Columnist for the New York Times and political commentator David Brooks wrote an opinion piece last week sharing his thoughts on American’s “child” president. He starts off saying that at times Donald Trump seems like a “budding authoritarian, a corrupt Nixon, a rabble-rousing populist or a big business corporatist,” but he’s come to find out—Trump is none of those things. The columnist calls Trump is an “infantalist,” unable to grasp three tasks most adults figure out by their mid 20s— with immaturity being Trump’s most dominant characteristic, as well as “lack of self-control his leitmotif.”
In Brooks’ New York Times piece entitled,“When the World Is Led By a Child,” he outlines why Trump does not fit into the category of an adult. In some ways, Brooks’ depiction of Trump is wildly humorous, in a dark, dark way.
First,
Most adults have learned to sit still. But mentally, Trump is still a 7-year-old boy who is bouncing around the classroom. Trump’s answers in these interviews are not very long — 200 words at the high end — but he will typically flit through four or five topics before ending up with how unfair the press is to him.
Brooks says Trump’s inability to focus his attention makes it hard for him comprehend facts, making it hard for Trump to control what comes out of his mouth. “On an impulse, he will promise a tax reform when his staff has done little of the actual work.”
Brooks then gives the second task needed to be considered an actual adult:
Second,
Most people of drinking age have achieved some accurate sense of themselves, some internal criteria to measure their own merits and demerits. But Trump seems to need perpetual outside approval to stabilize his sense of self, so he is perpetually desperate for approval, telling heroic fabulist tales about himself.
In the piece, Brooks cites a ridiculous quote by Trump during the boy-president’s interview with TIME: “In a short period of time I understood everything there was to know about health care.” Another Trump quote that was cited by Brooks was Trump bragging about his Joint Session speech (written for him) to the Associated Press, “A lot of the people have said that, some people said it was the single best speech ever made in that chamber.”
With all that Trump falsely gives himself credit for, Brooks does say Trump is able to break some records on some occasions. He is the all-time record-holder of the Dunning-Kruger effect. It’s the phenomenon in which “the incompetent person is too incompetent to understand his own incompetence.” The example Brooks gives is that Trump thought he’d find glory when he fired former FBI director James Comey and thought the press would be wild with happiness when he won the Republican nomination. “He is perpetually surprised because reality does not comport with his fantasies,” says David Brooks.
The final important trait Trump lacks, in order to be an adult, has to do with modesty.
Third,
By adulthood most people can perceive how others are thinking. For example, they learn subtle arts such as false modesty so they won’t be perceived as obnoxious.
Brooks says Trump sees other people as “black boxes that supply either affirmation or disapproval. As a result, he is weirdly transparent. He wants people to love him, so he is constantly telling interviewers that he is widely loved.”
Then of course there are the reports that Trump leaked critical information to his Russian guests. David Brooks doesn’t believe Trump revealed the critical information out of malice or because Trump is some sort of Russian spy. Brooks says, “He did it because he is sloppy, because he lacks all impulse control, and above all because he is a 7-year-old boy desperate for the approval of those he admires.”
There is more in the NYT piece well-worth reading. In his conclusion, David Brooks gives his readers more humorous imagery about the current dismal situation of having this so-called leader of the free world in office.
We’ve got this perverse situation in which the vast analytic powers of the entire world are being spent trying to understand a guy whose thoughts are often just six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar. — David Brooks
Regardless of whether, or not, you’re a fan of David Brooks, he does a pretty good job here of describing the ridiculous president while adding some entertaining imagery. The piece expresses what many around the country—and around world—are feeling.