Kind of explains things.
The Daily KOS has an article that I think is worth attention, but before I give you the link, I have to include a quick warning: it’s not really as rabid as it sounds. The title (and bear with me) is “Open thread for night owls: How to deal with a psychopath”.
It’s not as bad as it sounds. Probably.
First, the article points to Trump’s recent interview with the Associate Press (AP). As much as I worry for your mental health, I have to strongly recommend reading it. We’re used to seeing Trump reduced to a string of disconnected applause lines, red-meat tweets, and random publicity stunts. It’s worth taking the time to hear him speak off the cuff and at length. It shows you how he connects his ideas, and how he reacts when he’s talking about complex ideas and conflicts.
I find the interview chilling. I’m worried that the feeling doesn’t surprise me more. I hope you don’t think my response tags me as a zealot. I’m struggling not to be that annoying, one-note ideologue. (Although, if you find me an amusing, one-note whatever, I’ll probably take it and go home.)
Trump sounds like a poorly raised toddler wallowing in self-pleasure. Every answer was a monotonic version of “Here’s why I’m great.” He had great chemistry — Unbelievable chemistry! Amazing relationships! — with every leader: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Japanese Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe, “the Italian Prime Minister” (Paolo Gentiloni, although Trump couldn’t pull up his name), all of Congress, including Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who he mentions by name. Trump believes he’d be getting very high marks… from someone, because of his great relationships. And every leader went on (in private) to admire him, exclaiming about how Trump was extraordinary, and so completely better than any president before him.
(Except when Trump heard from AP that Elijah Cummings disagreed slightly with Trump’s characterization. Trump immediately cut him loose as a liar.)
Every positive event was something he negotiated himself, and all credit is his. NATO payments are improving more than ever before, although he didn’t actually ask himself. He got Aya Hijazi released (an Egyptian-American charity worker detained for nearly three years) along with eight other people, all because he simply asked. Trump personally threatened Lockheed to cut the price of the F-35 fighter, and saved us money on every plane.
TRUMP: I saved $725 million on the 90 planes. Just 90. Now there are 3,000 planes that are going to be ordered. On 90 planes I saved $725 million. It’s actually a little bit more than that, but it’s $725 million. Gen. Mattis, who had to sign the deal when it came to his office, said, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.” We went from a company that wanted more money for the planes to a company that cut. And the reason they cut — same planes, same everything — was because of me. I mean, because that’s what I do.
Yeah. Japanese Prime Minister Abe subsequently asked if he could thank Trump.
[Abe] said, “You saved us $100 million.” Because they got a $100 million savings on the 10 or 12 planes that they (bought). Nobody wrote that story.
They never do write about that. It’s a mystery why. But Trump has a great relationship with Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson, too, despite that.
He went on about the hundreds of thousands of jobs he’s created:
I’ve had cases where the gentleman from China, Ma, Jack Ma (chairman of Alibaba Group), he comes up, he says, “Only because of you am I making this massive investment.” Intel, only because of you. … The press never writes that.
So unfair.
And in legislation, he’s doing more than anyone before him. So much better than Obama. Although Trump has a great relationship with the Democrats. Really. And he’s (apparently already) rebuilt the military, restoring their pride. They hung their heads before he appeared, but now they’re better.
Trump went back to his Lockheed deal, but he had to jack up the superlatives a bit the second time around:
Gen. (Jim) Mattis (the defense secretary) said, “I’ve never seen anything like this,” because he had to sign the ultimate (unintelligible) … He had to sign the ultimate, you know. He said, “I’ve never seen anything like this before, as long as I’ve been in the military.” You know, that kind of cutting.
Trump took another sidetrack about how his election was massive, so much bigger than anyone before him. Was he feeling insecure?
This week, Trump’s doing health care, and it’ll be perfect. He’s so sympathetic to all those people. He has heart, so much heart. You have to love people to… well, Trump gets lost there, falling into word salad about false accusers, unfair press and dishonest reporting, like during the campaign. Which he won, so he should get good press, but he doesn’t. Trump struggles, and can’t even fake empathy convincingly.
He’ll make sure the government budget gets passed this week, before the government is forced to close. He’ll pass massive tax reform. Can reform be ‘massive’? (Any details? Only that it’ll be massive; bigger than any tax cut ever.) He’ll build the border wall, which he’ll personally make sure is only $10B, and not the $24B he’s been told. Tremendous achievement. It’s what he always does. It’s the lowest it’s been in 17 years, and it’s getting lower.
He’s dealing with North Korea, too.
Interesting reference, since Trump’s interview reads like North Korean propaganda. “Today, the Supreme Leader tried playing golf for the first time, scoring five holes-in-one in the first eight holes….”
Trump’s lies (big surprise) are too thick to bother with. Trump denied things he’d said during the campaign, he denied things he’s said in speeches, and Trump even denied things he’d said a couple of minutes earlier in that same interview.
Shortly after this, according to the Daily KOS, Time magazine tweeted:
“5 ways to deal with a psychopath” https://t.co/onBMlugqSJ
— TIME (@TIME) April 23, 2017
I went to the link. How could you not? The Daily KOS writes this summary:
Among the embedded tips culled from a variety of works on the subject: There are many psychopaths out there whose “intelligence, family background, social skills, and circumstances permit them to construct a facade of normality.” Though obsessively narcissistic and devoid of empathy, they are experts at manipulating others by pretending to “share similar qualities.” As managers, they are eager to “create conflicts and rivalries” among those surrounding them for the purpose of “keeping them from sharing information that might uncover [their] deceit.” They tend to “kiss up and kick down”, belittling those with little power while flattering those with power or status they can use. And they lie, a lot, and all the time. “Two [lies] may involve a serious mistake. But three lies says you’re dealing with a liar, and deceit is the linchpin of conscienceless behavior.”
I think Trump has the “more than two lies” thing covered.
Like the Trump interview, the Time magazine link is worth reading. Too chatty and a bit smarmy, but shockingly clear.
