Before Bob Somersby discovered the Gutfiled! show, he would often offer the queston "is there something wrong with the President?" in reference to his vague health issues and his childish behavior, subjects the media avoid like the plague. There's tons of professional and amateur mental and physical analysis of Trump, but the only real personality change I see is he bothers less and less with being civil, acting like a mature adult when in a stressful situation, where "stress" is being asked questions he finds "disrepectful". The insults and threats are coming faster and cruder, simple reactions rather than some crafted message. All presidents get worn down by the stress of the job, but its a little ironic with Trump its the stress of disrespect and dealing with problems that he can't make go away by throwing money and lawyers at them. He has a host of underlying psychological and emotional issues, but he always has. He's never been a "normal" mature adult, but he was good at faking it once. Now he doesn't need to, and when he tries like that meeting with Mamdani he just comes off as weird.
Yes, always been my position that whatever is wrong with him is something he's had since early childhood. The piggy thing is unusually unguarded, reflecting the pressure he feels over Epstein, but not something new.
Absolutely NPD - his resistance to adjusting his behavior in the face of reality is phenomenal.
To speak in the Freudian register Trump is stuck in infantile narcissism -- he think he is the breast (reality). Perhaps the most distinctive trait is his refusal to apologize (ie admit that he was wrong).
Oddly, I think this explains his popularity -- people are very attracted to people who can revert to this kind of narcissism and nonetheless be successful (or appear to be).
The flip side is his paranoia - if something goes wrong it is always someone else's fault -- usually some grand conspiracy to undermine him.
People who have experienced the trauma of two failed wars, a financial crash, and the hollowing out of their communities, often find this sort of all-powerful figure (I alone can fix it) attractive. Hitler obviously, but during the depression in the US you had people like Father Coughlin and Aimee Sample Macpherson (at least as interpreted by Sinclair Lewis in Elmer Gantry). Not to mention Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh.
Hofstadter's Paranoid Style in US Politics traces this to a Freudian interpretation of the strain of charismatic evangelism that runs through Protestantism. It is the potential downside of believing that "faith alone" can save us, when transposed to a charismatic worldly figure.
The piggy business reminds me of an incident when I was eight years old. I was going through a book of Charles Addams cartoons (yes, I saw these, as well as the collection of Krazy Kat) and came on one in which the weird little man, husband of the witch, owner of the scary old house, was reading to his little daughter and counting her toes: "This little piggy went to market, This little piggy stayed home, This little piggy had roast beef, This little piggy had none, This little piggy went wee-wee-wee all the way home, And *this* little piggy--" and he stopped at the sixth toe. But I knew the next line: Had to clean it up!
The grown-ups were not amused, or concealed it if they were. But I thought it was very funny. I still think it was pretty good piece of improv.
I’m repeatedly on record as saying Trump’s a pathological subhuman monster and I say that as documented reality, not, say, partisan hyperbole. When he says vermin, he’s both projecting and doing that accusation=admission thing.
As for the press and Donny, IMO there’s no justification for appearing or have any involvement with White House press briefings but doing briefings when you can question Donny and get the insane, unhinged responses on camera—that right there is m@gnitudes more reality 5han they’d ever put in their reporting.
So yeah, I’m cool with that presser on the plane, giving Donny the freedom to show unfiltered what a complete, infantile piece of shit he is—proving my initial point.
Before Bob Somersby discovered the Gutfiled! show, he would often offer the queston "is there something wrong with the President?" in reference to his vague health issues and his childish behavior, subjects the media avoid like the plague. There's tons of professional and amateur mental and physical analysis of Trump, but the only real personality change I see is he bothers less and less with being civil, acting like a mature adult when in a stressful situation, where "stress" is being asked questions he finds "disrepectful". The insults and threats are coming faster and cruder, simple reactions rather than some crafted message. All presidents get worn down by the stress of the job, but its a little ironic with Trump its the stress of disrespect and dealing with problems that he can't make go away by throwing money and lawyers at them. He has a host of underlying psychological and emotional issues, but he always has. He's never been a "normal" mature adult, but he was good at faking it once. Now he doesn't need to, and when he tries like that meeting with Mamdani he just comes off as weird.
Yes, always been my position that whatever is wrong with him is something he's had since early childhood. The piggy thing is unusually unguarded, reflecting the pressure he feels over Epstein, but not something new.
Absolutely NPD - his resistance to adjusting his behavior in the face of reality is phenomenal.
To speak in the Freudian register Trump is stuck in infantile narcissism -- he think he is the breast (reality). Perhaps the most distinctive trait is his refusal to apologize (ie admit that he was wrong).
Oddly, I think this explains his popularity -- people are very attracted to people who can revert to this kind of narcissism and nonetheless be successful (or appear to be).
The flip side is his paranoia - if something goes wrong it is always someone else's fault -- usually some grand conspiracy to undermine him.
People who have experienced the trauma of two failed wars, a financial crash, and the hollowing out of their communities, often find this sort of all-powerful figure (I alone can fix it) attractive. Hitler obviously, but during the depression in the US you had people like Father Coughlin and Aimee Sample Macpherson (at least as interpreted by Sinclair Lewis in Elmer Gantry). Not to mention Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh.
Hofstadter's Paranoid Style in US Politics traces this to a Freudian interpretation of the strain of charismatic evangelism that runs through Protestantism. It is the potential downside of believing that "faith alone" can save us, when transposed to a charismatic worldly figure.
The piggy business reminds me of an incident when I was eight years old. I was going through a book of Charles Addams cartoons (yes, I saw these, as well as the collection of Krazy Kat) and came on one in which the weird little man, husband of the witch, owner of the scary old house, was reading to his little daughter and counting her toes: "This little piggy went to market, This little piggy stayed home, This little piggy had roast beef, This little piggy had none, This little piggy went wee-wee-wee all the way home, And *this* little piggy--" and he stopped at the sixth toe. But I knew the next line: Had to clean it up!
The grown-ups were not amused, or concealed it if they were. But I thought it was very funny. I still think it was pretty good piece of improv.
I’m repeatedly on record as saying Trump’s a pathological subhuman monster and I say that as documented reality, not, say, partisan hyperbole. When he says vermin, he’s both projecting and doing that accusation=admission thing.
As for the press and Donny, IMO there’s no justification for appearing or have any involvement with White House press briefings but doing briefings when you can question Donny and get the insane, unhinged responses on camera—that right there is m@gnitudes more reality 5han they’d ever put in their reporting.
So yeah, I’m cool with that presser on the plane, giving Donny the freedom to show unfiltered what a complete, infantile piece of shit he is—proving my initial point.