Is Donald J Trump a psychopath?

No your mom is

*farts*

I usually groan at armchair diagnoses of public figures but Trump is for sure a pathological something-or-other

at the very least he's got narcissistic personality disorder

No, ma'am. He's a decent family man and citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.

Yeah, what's our operating definition here?

*shits into a medium-sized receptacle of my own construct*

i have a psychiatry exam tomorrow and i'm gonna go with treeship's mom no

operating definition is that i feel like there is something fucked up about him that goes beyond mere sneakiness and maliciousness.

giving someone a psych diagnosis from a distance is generally nagl but narcissistic personality disorder definitely describes him a lot better than antisocial. i mean...ok i'll say it he definitely has NPD

there doesn't seem to be a person behind the performance of donald trump. i've spent the past year watching this election and never once felt like he was a person i could sit down and have an actual conversation with. also, he is so obscenely uninhibited, unbothered by all kinds of moral restraints that most of us experience as second nature

NPD might make more sense. i also sense some sadism in him, though. tonight he was laughing about martha raddatz crying after the election. he also likes to sexually assault people.

NPD/BPD combo? At the very least, I'd hope we could at least all agree that a man with an untreated profound mental illness is about to be our president. Sweet dreams!

NPD definitely, but does he fully slot into a proper diagnosis of psycho/sociopath, for as proper as such a diag on a message board can be? Does NPD now count in the -pathic category? I only hear secondhand complaints about the DSM5, I don't know these things myself

there have been several articles making the rounds about how trump has NPD

here are two

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/the-mind-of-donald-trump/480771/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/22/is-donald-trump-a-textbook-narcissist/?utm_term=.38cce2590588

of all the ones i have read i found this one most useful

https://medium.com/@nziehl/coping-with-chaos-in-the-white-house-697fa2ca3ddf#.f0qo8huxx

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

it doesn't matter

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

this is one of the slightly more embarrassing tantrumps tbh

whatever man, you're not getting deported

technically speaking its more that i never went but im sorry fer yer troubles

chances that trump deports more ppl than obama aren't very good

you're such a tiresome fuck

Trump probably only has 4 years to Obama's 8, though, so you're probably safe with that bet

facts, stubborn things, etc

happy holidays tho

4 people on ilx think i am a psychopath

My psychic (I keep one on retainer) tells me one of the four is Donald Trump and the other three are interns he ordered to register with ILX in order to vote.

my favorite way to listen to the president is slowed down to 1/2 speed because it reveals how often times his logic is indistinguishable from that of a drunk person: pic.twitter.com/QiUb4CQdU9

— Arlen Parsa voted! (@arlenparsa) November 7, 2018

4 people on ilx think i am a psychopath

― Treeship, Saturday, December 24, 2016 11:11 PM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is that why you changed your name

Yeah but you guys figured it out

Kimmel has been making slowed down "Drunk Donald Trump" videos ever since the election.

even more revelatory are the videos where they dub him over Master Shake

lol at the John McCain quote

what's crazy about trump is that he apparently doesn't drink at all. this is him operating at the top of his game

He’s sleep deprived and doesn’t eat plants though

I'm going with early-onset dementia magnified by decades of overdosing on finasteride.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/02/03/side-effects-of-the-drug-trump-reportedly-takes-for-hair-loss/

happy 30th anniversary of trump taking out $85K worth of newspaper ads calling for the execution of the central park five

He's such a Gemini.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Yes. Almost two cents of every dollar reported as losses one year by everyone in the United States were reported by Donald Trump. And what this shows is something I’ve been saying and writing about Trump for 30 years: he is a terrible businessman. His business model is not to get an enterprise, to nurture it, to grow it, to make it more profitable over time. His business model is the same as a mob bust-out. Get your hands on an enterprise, squeeze all the cash out of it, don’t pay your vendors, try to cheat as best you can your employees, don’t pay the bankers — and Trump once said, “I borrowed money knowing I wouldn’t pay it back” — and then leave the carcass and go on to the next deal.

