This piece is about me, as well as Donald Trump. It’s a cathartic introspection, so there are no external citations. I’ve used the cover of anonymity here before to vent without fear of being beaten up by other loudmouths in bars. I’m using it again to share, without social repercussions, what I see as “getting into Trump’s head”, or to be more clinical, examining his behavior to shed light on his thought process. To me, doing this explains a lot about him and his role in this election.
Since Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign last year, people have been scratching their heads, trying to figure out what in blazes this obstreperous goofball was doing and attempting to assess his political viability. For the most part, they have been wrong about everything. From underestimating underlying support of his know-nothing, jingoistic attitudes to having too much faith in reasonable expectations of common decency, the general electorate has been unable to grasp the central dynamic of The Donald’s behavior. Have you noticed how surprised most pundits are a everything that happens now? They don’t “get” Trump.
Why is this? Most people are not rich. Most people can’t relate to Trump as a person. They are mostly not sociopaths, either. Most people are unwilling to do what it takes to get results they want if being effectual entails alienating others. People are still puzzled about Trump because they can’t relate to someone who operates as Trump does. In other words, if you’ve never been like Trump, it’s harder to grasp what it is, exactly, that he’s doing.
So, how come I get him? I’ve been fully on to him for a long time. (See my piece from last November.) I’m the earliest in my social circle, with the exception of a rabid Trump booster, to predict that he would easily win the Republican nomination, but never be elected president. The truth is that I share certain psychological traits with DJT. I’m bombastic, argumentative, cocksure and annoy a lot of people. I’m not rich, but I’ve been reasonably successful in life and live quite well considering that my family had nothing. I was “a kid from the projects”, but I parlayed what I started with, nothing, into something bigger, just like Donald Trump. Along the way, I learned what I can and cannot get away with, and I only back off when my my behavior is “over the line” and I get in trouble for it. Ditto Trump.
The basic personality traits I’m talking about here are totally independent of political ideology and one’s stand on public issues. Donald and I differ on just about everything of that sort, but the way he expresses himself and bloviates is uncomfortably familiar. He doesn’t care whom he excoriates or offends, and he doesn’t spare anyone’s feelings. Ditto. Some see this as sociopathy, or at least as calculated behavior engaged in to achieve nefarious ends. It’s not that at all. Speaking one’s mind is an impulse that is hard to suppress for “loud people” like The Donald and me. Being frank, especially when there are counter-productive repercussions, is the antithesis of sociopathy. It’s not a “smart move” to aggravate others just because you feel like it when you don’t have to. But, some people, like Donald and me, do it all the time. While we may regret it later, it just seems appropriate to us at the time.
The difference between what happens when you’re Donald Trump and shoot your mouth off, and what happens when I do the same sort of thing, is that he might incur disapproval, but not suffer any consequences. The power of his money shields him from normal social controls. When he said something on the The Apprentice about about a woman getting down on her knees, he was surely thinking the same thing I did when I heard about his comment. (I don’t watch the show, but it’s discussed a lot.) To me, he was clearly alluding to the notion of the woman falling down before him as a supplicant, perhaps to fellate him. While neither he nor I would be completely candid when we think that, I’m acutely aware that saying something like what he said in public would put me at risk of a lawsuit for sexual harassment, or more likely, a bloody nose. Trump holds back a little, but is acutely aware that the people on his show are being paid to be degraded and humiliated by him, so he does his best to extend such license as far as possible. He behaves as he does because he can get away with it. I know what I can get away with, and so does The Donald.
Trump basically holds anyone who is not a fawning sycophant in contempt and does his best to undermine them. He may see all adversaries as enemies, while I do not, but once someone gets in my bad graces, I want to go after them in some manner. Destroying one’s enemies is a common urge, but acting on that impulse is socially suppressed, at least if you’re not rich. I would love to humiliate people I despise, bankrupt them and otherwise destroy their lives. I don’t get to do that much, but the animus is the same. I think, “You’ll get yours, buddy!” Donald does this, too. Have you ever noticed how he lashes out at anyone who crosses him or disparages him in any way? He doesn’t like being criticized; neither do I.
Not everyone is like this. Some people internalize being wronged, blaming themselves or transcending anger through philosophizing. These are the “good people”, the jolly good fellow types that everyone likes because they never get angry. Donald sees them as “weak” or “losers”. I definitely don’t consider victimhood or failure as a sign of moral deficiency, but I don’t particularly admire it either.
An example of our similarity in this respect is our shared lack of regard for John McCain’s military record. When he ran for president in 2008, I openly opined that getting shot down over North Vietnam and being held as a POW for six years did not necessarily make him a hero. To me, that was just evidence of being unlucky. McCain destroyed three aircraft in training, an act that usually relegates a military pilot to desk duty, and blocks promotion, the first time it happens. An admiral’s son and a Naval Academy graduate, however, gets a lot more slack. “Sure, Johnny, we’ll let you have another airplane. Try not to wreck this one.”
