BostonPeter
FACT-FREE ZONE
As I watched them chant "Lock Her Up!" I wondered -- for what purpose have they come together? What are they doing? Is there some kind of platform?
And then I began to wonder is this all they have to offer the country? A tribal Lord of the Flies-type chant calling for the spearing of a former first lady and Secretary of State? A Bush-style dynasty to feed the insatiable ego of Donald Trump and, by extension, really fu%k up the world? Is that what these people want for themselves, their families and neighbors? Do they even know what they're asking for? What quality of leader would incite an assembled crowd into this kind of collective madness?
But then ...
1. This is the kind of behavior that has led to assassinations.
2. This is the kind of behavior that follows Donald Trump. These are his people.
So one may wonder ...
HOW DO YOU
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
WHEN YOU
IGNORE AND
LIE ABOUT ...
The economy
Jobs
Affordable health care
Gender fairness and respect
Effective Public Education
Affordable college
Diplomacy -- in general
Homeland security
Science
Orphaned refugees
Peace and justice
Racial inequality
Economic inequality
Social inequality
National and local infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc)
Warming
direction ... conviction? ... leadership?
ideas? ... solutions? ... facts?
competence ... ?
WHAT IS THEIR PLATFORM?
Unruly Sophomoric Hatred is their platform — and why not, it aligns with the flaming unsteadiness of their chosen candidate. What is assembled in Cleveland right now is the bottom of the American barrel. These are the people who have been messing up our country for years from their stinky smoke-filled double-wide trailers and envious, spiteful, superstitious church halls and bowling alleys sitting inside jerrymandered districts drawn up for their qualities of low curiosity and high combustibility. They are pissed off and shallow; they're drawn to flags and symbols and collective scapegoating. They'd been marginalized their whole lives until Republican red pens drew them into a sense of empowerment -- and it seemed they finally grew a voice, or so they thought, but instead they had bitten into an empty promise, pinning their hopes on evaporating shape shifters who hold nothing but money as sacred. Courted by the wolf they have given away their options, living by words and quoting tenets that were never intended for them. They had never been invited to the table and are not welcomed there. Right now they are in the middle of this and have just crowned their most perfect leader -- a man who would name his son Baron -- a deranged, unsteady, thin-skinned narcissist whose talents are found mainly in his barking, overtanning and self-congratulatory puffery.
I hope to share here David Brooks' recent thinking on Trump's behavior. I beg my liberal friends to grant dispensation for my sharing a Republican's column, but Brooks is the old-style Republican, the real Republican -- not some twisted freak's acolyte. Please read this and re-post it or pass it on. — Peter.
________________________________________________
www.nytimes.com/2016/07/19/opinion/trump-is-getting-even-...
TRUMP IS GETTING EVEN TRUMPIER!
By David Brooks
July 19, 2016
The New York Times
Does anybody else have the sense that Donald Trump is slipping off the rails? His speeches have always had a rambling, free association quality, but a couple of the recent ones have, as the Republican political consultant Mike Murphy put it, passed from the category of rant to the category of full on “drunk wedding toast.”
Trump’s verbal style has always been distinct. He doesn’t really speak in sentences or paragraphs. His speeches are punctuated by five- or six-word jabs that are sort of strung together by connections that can only be understood through chaos theory: “They want the wall … I dominated with the evangelicals … I won in a landslide … We can’t be the stupid people anymore.”
Occasionally Trump will attempt a sentence longer than eight words, but no matter what subject he starts the sentence with, by the end he has been pulled over to the subject of himself. Here’s an example from the Mike Pence announcement speech: “So one of the primary reasons I chose Mike was I looked at Indiana, and I won Indiana big.” There’s sort of a gravitational narcissistic pull that takes command whenever he attempts to utter a compound thought.
Trump has also always been a little engine fueled by wounded pride. For example, writing in BuzzFeed, McKay Coppins recalls the fusillade of abuse he received from Trump after writing an unflattering profile (he called Mar-a-Lago a “nice, if slightly dated, hotel”).
Trump was so inflamed he tweeted retaliation at Coppins several times a day and at odd hours, calling him a “dishonest slob” and “true garbage with no credibility.” The attacks went on impressively for over two years, which must rank Coppins in the top 100,000 on the list of people Donald Trump resents.
Over the past few weeks these longstanding Trump patterns have gone into hyperdrive. This is a unique moment in American political history in which the mental stability of one of the major party nominees is the dominating subject of conversation.
Everybody is telling Trump to ratchet it down and be more sober, but at a rally near Cincinnati this month and in his Pence announcement speech on Saturday, Trump launched his verbal rocket ship straight through the stratosphere, and it landed somewhere on the dark side of Planet Debbie.
Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, The Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world.
The Pence announcement was truly the strangest vice-presidential unveiling in recent political history. Ricocheting around the verbal wilds for more than twice as long as the man he was introducing, Trump even refused to remain onstage and gaze on admiringly as Pence flattered him. It was like watching a guy lose interest in a wedding when the bride appears.
The structure of his mental perambulations also seems to have changed. Formerly, as I said, his speeches had a random, free-form quality. But on Saturday his remarks had a distinct through line, anchored by the talking points his campaign had written down on pieces of paper. But Trump could not keep his attention focused on this through line — since the subject was someone else — so every 30 seconds or so he would shoot off on a resentment-filled bragging loop.
If you had to do a rough diagram of the Trump remarks it would be something like this: Pence … I was right about Iraq … Pence … Hillary Clinton is a crooked liar … I was right about “Brexit” … Pence … Hillary Clintons ads are filled with lies … We’re going to bring back the coal industry … Christians love me … Pence … I talk to statisticians … Pence is good looking … My hotel in Washington is really coming along fantastically … Pence.
Donald Trump is in his moment of greatest triumph, but he seems more resentful and embattled than ever. Most political conventions are happy coronations, but this one may come to feel like the Alamo of aggrieved counterattacks.
It’s hard to know exactly what is going on in that brain, but science lends a clue. Psychologists wonder if narcissists are defined by extremely high self-esteem or by extremely low self-esteem that they are trying to mask. The current consensus seems to be that they are marked by unstable self-esteem. Their self-confidence can be both high and fragile, so they perceive ego threat all around.
Maybe as Trump has gotten more successful his estimation of what sort of adoration he deserves has increased while the outside criticism has gotten more pronounced. This combination is bound to leave his ego threat sensors permanently inflamed. So even if Candidate Trump is told to make a normal political point, Inner Boy Trump will hijack the microphone for another bout of resentful boasting.
Suddenly the global climate favors a Trump candidacy. Some forms of disorder — like a financial crisis — send voters for the calm supple thinker. But other forms of disorder — blood in the streets — send them scurrying for the brutal strongman.
If the string of horrific events continues, Trump could win the presidency. And he could win it even though he has less and less control over himself.
FACT-FREE ZONE
As I watched them chant "Lock Her Up!" I wondered -- for what purpose have they come together? What are they doing? Is there some kind of platform?
And then I began to wonder is this all they have to offer the country? A tribal Lord of the Flies-type chant calling for the spearing of a former first lady and Secretary of State? A Bush-style dynasty to feed the insatiable ego of Donald Trump and, by extension, really fu%k up the world? Is that what these people want for themselves, their families and neighbors? Do they even know what they're asking for? What quality of leader would incite an assembled crowd into this kind of collective madness?
But then ...
1. This is the kind of behavior that has led to assassinations.
2. This is the kind of behavior that follows Donald Trump. These are his people.
So one may wonder ...
HOW DO YOU
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
WHEN YOU
IGNORE AND
LIE ABOUT ...
The economy
Jobs
Affordable health care
Gender fairness and respect
Effective Public Education
Affordable college
Diplomacy -- in general
Homeland security
Science
Orphaned refugees
Peace and justice
Racial inequality
Economic inequality
Social inequality
National and local infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc)
Warming
direction ... conviction? ... leadership?
ideas? ... solutions? ... facts?
competence ... ?
WHAT IS THEIR PLATFORM?
Unruly Sophomoric Hatred is their platform — and why not, it aligns with the flaming unsteadiness of their chosen candidate. What is assembled in Cleveland right now is the bottom of the American barrel. These are the people who have been messing up our country for years from their stinky smoke-filled double-wide trailers and envious, spiteful, superstitious church halls and bowling alleys sitting inside jerrymandered districts drawn up for their qualities of low curiosity and high combustibility. They are pissed off and shallow; they're drawn to flags and symbols and collective scapegoating. They'd been marginalized their whole lives until Republican red pens drew them into a sense of empowerment -- and it seemed they finally grew a voice, or so they thought, but instead they had bitten into an empty promise, pinning their hopes on evaporating shape shifters who hold nothing but money as sacred. Courted by the wolf they have given away their options, living by words and quoting tenets that were never intended for them. They had never been invited to the table and are not welcomed there. Right now they are in the middle of this and have just crowned their most perfect leader -- a man who would name his son Baron -- a deranged, unsteady, thin-skinned narcissist whose talents are found mainly in his barking, overtanning and self-congratulatory puffery.
