Tag: Trump narcissism

Trump’s own allies can’t grapple with the depths of his narcissism

AlterNet logoIf President Trump seems resigned to losing November’s election, he has good reason. The strategy he is pursuing—and it’s generous to call it a strategy—is premised on the idea that he is going to lose. His own advisers acknowledge that there are very few people who can be persuaded to vote for him, and his aim therefore is to do whatever he can to hold his strong supporters while reducing the overall level of turnout.

Trump’s team feels confident that approximately 40% of the electorate supports him and notes his approval rating has remained unusually stable during his term. The president’s campaign advisers believe it comes down to getting a bigger proportion of the smaller group of people who love Trump to turn out than the larger group of voters who express tepid support for Biden.

Some people realize this is not going to work, but when they offer alternative strategies they just sound like morons: Continue reading.

Mary Trump once stood up to her uncle Donald. Now her book describes a ‘nightmare’ of family dysfunction.

Washington Post logoMary L. Trump was embroiled in a feud over her inheritance two decades ago when her uncle Donald Trump and his siblings punched back in classic style. In an obscure court filing, they belittled her, alleging she “lives primarily off the Trump income” and is “not gainfully employed.”

Actually, Mary Trump had embarked on a new career. She studied patients with schizophrenia at Hillside Hospital on Long Island for at least six months during this period, meeting with an array of people who were delusional, hallucinatory and suicidal.

Over time, she deepened her studies of the disorder, contributed to a book on treating schizophrenia, wrote a dissertation on stalkers, and became a clinical psychologist. But not since she became part of the lawsuit in 2000 against her uncle has she spoken in detail about what she sees as the disorders of Donald Trump. Continue reading.

Trump inspires swift mockery after he fumes over a bruising CNN poll

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump appears to be fuming over a series of polls that show him losing by a wide margin to the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden. One poll in particular, CNN’s shows Biden beating Trump by 14 points.

Monday morning he tried to trash the CNN poll as “Fake,” and Monday afternoon he claimed he had hired a “highly respected pollster” to analyze CNN’s work.

“They are called SUPPRESSION POLLS, and are put out to dampen enthusiasm,” Trump claimed of the CNN poll. “Despite 3 ½ years of phony Witch Hunts, we are winning, and will close it out on November 3rd!” Continue reading.

Trump was asked how to restore black Americans’ trust in police — but he could only talk about himself

AlterNet logoDonald Trump is not an ideas man. This has been a defining feature of his presidency. He’s not a learned policy wonk, understanding the complex nuances of law and governance. He is, at his core, just a former game show host and a con man.

Never is this more clear than when reporters ask him about public policy problems he’s not prepared for. (Of course, even on topics where Trump should be prepared, like health care, he struggles to put together a coherent thought.)

This happens even with friendly outlets. On Wednesday, Trump appeared with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on his radio show. And in an exchange flagged by CNN’s Daniel Dale, Kilmeade asked a surprisingly decent and provocative question. Continue reading.

After 16 Hours Of Rage Tweeting, Trump Posts Condolences To 100K Virus Victims

The coronavirus death toll surpassed the 100,000 mark Wednesday afternoon, leading to an immediate flood of statements from politicians of all stripes issuing condolences to those who have lost loved ones in the pandemic.

Rather than immediately marking the moment, however, Donald Trump instead spent the next 17 hours angrily tweeting nearly 50 times about the Russia investigation that ended more than a year ago, as well as vowing to retaliate against social media companies that attempt to fact-check his lies before finally tweeting a message about the dead.

“We have just reached a very sad milestone with the coronavirus pandemic deaths reaching 100,000,” Trump tweeted at 9:37 a.m. Thursday morning. “To all of the families & friends of those who have passed, I want to extend my heartfelt sympathy & love for everything that these great people stood for & represent. God be with you!” Continue reading.

Trump doubles down on conspiracy theory about woman’s death, ignoring grieving widower’s plea for peace

Washington Post logoPresident Trump and the White House on Tuesday continued to promote a baseless conspiracy theory about a woman’s 2001 death, ignoring her grieving widower’s plea for peace and putting renewed pressure on social media companies about the president’s toxic use of their platforms.

