You completely left out the REST of that sentence:
At this point I’d suspect autism with pathological demand avoidance based on just HOW determined he is to never once do what’s expected or required of him.
The PDA is comorbid with some forms of autism–don’t blame me, blame the people who write up the diagnostic criteria. And read up on PDA, it’s pretty freaking interesting.
My first husband is 100% on the spectrum AND is bipolar I to go with it so I’ve done a bit more digging into the subject than a lot of people bother with.
Trump is clearly very narcissistic, but seemingly lacks much conscience and therefore has some elements of sociopathy. He is a capable communicator and not autistic. It was some time ago when I read his book, but after some time in his presidency, and it was not particularly difficult to separate shyyte from shinola or determine if the writing sounded Trumpian.
He said things along the lines of: he is never conceited, completely lacks pretension, has a big ego but is never egotistical, never gets angry at people, that Hilary Clinton is a very good person, that he easily forgives good people if they make a mistake, how generous he is about charitable giving and how much people love him for that, and all the other tenets he put into practice during his presidency.
That said, It is easy to denigrate and dismiss Trump. His success in winning an election against many much more qualified candidates, dominating public conversation and bending a whole party to his will is somewhat scary but not entirely accidental. I would prefer a kinder leader who passes great policy, is better informed and less self-centered, but the truth is he has some instinct for reading people, considerable political and media skills, and gets away with outrageous things which few could.
It’s not an outrageously bad description of many natural politicians. Bill Clinton could fit this in a lot of ways.
But Bill Clinton didn’t have the pathlogical, incessant craving for attention; and he understood from wresting with his own selfish drives that overindulgence in them would lead to destruction, and this was true of nations as well as people. So he developed the discipline to keep his drives (and his country’s) mostly in check.
Donald Trump is just id all the way down. Growing up as the son of privilege, he never had to deal with a setback that his wealth and connections couldn’t minimize, and so he feels free to indulge his every whim and to promise to his followers the same.
The virtue would be to use that skill for good. It’s like saying “the truth is he is very good at separating the various parts of a carcass in useful ways.” That’s just a skill. If you are doing it with animals as a butcher, that’s one thing. If you are doing it as Jack the Ripper that’s another.
I think Trump has been very damaging to democracy and important global institutions. However, neither Trump nor many of his supporters are idiots nor simple caricatures. Not everything Trump did was horrible. Since other future candidates will try the same methods, since it is not necessarily easy to win election, it is important to be aware of and realistic about them.
I, for one, have never called him or his enablers idiots nor have I called them simple caricatures. But you phrased that sentence as if it should be something to counterbalance denigration and dismissal of Trump. It doesn’t. It’s like saying “… the truth is, he carries a crossbow …” or “… the truth is, he wears a red tie …” It’s just an observation of a fact. It’s not an argument that you’ve pointed out a quality that is admirable.
Whether or not this is strictly true, it’s possibly the most trivial (perhaps even comically trivial) thing ever said about Trump, and it has the feel of a “well, there are two sides” sort of argument. It doesn’t matter one whit whether you can find something, anything that Trump did that literally wasn’t horrible. It’s not even a tree in the forest; it’s a weed. No, it’s not even that. It’s a bulb that has failed to sprout. When you’re looking at the forest, it’s nothing. It’s not significant enough to take into account; nay, it’s not even significant enough to take notice of. It’s along the lines of “Hitler loved his dogs, so he wasn’t all bad.”
In fact, these things were simply meant as factual statements and are not meant to be arguments or counterbalance anything. Most prior presidents obeyed the law, traditions and custom. They considered advice, educated themselves about complex policy and generally put the needs of their nation above personal goals - to varying degrees, of course. I disagree the statement is trivial, but if you feel it is so be it. Many trivial things have been said about Trump and everything else.
History will judge how well Trump did these things, but there is certainly a need not to merely assume that things (such as a respect for institutions and jurisprudence) will be automatically upheld by everyone who wins an election . As a Canadian, it is not my place to make these decisions for foreign, sovereign countries though like you I am entitled to an opinion. However, some reassessments are perhaps in order if democracy is worth defending. I strongly feel that it is.
None of this is helping to explain exactly what you meant to imply with the statement that I quoted, specifically because of the way you phrased it. But, that’s enough. You’ve succeeded in making me uninterested in understanding you further.
Personally, he doesn’t seem autistic to me. Most autistic people have trouble understanding social nuances (unless they’ve actually learned how to from explicit training). They have trouble reading a room, for example.
Trump definitely doesn’t. His one bit of intelligence seems to be that he can read people and pull their strings. He is good at being a conman.
As I said, read up on PDA–it’s an unusual presentation that’s comorbid usually with very high functioning autistic people. My ex husband? Nobody realizes he’s autistic until they’ve known him for a really long time and a lot of that is because he’s pretty upfront about being medicated for bipolar and they assume any odd affect is due to that. Trump snorts Adderall all the time, you have to figure that plays a part in his social acuity. And he DOESN’T have a grasp of social nuances, he just knows how to bully his way into the front of every room. He demonstrates basically zero empathy, says some shit that most kindergartners know is rude and not to be said out loud and wouldn’t put himself in front of a qualified therapist long enough for anyone to get an accurate read on exactly what kind of fucked up he is. And it doesn’t really matter, does it? He’s a gigantic gaping asshole and the specific mechanisms of why he is and what variety or flavor of gaping asshole he might be are basically irrelevant.