That’s why the Art of the Deal is so significant in all of this, because Trump’s business model is to rip off one person after another who gets involved with him thinking he will make them wealthy while he is destroying their wealth. Donald is, after Bernie Madoff, arguably the greatest wealth destroyer in American history.

that makes him smart

Coming in 2054 to PBS: "Nation of Chumps - The Trump Years"

this is just the fishiest thing i've ever heard of

"Almost two cents of every dollar reported as losses one year by everyone in the United States were reported by Donald Trump."

but he kept his businesses? and wasn't audited?

I think part of the antichrist's deal is that he's able to pull off feats just as astonishing as his opposite except they just leave everyone feeling like they need a shower and a fifth of vodka.

I thought some of this would be cleared up by mueller

Naively i see now

Note who the US AG for Southern District of NY was during these years. Giuliani.

Honestly, it's not the tax loss carryforwards that trouble me. Its the fact that real estate has more intrinsic incentives towards fraud than most industries, and Trump is clearly less principled than most people. I've no doubt his first 20 years in the business was rife with assessment fraud, but unlike some 800 fraudsters who had jail time during the 1980s S&L crisis, Trump carried on scot free.

That and then was the time to go through his dealings with a fine toothed comb, and Giuliani didn't.

was were rife

At his rally tonight, Trump says the government is unable to violently attack immigrants, someone in the crowd shouted "Shoot them!"

The crowd & Trump erupt in laughter & cheers. Trump says, "Only in the panhandle can you get away with that statement."pic.twitter.com/SgQd2OH9ti

— jordan (@JordanUhl) May 9, 2019

Really sickening.

I'm only able to sleep at night by reminding myself that Donald Trump will someday be the most consistently-defiled corpse in American history.

I know I can’t diagnose someone, but I do think there is something wrong with this guy that goes beyond the fact that he is part of a nihilistic political party (the GOP). Thereis a recklessness about how he has gone about his entire life that feels very deranged.

That’s why I stand by this poll. It’s not about if Trump is *worse* han someone like GWB—so far, he hasn’t caused as much damage. I think he really is sick.

In the sense of having a malignant personality disorder. Not trying to stigmatize the mentally ill, a group to which I belong myself. But I don’t know what other way to tak about a person who is bizarre and delusiona and relishes breaking out of social norms

The old word “evil” maybe.

I have literally never met someone anything like Donald Trump in my life.

Apologies for more trump posts

I think I'm finally convinced: that boy ain't right.

I don't know if he's a psychopath, but I think he's a kind of hydroponically-grown version of Americanism, a product of a culture. I've been recently referring to behaviour like his as Kissingerism, based on the tenet that "harming others, or creating chaos in the lives of others, is profitable for the self", which is not localized to America but does seem to flourish there more visibly

He’s kind of like a living portrait-in-the-attic of everything ugly about our society that we try to sweep under the rug, it’s true

Is that an actual quote from kissinger?

No, it's my own extrapolation based on Adam Curtis reporting in "Hypernormalisation" that Kissinger himself described his activities in the Arab World as "constructive ambiguity"

How is he not a psychopath? Because he has yet to murder anyone with a rusty hatchet? His behaviour is selfish, uninhibited, utterly devoid of empathy and self-awareness, even openly malevolent when it strikes his fancy.

I'd only argue against the designation inasmuch as he seems to stand alone as this refined paragon of sociopathy that your run-of-the-mill, meat-and-potatoes, Joe Lunchpail sociopaths can only gawp at in wonder as an aspirational model of what they might someday be if they really put their nose (or perhaps their neighbor's nose) to the grindstone.

Even if he doesn’t meet the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, he almost certainly has narcissistic personality disorder, as he is grandiose and delusional and demands adoration and becomes enraged when his ego is threatened. These are the classic symptoms and they are clearly observable to everyone every day. I feel like this matters because he is not being treated.

I have literally never met someone anything like Donald Trump in my life.

the only people who remotely compare to him are Tommy Wiseau and uh...Lavar Ball

I don't think in the history of human civilization we've ever seen a person this stupid and reckless find himself in a situation where no amount of stupidity or recklessness could possibly cause him to fail. Not only did he come up in a time and a place that absolutely coddles white idiots with rich dads, he seems to have benefitted from literally every lucky break possible.

