Trump was one of the great Keynesian Presidents, I give you that. He had no problem overthrowing conservative ideology in his administrations provisions of direct financial aid to Americans during COVID. Remember when he jacked up his own administrations budget deal because he wanted BIGGER checks for all Americans? A true New Deal Liberal, a man Keynesian to the core when push came to shove.
He also had no problem realizing that AFG was a shit show, that the Taliban were already running the country, so he, rightfully, negotiated our withdrawal.
Thing is, Biden is also a Keynesian and Biden agreed with Trump and executed the planned withdrawal.
Howard Stern summarized it pretty well. I’ll sort of go over what Stern and others have figured out:
Trump needs adoration and to be the center of attention. It is an absolute obsession, nearly a mental illness if not one. He absolutely needs to be praised and lives to have all eyes on him. That’s why the rallies are what he wants, not the normal campaign stuff.
In the O’Relley Factor book(from the late 1990’s), yes the one by Bill O’Reilley, he wrote about Trump. This wa 15-17 years before Trump ran for president. Bill O’Reilley wrote that Trump was the absolutely most obsessed with fame and atttention person he’d ever met. A full-blown addiction.
Running for president, and sadly actually getting all the way there, gave Trump what he’d always wanted. Praise, attention, and psuedo-love.
I blame Fred Trump, at least in part. The older son drank himself to death. Don Trump is obviously totally obsessive about himself. It could not have been a good upbringing. I believe the sister turned out OK.
Yes, he called those that died “losers” and those that enlisted or fought “suckers”. It requires being able to think of serving others, something he can not process.
This is it. He wanted to get his name out there (even more than it already was) to boost his brand and it didn’t occurr to him that he might win until he kept gaining popularity.
And if Trump had lost in 2016, it would have been Hilary who stole the election… I was ahead in the voting, and then something happened! Imagine being unable to fathom that you don’t always win. And if it looks like you lost, then somebody MUST have cheated. That’s the only possible explanation. The only one. How did someone like that make it through middle school?
Right. I see it as consistent lack of interest in the rest of the world. This sucks in a thousand ways, but the one good thing is he’s so uninterested in the world, that includes not bothering to invade or attack it militarily.
That’s it. Trump always wanted to be respected by the elites, the truly rich in NYC, and he was a clown among them. Ever saw the film Devil’s Advocate, with Pacino? Not a good film. It was filmed in Trump’s garish apartement, with no modifications. The crew was laughing at him and his apartment.
Not only the respect of the real-rich elites, but also the acclamation of the NY cultural influencer elite – to whom he was always the “short fingered vulgarian” (those elites overlap but are not the same). Neither side would embrace him as “one of them” because he wasn’t, either by legacy or temperament. He was a punchline and that ate at him.
Obama’s rise was a special affront because it meant the elevation of everything that is not-him to above him. But he was able to pick up that this was an opportunity: because like everyone else he could tell it meant that same thing to millions in “the base” that the GOP had so far only used as election fodder. But unlike others, he took that opening to go to that “base” saying: “those weak establishment Republicans allowed this to happen by being afraid to say these things out loud”. Whether or not it got him to the presidency, this time it would gather him a goodly amount of public support and money.
It worked, better than he probably ever imagined. Like with many of his big transactions, he was able to make the Big Deal go through… only to afterwards have the whole thing fall apart – but his whole schtick has always been to not care about what happens after he makes the headline.
That outer-borough resentment/striving/envy/insecurity was well explored in the film “Saturday Night Fever,” and also is part of what underlies the film “Summer of Sam” and the TV show “All in the Family.”
