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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.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Tuesday November 15 2016, @05:50AM
Social Justice
As viewed by proponents, social justice is the goal that all people should be free to live and express themselves regardless of who they are. More practically speaking, it means supporting equality for racial, ethnic, and sexual groups perceived to be threatened. This most commonly means women, African-Americans, LGBT, Latinos, and Muslims. Ultimately however I will admit it applies to all who are not purely straight white men. There are those who misunderstand social justice and use it as a cudgel for their own pride. But then there are the silent masses who simply wish to move beyond the kind of "locker room talk" that requires us to disrespect our fellow human beings.
Climate Change
The science of climate change shows a strong trend towards an average increase of global temperatures. This is not in dispute. Several things, however, are. One is that this increase is on the rise; this argument has been made for decades while temperatures continue to increase, smashing record high after record high with no sign of stopping. Another is that the increase is man-caused; we know however that CO2 levels correspond directly to global temperature rise, and while several fanciful explanations such as sun spots have been proffered, none of them fit the facts so simply. And lastly, the actual results of global warming are in dispute. Climate models do actually suck. So on this point, there is very little consensus. They figured out pretty early that calling it "global warming" was misleading because not everyone would experience average warming. Some people may in fact get a lot colder if the gulf stream collapses, although there is no consensus as to whether that is actually going to happen. One thing that is expected to happen is glacial melting at the poles; this is already occurring, in fact much faster than scientists predicted. Beyond that, there are many frightening possibilities such as elevated sea levels, desertification, and ecosystem collapse likely to affect our food supply. But those are just statistically significant possibilities, with no way to know for sure what will happen where.
We know that temperatures are rising, and the consensus about what that means is basically more extreme weather. The US Army believes that climate change will create throngs of climate refugees, contributing to massive global instability. Exxon Mobil believes that climate change will open up polar waters for oil exploration; indeed it already has. People in power in government and international corporations have long tried to discredit climate change science much the same way (and by the same people) that the health risks of tobacco were discredited. For decades those in power have lied to us while secretly planning for the world they knew was coming. But now the so-called green economy has, with less government support than fossil fuel industries and a net gain to the government for what loans it has taken, produced exciting new possibilities. The possibility that you could install solar panels to completely power your household without paying the government-sanctioned electricity monopolies. The possibility that you could use this same power to move your car instead of Saudi oil. The possibility that struggling farmers can make easy money with wind turbines on their land. Make no mistake: the fossil fuel industry is a massive enterprise requiring all manner of totalitarian integration just to function at a basic level. Even if you don't believe that burning oil is killing the planet, you can certainly agree that buying it ties you to centralized power.
Women's Health
Women's health is not just about abortion. It's also about contraceptives, STI prevention, detection, and treatment, prenatal care, postnatal care, and cancer screenings. And in the case when a pregnancy threatens the life of the mother, it's about abortion, NewSpeak notwithstanding. And by the way, everyone hates Planned Parenthood. The constant protests and death threats don't exactly help those places to be positive environments. But we must not throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. I for one am glad to live in a place that supports young mothers with nutrition, health care, and parenting education through a network of federal-, state-, and church-run services.
- - -
While I may support these causes, do not mistake me for the straw man your corporate media idols have constructed of me. I was not planning on rejoicing a Hillary victory, and I was in fact the only Democrat I knew who believed it was not a certainty. This election proved one thing in my mind: the majority of America can still rise up against the elite. One candidate promised change, while the other promised more of the same - a similar picture to 2008, with similar results. But this is not a victory for the masses. Trump himself is an elite, and he stands alone in politics. He will be surrounded and influenced by the same sort of Republican douchebag he mocked in the primary. Much like 2008.
This pattern will repeat itself election after election until somebody who isn't a narcissistic charlatan finally represents us both. Somebody who can respect women without destroying our cultural icons, who can fight against the police brutality that is endemic in all poor neighborhoods, not just African American ones. Somebody who will leverage clean power technologies to decentralize our infrastructure to safeguard our liberties and our planet. Somebody who can show compassion to rape victims without encouraging immorality. Somebody who will end this 50-year nightmare of ever-increasing power wielded over our lives by governments and corporations, working together under Democrats and Republicans to erode our personal liberty.
Heh. Fat chance.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?