I think labelling his behaviour as NPD and saying he "needs treatment" is ignoring the larger problem, which is that his behaviour is not-aberrant in the broader scope of American culture, and that he continues to have so many people who support him and "get it", so to speak. I've been deliberately and ruthlessly dicked-over by Californian after Californian, from leases to employment contracts to legal agreements and so on and so on. I have started to think that for Americans, growing up in a nation that so explicitly profits off the destabilization of other countries (via bombing or invasion or fomenting political upheaval in order to keep oil-prices down) has conditioned the American mind to hold, deeply, in their subconscious, that "creating chaos for others" is "profitable", to a point where this tenet is tapped into people's pleasure centres. I saw white Americans protesting drone strikes in Pakistan and thought "you're not actually upset about this. A part of you feels more secure because of these drone strikes. A part of you is overjoyed that you're now protesting to try and cover-up how safe this destabilization makes you feel". I don't think Trump is NPD. I think America is, across-the-board, a culture of dicking people over for profit and Trump is just less-good at being discreet about it.

he's a kind of hydroponically-grown version of Americanism, a product of a culture

Bruce Gibney's book "Generation of Sociopaths" i think is pretty instructive here (good book, def worth your time imho; caveat being that Gibney is a neolib VC bro so you gotta take that into account while reading).

But honestly you could scratch "Generation" and really expand it to "Nation"-- i.e., all signs m/l pointed to us eventually ending up here.

I think there is a grain of truth to that because America—and especially New York—is the epicenter of neoliberal capitalism, which prizes disruption and “flexibility” above all else. But i also think even in this environment, trump’s behavior is aberrant

xpost

iow flamboyant goon tie otm

yeah, I have been in a low simmer annoyance with the people thinking that Trump's personality is a complete anomaly. His circumstances might be, but all of these "bad" traits are pretty accepted and even nurtured in white men.

It’s rewarded but it goes against the grain of ordinary human instincts. The normal person doesn’t relish being seen as a heartless and reckless monster, even if they’d be admired for it

I agree in general his rise is instructive about how fucked up our country is and what kinds of things it incentivizes. But i still don’t see “trump” in the people i deal with day to day—my family, friends, whatever. Maybe my landlord.

fgti ruthlessly otm

xpost, I've worked with a lot Trump derivatives. He's exhausting for me, but it's a lifetime of Trumps all the way down so I have the stamina for him.

I'm kind of in between fgti and Treesh on this - I agree that Trump is America's underbelly personified, but at the same time I have never heard of a more shameless person in my life. I guess McConnell comes close but Trump is just on another level, he's living proof that certain people in this country are so privileged that they are not only unbound by law but by reality itself. Like getting on the phone with Putin and claiming that "he smiled when we talked about how there was no collusion", who else says a thing like that? Even Kim Jong Un wouldn't say that.

Despots across the globe are enjoying this moment of letting Trump do all their work for them, et al.

"he smiled when we talked about how there was no collusion", who else says a thing like that? Even Kim Jong Un wouldn't say that.

yeah KJU is a weird horrible person but Trump is a corny ass idiot in a way no one else is.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think fgti is saying that Trump isn't a psychopath. Rather, his mental illnesses are ultimately of little consequence when set against the broader canvas of Trumpism, which is but the collective cutting edge of a continuum of values that have always undergirded 'the American experience'.

Mmm, I mean...there's undeniably an undercurrent of depravity running through the history of this country, but it's often been in the service of something. Trump often just seems like chaotic evil for the sake of chaotic evil. Like someone who will torch the building they're in just for the thrill of seeing the screaming faces of those who die alongside him.

Yeah that's exactly what I'm saying.

