Trump clearly does not do everything his advisors tell him to.
So I give him some degree of “credit” for greenlighting a stunt like the pretend union rally. He understands something of right-wing media, and the ignorance of his supporters.
But, in my view, the autoworkers rally and the signs do smell like a Trump idea to me. Trump clearly loves the adjulation of a crowd more than anything.
And one of the first signs we saw prominently held up at Trump rallies was “Blacks for Trump”, which definitely has the hand of Trump all over it (and his understanding of what multi-ethnic support means; that a whole demographic either likes you or not, and it’s not about issues).
Of course, in the literal and obvious sense, both sharks and Trump are stupid, yet both are quite successful. Both observations are done to death. That’s why I made a broader analogy (a type of rhetorical device) to suggest that “stupid” in the literal sense isn’t the most illuminating way to talk about apex predators.
I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say that he’s taking advantage of the stupid, or the “rubes” as you call it.
Rather, he tapped into a rich vein of desperation in white, blue-collar, and rural areas. I mean, those wannabe coal miners weren’t coal miners because they deliberately chose to move to some small town in the West Virginia mountains and become coal miners. They’re coal miners because they were born there, and that’s what people in the town have done for generations. They don’t know anything else.
They’re casualties of changing economic conditions- coal isn’t really viable as a power generation fuel like it used to be, and as a result, there’s less demand for coal and by extension, coal miners. But these folks don’t really know any of that- all they really know is that people from elsewhere are coming in, shutting down the mines, and leaving them without any means to support their families or communities.
It’s a tough problem to solve- we obviously don’t want coal as a primary energy source, but nor do we want to just leave the former miners mired in poverty due to this sea change in energy production either.
So what does Trump do? Try and solve it in a compassionate, yet environmentally friendly and economically sound way? Of course not. He just tells them what they want to hear, and out of their deep desperation, they flock to him.
There’s also a big element of a sort of misapplied Occam’s Razor that goes on with this crowd- when everyone is telling you something’s complicated, and someone like Trump shows up and says the solution is simple, they’re more likely to go with his idea than the complicated ones.
My take: He exhibits all the traits of a Malignant Narcissist, probably the most dangerous personality disorder you can have when you are holding vast power.
In the popular conception, malignant narcissism is a form of narcissistic personality disorder that is highly abusive. People with this personality supposedly get a sense of satisfaction from hurting others and may manipulate people or lie to gain money, acclaim, and other things they desire.
I submit for your attention the Poetry of Donald J. Trump, Special Fly Paper Edition. It was a big hit among the rubes in Adele, Iowa yesterday.
And remember Trump’s famous “nuclear power” speech (for reference, on July 19, 2016, at the Sun City Magnolia Hall in South Carolina):
Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible."
Regarding Trump’s intelligence and level of discourse, and the intelligence of his adoring base of slack-jawed imbeciles, I rest my case.
I don’t know if I can respond to this in the other thread, so I’m responding here.
He also claims Mar-a-Lago is “the most expensive house, probably, in the world” and adds that it’s worth as much as $1.5 billion.
I sincerely hope I’m not hijacking, but I can’t help but comment on this quote. Trump sounds like a six-year-old. ‘Mar-a-lago is the most expensive house in the world! It’s worth 15 bajillionkilliongoogillion dollars!’
Sharks succeed at eating fish. What’s the comparable success for Trump? He repeatedly failed in his business endeavors. He came in second place in both of his elections. He failed in two marriages.
Trump’s successes have all been things that other people handed to him, whether it was his father giving him his money, Tony Schwartz ghostwriting his book, Mark Burnett giving him his TV show, or the Republicans giving him the presidency after he lost the election.
I’d say trump succeeds in surfing on the backs of others. I don’t care what his actual net worth is; hell, it might well be negative. But he has successfully lived very high on the hog for a very long time. Far longer and higher than I ever have or ever will.
The real magic is he seems to have a way of creating the wave that he then surfs. And does it repeatedly in different circumstances. Always the same basic play, but he can run it with a lot of detailed variations. Which play seems to utterly confound the defenses of a hefty fraction of all people.
He repeated his con to the point of becoming President of the United States, has a large and dangerous quasi-religious cult following, has hundreds if not thousands of people going prison for crimes related to keeping him in power. In spite of having been impeached twice, he is still eligible to run for President, and is currently the leading candidate for a major political party, and may very well become President for one more term (and possibly additional illegal terms). He is backed by corrupt members of all 3 branches of government including the judiciary, all the way up to the Supreme Court. He has neither been convicted of a crime, and it’s not a given that he will be.
If you’re focused on his weaknesses as a businessman, then you’re not considering what his real and significant strengths are, as well as his track record of surviving threats and gaining power.
Did he really? Did Trump have a hand in creating our current electoral system which heavily favors Republicans?
My point is that all of the things he’s done have actually been the work of other people who then handed the prize to Trump. So how much credit does Trump deserve for these things?
Are you arguing that he had nothing to do with it, could have happened to anyone similarly privileged, it’s just a coincidence? Because it didn’t happen to anyone similar.
He clearly does some things exceptionally well, even of those things are just manipulating people to keep doing things for him and giving him stuff.
Sure, he relies on privilege and connections, but that he hasn’t failed sooner, harder, and more often, and hasn’t been jailed, suggests some talent—though it’s a stretch to attribute brains to the man.
The major thing he does exceptionally well is his irrepressibly confident bluster, and it arises not from any sort of intelligence, but from a complete absence of self-awareness and a pathological narcissism. Not only is this behaviour not indicative of intelligence, it isn’t even a “skill”, it’s more of personality defect and a disconnect from reality. The problem for America is that while half the population snickers at the obviously transparent bullshit, the other half are either willing to overlook it for partisan reasons or, sadly, are in slack-jawed admiration of it