Twitter issued a public apology to the family of Lori Klausutis, whose death Trump has repeatedly weaponized to attack ­MSNBC host Joe Scarborough. But the social media company rejected a request from her widower, Timothy J. Klausutis, to delete Trump’s conspiracy-laden tweetsaccusing Scarborough of a debunked murder plot, saying his wife “deserves better.”

“We are deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are drawing, are causing the family,” Twitter said in a statement Tuesday. “We’ve been working to expand existing product features and policies so we can more effectively address things like this going forward, and we hope to have those ­changes in place shortly.” Continue reading.

Trump’s biggest deficit against Biden: Empathy

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s coronavirus response has been one marked by an inordinate balance between credit-seeking and empathy. A Washington Post review last month of his coronavirus task force briefings showed Trump spent 10 times more time praising himself and his administration (45 minutes out of 13 hours) for its response than expressing condolences to victims (4 ½ minutes). And he spent even more time attacking and blaming others (two hours).

On Friday, Trump seemed to try to rectify this, to some degree. In a tweet, he announced that flags would be flown at half-staff over the next three days “in memory of the Americans we have lost to the CoronaVirus.”<

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

I will be lowering the flags on all Federal Buildings and National Monuments to half-staff over the next three days in memory of the Americans we have lost to the CoronaVirus….

199K

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It’s clearly something he needs to work on — and something that could prove an electoral liability. Continue reading.

Overwhelmed and losing, Trump is melting down in a narcissistic rage

AlterNet logoReports of Trump flying into a rage behind closed doors–shouting at aides, turning on former allies and at one point threatening to sue his campaign manager for failing to deliver good polling numbers–have been ubiquitous over the last three years. But this past week feels qualitatively and quantitatively different, as has fired a series of inspector generals, lashed out at the reliably sycophantic Sen. Lindsey Graham, pushed a number of snake-oil cures for Covid-19 and threatened to cut off federal funding to several states for the “crime” of sending voters applications for absentee ballots, which he insists against all evidence are rife with fraud. He’s lurched between falsely bragging about the number of people we’re testing for Covid-19 and saying that we’re testing too many; between claiming that we’ll have a vaccine by November and insisting that the pandemic will just disappear without a vaccine.

Never a stable genius at the best of times, he’s really melting down before our eyes.

Part of the story is that when the Mueller report didn’t sink his presidency and Senate Republicans acquitted him for a brazenly corrupt and well-documented abuse of power, it gave him a sense of impunity. Impunity always breeds more lawlessness. Continue reading.

Trump Claimed Truckers in D.C. Are Honking in a ‘Sign of Love’ for Him. Drivers Say They’re There to Protest

WASHINGTON, DC — President Donald Trump says the sound of truck horns just south of the White House is a “sign of love” for him from truckers. But the truckers are actually honking their opposition to low shipping rates.

“They’re protesting in favor of President Trump,” the president claimed in the Rose Garden on Friday during an announcement about vaccine development. The blaring of truck horns wafted across the Ellipse and into the sun-splashed garden during that event and a ceremony Trump held in the afternoon to recognize good deeds during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Those are truckers that are with us all the way,” he said at the earlier event.

But the drivers who have lined Constitution Avenue with their big rigs didn’t come to Washington for Trump. They’re in the nation’s capital to protest low shipping rates that they say could force many of them out of business. Continue reading.

‘Trump has a fantasy of dominating these women’: Clinical psychiatrist explains why the president is ‘aroused’ by conflict with female reporters

AlterNet logoAs we all ought to know by now, Donald Trump is an authoritarian and a would-be mad king. The coronavirus pandemic has only encouraged his worst impulses and behavior. There is no bottom to Trump’s addiction to cruelty, mayhem, lying and overall evil.

Republican “moderates” — who in reality follow Trump’s dictates almost to the letter — and other naïve and delusional souls in the media and pundit classes have kept hoping that Donald Trump would “learn his lesson” from impeachment and change his behavior. The truth is exactly the opposite.

More than 80,000 Americans are now dead from the coronavirus pandemic and the economy has been reduced to rubble. Trump clearly does not care about the former and is only concerned with how the latter will affect his chances of re-election in November. Continue reading.