THE MIND OF DONALD TRUMP: A psychologist investigates

[cali]

This is a very long piece.


In 2006, Donald Trump made plans to purchase the Menie Estate, near Aberdeen, Scotland, aiming to convert the dunes and grassland into a luxury golf resort. He and the estate’s owner, Tom Griffin, sat down to discuss the transaction at the Cock & Bull restaurant. Griffin recalls that Trump was a hard-nosed negotiator, reluctant to give in on even the tiniest details. But, as Michael D’Antonio writes in his recent biography of Trump, Never Enough, Griffin’s most vivid recollection of the evening pertains to the theatrics. It was as if the golden-haired guest sitting across the table were an actor playing a part on the London stage

“It was Donald Trump playing Donald Trump,” Griffin observed. There was something unreal about it.



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The Mind of Donald Trump
THE MIND OF DONALD TRUMPNarcissism, disagreeableness, grandiosity—a psychologist investigates how Trump’s extraordinary personality might shape his possible presidency.By Dan P. McAdams
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JUNE 2016 ISSUE POLITICS
IN 2006, DONALD TRUMP
made plans to purchase the Menie Estate, near Aberdeen, Scotland, aiming to convert the dunes and grassland into a luxury golf resort. He and the estate’s owner, Tom Griffin, sat down to discuss the transaction at the Cock & Bull restaurant. Griffin recalls that Trump was a hard-nosed negotiator, reluctant to give in on even the tiniest details. But, as Michael D’Antonio writes in his recent biography of Trump, Never Enough, Griffin’s most vivid recollection of the evening pertains to the theatrics. It was as if the golden-haired guest sitting across the table were an actor playing a part on the London stage.

“It was Donald Trump playing Donald Trump,” Griffin observed. There was something unreal about it.

The same feeling perplexed Mark Singer in the late 1990s when he was working on a profile of Trump for The New Yorker. Singer wondered what went through his mind when he was not playing the public role of Donald Trump. What are you thinking about, Singer asked him, when you are shaving in front of the mirror in the morning? Trump, Singer writes, appeared baffled. Hoping to uncover the man behind the actor’s mask, Singer tried a different tack:

“O.K., I guess I’m asking, do you consider yourself ideal company?”

“You really want to know what I consider ideal company?,” Trump replied. “A total piece of ass.”

I might have phrased Singer’s question this way: Who are you, Mr. Trump, when you are alone? Singer never got an answer, leaving him to conclude that the real-estate mogul who would become a reality-TV star and, after that, a leading candidate for president of the United States had managed to achieve something remarkable: “an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.”

<snip>


http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/the-mind-of-donald-trump/480771/

[pinboy3niner]

1. “an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.”

That's right up there with "short-fingered vulgarian."

[cali]

2. Yeah, that is a neat turn of phrase

[smirkymonkey]

4. Beautiful description.

[Ghost Dog]

3. Thought-provoking and disturbing, especially here:

... “Here’s the way I work,” he writes in Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, the campaign manifesto he published late last year. “I find the people who are the best in the world at what needs to be done, then I hire them to do it, and then I let them do it … but I always watch over them.” And Trump knows that he cannot do it alone:

"Many of our problems, caused by years of stupid decisions, or no decisions at all, have grown into a huge mess. If I could wave a magic wand and fix them, I’d do it. But there are a lot of different voices—and interests—that have to be considered when working toward solutions. This involves getting people into a room and negotiating compromises until everyone walks out of that room on the same page..."

[Arazi]

6. What about that passage is disturbing?

There's a shitload I find disturbing about Trump but that passage strikes me as pretty reasonable.

[Ghost Dog]

7. That he's capable of seeming to be reasonable

is precisely what disturbs me.

Thanks for asking!

Edit: That, and the phrase "what needs to be done", coming from him, sounds ominous...

[malaise]

5. Yes that's him

“an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.”