandeur of the old aristocracy is definable precisely in the debasement of the black characters in Gone with the Wind and black and Latin Americans in popular culture today.
Aside from that, other people have noticed lots of little things that once you start paying attention to them, they're everywhere. It's too easy to just say he's a classic narcissist. What you do is get people to notice the architecture of the way he says things, the consistent neuroses and assumptions they betray.
One, no matter what it's about, at its core everything he cares about is self-aggrandizing. At the root of the whole "build a wall" thing is really that he's a man that does mega-construction projects. I think he flipped virtually every point he made in the debates into something self-aggrandizing in one way or another.
The second was his projection. He projects his own faults on to his opponents. A lot of his charges against others are inexplicable until you think that the only reason he's so obsessed with certain kinds of corruption is that they are exactly the brands of corruption he's most mired in, projecting it on to others. The easiest way to know what kinds of corruption he dabbles in is to look at his charges against others.
And the third thing was the transparent gaslighting, where one counters every criticism about positions they've held with "Nope, I never said that. You're making it up.", and related kinds of gaslighting (because once you're gaslight committed, you have to follow it to the end).
Those three things that made such an impression because once you start looking for them, they're all over everything he says.
Not that it matters anymore.
Not that anything matters anymore.
Stick it up a whale's ass, as they say in Italian. Words are words are nothing.
It's a wonder people are even bothering still discussing things about this anymore as if they thought meaningful things were still being said.
Renzatic on 29/11/2016 at 07:44
Quote Posted by demagogue
Aside from that, other people have noticed lots of little things that once you start paying attention to them, they're everywhere. It's too easy to just say he's a classic narcissist. What you do is get people to notice the architecture of the way he says things, the consistent neuroses and assumptions they betray.
One, no matter what it's about, at its core everything he cares about is self-aggrandizing. At the root of the whole "build a wall" thing is really that he's a man that does mega-construction projects. I think he flipped virtually every point he made in the debates into something self-aggrandizing in one way or another.
The second was his projection. He projects his own faults on to his opponents. A lot of his charges against others are inexplicable until you think that the only reason he's so obsessed with certain kinds of corruption is that they are exactly the brands of corruption he's most mired in, projecting it on to others. The easiest way to know what kinds of corruption he dabbles in is to look at his charges against others.
And the third thing was the transparent gaslighting, where one counters every criticism about positions they've held with "Nope, I never said that. You're making it up.", and related kinds of gaslighting (because once you're gaslight committed, you have to follow it to the end).
Those three things that made such an impression because once you start looking for them, they're all over everything he says.
I could argue that those are three symptoms of classic narcissism. (
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/basics/symptoms/con-20025568) The Mayo Clinic sums it all up pretty well. You could go down the list...
Quote:
Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
Exaggerating your achievements and talents
Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people
Requiring constant admiration
Having a sense of entitlement
Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations
Taking advantage of others to get what you want
Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
Being envious of others and believing others envy you
Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner
...and see that at least 3/4ths of them describe Donald J. Trump pretty damn well. Projecting faults and gaslighting are also fairly common defense mechanisms practiced by narcissistic personalities.
Now if Vae comes in and says that narcissists generally get things done due to their overconfidence (cuz I've seen this argument fielded by hardcore Trump fans previously), I should go ahead and preemptively remind him that narcissism is a disorder, and those suffering from it are overcompensating for faults both real and imagined. They're generally incredibly insecure people who, through massive amounts of practiced charm, do a great job of convincing people they're the absolute at what they do. When they inevitably fuck up, they'll do everything humanly possible to pass the blame, and usually end wrecking everything around them in the process. The life of a narcissist is a carefully constructed vanity project, meant to project and hold up their oh so fragile ego.
There's nothing wrong with thinking highly of yourself, of course, but there comes a point. Comparing a healthy self esteem to narcissistic personality disorder is kinda like the difference between watching what you eat, and anorexia.
Quote:
Not that it matters anymore.
Not that anything matters anymore.
Stick it up a whale's ass, as they say in Italian. Words are words are nothing.
It's a wonder people are even bothering still discussing things about this anymore as if they thought meaningful things were still being said.
Geez, Dema. I don't think I've ever seen you so pessimistic before.
...then again, our current president is the living embodiment of Cluster B, so...yeah.
Starker on 29/11/2016 at 08:06
Trump might not be overtly racist in a Klan rally way, but it's really apparent how his rhetoric is filled with stereotypes, like from the way he speaks about the blacks or the African Americans living in inner cities or how he thinks Mexican immigrants are drug dealers and rapists or how he shows his love for Hispanics by eating a taco bowl. And some of his views, I assume, are not racist.
demagogue on 29/11/2016 at 08:12
@Renz, Yeah, my point on the narcissism bit was just what you said, those things are textbook symptoms of it. What I was trying to say is that it's more effective to point out the symptoms to people, and then it's really unmistakable, then to just say the name of a condition, where prople just dismiss it as ad hominem.