I hope to share here David Brooks' recent thinking on Trump's behavior. I beg my liberal friends to grant dispensation for my sharing a Republican's column, but Brooks is the old-style Republican, the real Republican -- not some twisted freak's acolyte. Please read this and re-post it or pass it on. — Peter.
________________________________________________
www.nytimes.com/2016/07/19/opinion/trump-is-getting-even-...
TRUMP IS GETTING EVEN TRUMPIER!
By David Brooks
July 19, 2016
The New York Times
Does anybody else have the sense that Donald Trump is slipping off the rails? His speeches have always had a rambling, free association quality, but a couple of the recent ones have, as the Republican political consultant Mike Murphy put it, passed from the category of rant to the category of full on “drunk wedding toast.”
Trump’s verbal style has always been distinct. He doesn’t really speak in sentences or paragraphs. His speeches are punctuated by five- or six-word jabs that are sort of strung together by connections that can only be understood through chaos theory: “They want the wall … I dominated with the evangelicals … I won in a landslide … We can’t be the stupid people anymore.”
Occasionally Trump will attempt a sentence longer than eight words, but no matter what subject he starts the sentence with, by the end he has been pulled over to the subject of himself. Here’s an example from the Mike Pence announcement speech: “So one of the primary reasons I chose Mike was I looked at Indiana, and I won Indiana big.” There’s sort of a gravitational narcissistic pull that takes command whenever he attempts to utter a compound thought.
Trump has also always been a little engine fueled by wounded pride. For example, writing in BuzzFeed, McKay Coppins recalls the fusillade of abuse he received from Trump after writing an unflattering profile (he called Mar-a-Lago a “nice, if slightly dated, hotel”).
Trump was so inflamed he tweeted retaliation at Coppins several times a day and at odd hours, calling him a “dishonest slob” and “true garbage with no credibility.” The attacks went on impressively for over two years, which must rank Coppins in the top 100,000 on the list of people Donald Trump resents.
Over the past few weeks these longstanding Trump patterns have gone into hyperdrive. This is a unique moment in American political history in which the mental stability of one of the major party nominees is the dominating subject of conversation.
Everybody is telling Trump to ratchet it down and be more sober, but at a rally near Cincinnati this month and in his Pence announcement speech on Saturday, Trump launched his verbal rocket ship straight through the stratosphere, and it landed somewhere on the dark side of Planet Debbie.
Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, The Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world.
The Pence announcement was truly the strangest vice-presidential unveiling in recent political history. Ricocheting around the verbal wilds for more than twice as long as the man he was introducing, Trump even refused to remain onstage and gaze on admiringly as Pence flattered him. It was like watching a guy lose interest in a wedding when the bride appears.
The structure of his mental perambulations also seems to have changed. Formerly, as I said, his speeches had a random, free-form quality. But on Saturday his remarks had a distinct through line, anchored by the talking points his campaign had written down on pieces of paper. But Trump could not keep his attention focused on this through line — since the subject was someone else — so every 30 seconds or so he would shoot off on a resentment-filled bragging loop.
If you had to do a rough diagram of the Trump remarks it would be something like this: Pence … I was right about Iraq … Pence … Hillary Clinton is a crooked liar … I was right about “Brexit” … Pence … Hillary Clintons ads are filled with lies … We’re going to bring back the coal industry … Christians love me … Pence … I talk to statisticians … Pence is good looking … My hotel in Washington is really coming along fantastically … Pence.
Donald Trump is in his moment of greatest triumph, but he seems more resentful and embattled than ever. Most political conventions are happy coronations, but this one may come to feel like the Alamo of aggrieved counterattacks.
It’s hard to know exactly what is going on in that brain, but science lends a clue. Psychologists wonder if narcissists are defined by extremely high self-esteem or by extremely low self-esteem that they are trying to mask. The current consensus seems to be that they are marked by unstable self-esteem. Their self-confidence can be both high and fragile, so they perceive ego threat all around.
Maybe as Trump has gotten more successful his estimation of what sort of adoration he deserves has increased while the outside criticism has gotten more pronounced. This combination is bound to leave his ego threat sensors permanently inflamed. So even if Candidate Trump is told to make a normal political point, Inner Boy Trump will hijack the microphone for another bout of resentful boasting.
Suddenly the global climate favors a Trump candidacy. Some forms of disorder — like a financial crisis — send voters for the calm supple thinker. But other forms of disorder — blood in the streets — send them scurrying for the brutal strongman.
If the string of horrific events continues, Trump could win the presidency. And he could win it even though he has less and less control over himself.