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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump: A damaged, pathetic personality whose obvious impairment has only gotten worse
greymattermom
(5,754 posts)and he's a great writer. I hope to hear more from him.
jimmy the one
(2,708 posts)Good article motley, thanks. The title drew me in, almost didn't click on link but the title was too hard to resist.
By 2016, the private Trump was on permanent public display, raging over mere slights, seeing plots in every ill turn of events and, as always, stunningly self-absorbed. He was called a racist, a sexist and a bully. But his mental health issues were euphemized as problems of temperament. He lied ceaselessly, reflexively and clumsily, but his lies were called merely unproven or, later, false.
In 2016, the precariousness of Trumps mental health was clear to all with eyes to see, but like extras in a remake of The Emperors New Clothes, reporters averted their glances. The day after the election, they were all in a state of shock, like staff at an asylum who woke one morning to find that the patient who thought he was Napoleon had just been named emperor of France.
Ha.
ts likely that Trumps arrested development also got him white working-class votes, among males especially. The infantilization of the American male is a phenomenon we have been slow to recognize. It is a product of fast-narrowing economic horizons fueled by cultural forces; by beer ads and anti-intellectualism, by addiction and violent video games, and now by Trump, on whom Jon Stewart pinned the fitting moniker man baby.
Yup, macho machismo amongst the mainly younger set in search of some higher ideology they can adopt to set themselves above their ill-perceived notions of educated adversaries as elitist know littles.
enough
(13,255 posts)and general election because he was a "ratings magnet." Of all the factors that brought Trump to the presidency, this may be the most important.