Enduring torture for refusing to make a propaganda video, keeping up the spirits of the other POWs and refusing repatriation without the simultaneous release of his fellows, though, is ballsy as hell and he deserves to be called a hero for that, despite, perhaps, being a crappy pilot, which does not make him a hero. Trump, however, conflates success with moral merit, which is a distinctly Calvinist notion. He sees getting shot down as failure, and failure as moral deficiency. I see McCain’s dumping his loyal wife after his return from captivity as a moral deficiency. (She was disfigured in an auto accident while he was incarcerated.) Badmouthing his tall(-er than the dimutive McCain), elegant, heiress/trophy wife on the campaign trail is further evidence that he is a despicable “loser”, not his getting shot down over Vietnam.
Still, Donald and I share the view that whatever we don’t like about a person makes them lesser. If you don’t act an think as we do, we don’t like you. If you attack us in any way, your name goes on the shit list.
Have you ever wondered why I chose my nom de plume, the Disgruntled Curmudgeon? I’m a crank, and I know it. Do you recoil in disgust when refer to political adversaries as mindless, slope-browed, knuckle-dragging, drooling, cretinous zombies? Yeah, I’m a nasty piece of work, a real mean-spirited old man, just like Donald J. Trump.
I first noticed our id-directed motivational similarities hearing about what he said and did on his TV show. It occurred to me that he was acting out childish fantasies of power and control in a situation where his competence and authority were not subject to review. Whenever anyone is “in charge” unexpectedly, it’s a heady experience. Some people think, “Oh, my god. What do I do now?” Others steel themselves for the burden of increased responsibility, grit their teeth and set to work. There are also those like Donald and me who gleefully exult, usually silently, “At last!” We want power and control for its own sake and may have plotted and schemed for years to attain it. It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person, just that you like being on top. It’s what you do when you’re on top that makes you good or bad. Also, it’s what you say and otherwise express, much more than what you accomplish, that is viewed favorably or unfavorably by others.
The thing that prompted this essay today was an experience that foreshadowed for me the brutal, humiliating trip to the woodshed that Donald Trump will experience in November. He’s going to get his ass whipped, and he’s starting to realize it. There’s nothing he can do to prevent it. Rationalizing and explaining it away may help, but in the end, it will be failure. He’s going to be a loser, a big loser, a huge loser.
What happened to me this afternoon was my removal as the unpaid, volunteer leader of a guitar group at my local senior center. Some people (two, I believe) took issue with the way I run the group. They characterized the way I talked to them as verbal abuse. I did occasionally yell at people who messed up the tempo or failed to play out phrase ends, but I’ve heard a lot worse among other musicians, and I never denigrated anyone personally. Still, some people take offense if they are told bluntly that they are off the beat or singing flat, so they complained to the management. I also occasionally lapse into using profanity, so that may have contributed to their displeasure.
When I was hauled up on the carpet, the administrator handed me a code of conduct, a list like the posted rules in a swimming pool, and said that she had “concerns” about my being the leader of the group. According to her, these concerns were based on the results of a survey she had insisted we fill out during our weekly session the previous week. (I don’t like being told to stop playing and fill out paperwork, so I was a bit surly, but I relented and we all filled out the form before resuming playing.) So, list in hand, what I wanted most was to make a clean getaway. The administrator had summoned me to her office to engage in a mea culpa session, a practice I dislike as much as Trump does. (Have you noticed how he dissembles when confronted by journalists?) I cut her short and offered to resign immediately. She was surprised by this, asking, “You don’t want to be the leader any more?” When I told her that I had wanted someone else to take over for at least the last five years, but no one had stepped up to the task, it was clear that the role of leader had little attraction for me and that it had become an unwelcome chore. I asked, “Does this solve the problem for everyone?” She raised her eyebrows and nodded, seeming much relieved. I rattled on a bit more to explain myself, maintaining that being able sit off to the side and not have to be in charge of the repertoire, be the arranger, or a tutor, or the rhythm Nazi, or even the principal vocalist would make my life a lot easier and remove the impulse to yell at anyone. Having no further need to interrogate me, she dismissed me with a wave of her hand.
So, I am off the hook. Once I realized that at least a couple of people didn’t want me to be the leader, I could no longer bring myself to do the job. If I’m not loved, then screw it. The Donald is going to have that same epiphany about the U.S. presidency soon. When it finally sinks in that an overwhelming majority of the populace is not buying into his delusional hysteria, he’ll shrug his shoulders, sigh and start rationalizing how he really didn’t want to be president anyway. You see, he’s got lots of really big, (Dare I say it?) YOOGE projects in the works that he finds much more fulfilling. There’s even talk that he will drop out of the race before the election, having been completely successful already in his true objective, to destroy the Republican Party from within, including the nut fringe, Tea Party caucus.
Thanks. I feel much better now. Besides that, now I can get back to all the exciting projects I’ve go going in other areas, like blogging and watching the Olympics.When you compare the inner workings of your own mind with what is clearly going on in another’s, it helps to understand them, and perhaps yourself, better. Take the poll and examine you “inner Trump”. It’s fun, and no one will ever know how you answered unless you tell them.
Well, the publishing bot is broken and says my poll is invalid, so there is no poll. If I can figure out how to get one in there, I’ll add it later.