As for my last flourish, I was just being melodramatic about the futility of even bothering to challenge people if they notice those symptoms too. The exercise may not mean much unless they're already of a mind to be concerned about it.
But on the whole I'm not really pessimistic, not on the cosmic scale anyway. The political and legal theory coming out these days are as good as we've ever had in history. The challenges are big (climate change, global poverty, etc), but our capacity has never been better-- global poverty has fallen greatly in recent years--and when technocrats are left alone we've made great strides towards solving these kinds of problems. And the default is happily that they're left alone because, let's face it, nothing glazes over the eyes of the general public faster than public policy and civil service administration, as long as people hear "public administration" and don't hear "globalization" and other boo words.
The problem is that this golden age in public policy is perceived as a dark age, the boo words are getting attached to it and people are unnatually caring about politics, and it's practically impossible to articulate it for public consumption in a way that connects. They best you can do is some handwaving and doubletalk that only taints you as untrustworthy, hypocritical, or corrupt.
That's the 'stick it up the ass of a whale' part (that and I just love that phrase, so use it whenever I can). We're in a golden age but the public won't have it. So it seems the strategy is to just step aside, stop trying to engage and just let the non-debate play itself through, keep crafting great policy, and hope the energy of the revolution brings the public to exhaustion before too long, then good policy will be waiting in the wings where it's been ready to go all this time.
More concretely, what I mean is I'd love to talk about the balance between democracy and technocracy (public administration) and the debates in the journals these days, or even leadership psychology (believe it or not I took an entire class on the psychology of American presidents at UT, and there's a good textbook on it. Just from that I have a lot to say about what we can expect from a Trump presidency based on his psychological markers, and I don't think much will be too surprizing to people who have studied it.) I was just thinking today I've spent 10 years and more money studying law and policy than most people spend on their house, so there's so much I'd love to talk about. But now none of that can really be part of the public debate. That debate is only being done by a small circle of people that haven't opted out so much as been cut out of the public debate. It won't stop me from studying or discussing it. I'm just down that it's only for such a small circle.
Edit. Reading back over it, that's not why I said that though. In my last post I was just thinking it's kind of pointless to debate whether Trump would be a good president or not anymore because he's already been elected. Buy maybe some of the edge came from these other considerations I just mentioned.
heywood on 29/11/2016 at 12:38
Quote Posted by Starker
Trump might not be overtly racist in a Klan rally way, but it's really apparent how his rhetoric is filled with stereotypes, like from the way he speaks about
the blacks or
the African Americans living in inner cities or how he thinks Mexican immigrants are drug dealers and rapists or how he shows his love for Hispanics by eating a taco bowl. And some of his views, I assume, are not racist.
I noticed that too. And it reminds me of all my relatives who grew up in NYC. They all talk in simple ethnic stereotypes. Not to mention they always interrupt each other in conversation and overreact to any perceived slight.
Racism is a spectrum. At one end you have slavery and at the other end you have stereotyping and the soft bigotry of low expectations. My opinion is that Trump's racism is closer to the softer end than the harder end, but there is a narrative forming on the left that Trump and Bannen are white supremacists, or at least white supremacist sympathizers. It doesn't seem to matter what he says to disavow it, they seem determined to pin it on him. Unfortunately, that narrative has been picked up by the mainstream media. It was the topic of several public radio programs I've listened to in the last week and was brought up in all the Sunday morning talking head shows. This is a huge problem in my opinion because when the MSM tries to draw a connection between white supremacist movement and the Presidency, it legitimizes the white supremacist movement. They are elevating people like Richard Spencer from the fringe into the mainstream.
Tony_Tarantula on 29/11/2016 at 15:40
Quote Posted by heywood
I noticed that too. And it reminds me of all my relatives who grew up in NYC. They all talk in simple ethnic stereotypes. Not to mention they always interrupt each other in conversation and overreact to any perceived slight.
This.
Trump is, more than anything else, a personification of NYC culture. That's why he was able to become famous in the first place.
faetal on 29/11/2016 at 18:46
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
That's why he was able to become famous in the first place.
That plus the enormous inheritance.
robthom on 2/12/2016 at 21:48
But Donald Trump IS a civil war.
With the emphasis on civil.
We voted against the liberals, we voted against the republicans, and we voted for an everyman who has worked for a living.
What we didn't do is riot in the streets and destroy other peoples property when we didn't get what we wanted.
Renzatic on 2/12/2016 at 23:26
Quote Posted by robthom
What we didn't do is riot in the streets and destroy other peoples property when we didn't get what we wanted.
I love how all these so called conservatives who spent the entire run up to the election screaming about the vote being stolen from them, and how it was torches and pitchfork time are playing the moral high ground, looking down their noses at everyone, and telling them to suck it up now that they found out they won.
I can understand why people think liberals are obnoxious and condescending, cuz...you know, they are. But you people? Yall are just smug, self-righteous pricks.
