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posted by janrinok on Monday November 14 2016, @09:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-a-different-president dept.

I've come across an article on The Atlantic that analyses Trump's personality:

Many questions have arisen about Trump during this campaign season—about his platform, his knowledge of issues, his inflammatory language, his level of comfort with political violence. This article touches on some of that. But its central aim is to create a psychological portrait of the man. Who is he, really? How does his mind work? How might he go about making decisions in office, were he to become president? And what does all that suggest about the sort of president he'd be?

It's a long, but very interesting read.

Here's a list of sentences the article itself highlights:

Combined with a gift for humor, anger lies at the heart of Trump's charisma.

Trump appeals to an ancient fear of contagion, which analogizes out-groups to parasites and poisons.

Narcissism in presidents is a double-edged sword. It is associated with historians' ratings of "greatness"—but also with impeachment resolutions.

Andrew Jackson displayed many of the same psychological qualities that we see in Trump.

Trump has never forgotten the lesson from his father: The world is a dangerous place. You have to be ready to fight.

And the final paragraph summarizes:

Who, really, is Donald Trump? What's behind the actor's mask? I can discern little more than narcissistic motivations and a complementary personal narrative about winning at any cost. It is as if Trump has invested so much of himself in developing and refining his socially dominant role that he has nothing left over to create a meaningful story for his life, or for the nation. It is always Donald Trump playing Donald Trump, fighting to win, but never knowing why.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @02:55AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @02:55AM (#426829)

    > Obviously that means the Electoral College is a piece of shit and badly in need of calibration.

    So, remember that 3/5ths things in the US constitution? Where slaves counted as 3/5ths of a person? What the hell was that about?

    Turns out it was about the electoral college. Even though slaves could not vote, they still counted towards the calculation of electoral votes. Is that shit messed up or what?

    The line they teach us in high school civics class about the electoral college being a way to make sure everybody is represented is just one of those lies of convenience we tell ourselves to avoid acknowledging yet another way racism defined our country.

    In reality the electoral college is the antithesis of the one-man one-vote principle that we also tell ourselves is a fundamental principle of american democracy. The very fact that it is possible to lose the popular vote and still win the election is empirical proof that this country is not operating on the basis of one-man, one-vote.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @04:36AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @04:36AM (#426863)

    But we have to account for the minority vote!! Oh wait, that only seems to matter when the minority is white...

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 15 2016, @06:21PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 15 2016, @06:21PM (#427089) Journal

    So, remember that 3/5ths things in the US constitution?

    Nope, it's no longer in the Constitution due to the 13th Amendment.