Insofar as the ridiculous things Trump says that "even Kim Jong Un wouldn't say", I agree, but the point isn't the specifics of the statement, but that it's the audacity of these statements that is rewarded. I remember very specifically, ten days before the election, being in Louisiana and seeing Hillary ads that said, paraphrased, "this man (Trump) has said x, y, and z (incl. "grab them by the pussy"), is that really the sort of man we want ruling this country? Vote Hillary." I thought, you're missing the point, Democrats, this ad is actually working in Trump's favour; this "sort of man" is exactly the person people want to have running their country. It was this article in The New Republic that finally verbalized what I'd been feeling, intuitively, throughout the Trump campaign: https://newrepublic.com/article/151603/nihilist-nation-empty-core-trump-mystique and I've shared it elsewhere and pretty much agree with all of it.

I mean you could easily argue that everything he says and does is in service of himself - that he's utterly incapable of seeing the world in any way that doesn't relate to himself. He can't have a single relationship that isn't predicted on "do you like Trump". Truthering the Puerto Rico death toll because he thought it made him look bad kinda lays it all bare.

I think there are pathological and antisocial aspects to our society, which is why Trump was rewarded for a life of destructive and selfish actions. But i don’t think the average person or even the average white man fully embodies these traits fully the way Trump does. If that’s *all* our country was, there would be nothing to build on.

Nah but there's surely a lil bit of Trumpism in all of us, myself included

i defensively disagree

Agreed, fgti. In American politics (among others) charisma consists of creating a halo of events around your persona, of having unflinching performative heft. That requires audacity. And the most charismatic candidate always wins.

xps

For sure. We all have benevolent and malevolent instincts and need to consciously develop the former and resist the latter.

And like we shouldn’t build a society that rewards the worst parts of people but we’ve kinda done that

Agreed, fgti. In American politics (among others) charisma consists of creating a halo of events around your persona, of having unflinching performative heft. That requires audacity. And the most charismatic candidate always wins.

xps

― pomenitul, Thursday, May 9, 2019 7:59 AM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in america words mean absolutely nothing

i guess that's true

anyway i can't get on with a post that second guesses the true feelings of people protesting drone bombings, v weird way to make a point about how america loves corrupt daddy

Words do matter, but they're just another tool at the rhetorician's disposal.

This post is from 2 years ago, but I still occasionally think back on it.

https://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/questions-about-rhetoric/

Lying should be more stigmatized than it is

they actually really don't! especially if "charisma" is just consistently shouting horrible things xp

Their logical truth-value doesn't matter but their performative, even 'poetic' power does.

Trump is wildly inarticulate though

One of his most obvious characteristics

And like we shouldn’t build a society that rewards the worst parts of people but we’ve kinda done that

I mean this depends massively on who you are - compare the sentences of the black woman who unknowingly voted illegally (5 years) to those who actually conspired to commit election fraud

It rewards certain people for bad actions, incentivizing bad actions

So was Bush, but lines such as 'They misunderestimated me' or, by the same token, 'covfefe' have a weird force to them that borders on poetry, as disgusting as that may seem (then again, I don't think of poetry as having a meliorative meaning – it's more like another state of language).

2xp

they actually really don't! especially if "charisma" is just consistently shouting horrible things xp

yeah I take pretty big issue with the idea that Trump has "charisma"...he's one of the most deeply unpleasant people I can think of. I thought George W. Bush was horrible too, but I feel like I could have a fun conversation with him about, I dunno, baseball or whatever. I do think there's something to the idea that the more entertaining/iconic/SNL-worthy candidate always wins, though Trump did get 3M less votes

Fwiw that and charisma are one and the same as far as I'm concerned.

Bush Jr. seemed a bit dull and misspoke a lot, but Trump is on an entirely different level - dude does not understand a single thing that doesn't pertain to himself or TV news, and we've come to see that he gets absolutely nothing about business or real estate or any of the things he was supposed to be "good" at. I think about this exchange a lot:

‘Face The Nation’ host John Dickerson tried to get Trump to muse on former George W Bush’s comment on how the Oval Office was round and therefore had no corners to hide in – meaning accountability always sat firmly at the President’s lap.

However, Trump failed to spot the metaphor and took it just a bit too literally. He said: “Well, there’s truth to that. There is truth to that. There are certainly no corners. And you look, there’s a certain openness. But there’s nobody out there. You know, there is an openness, but I’ve never seen anybody out there actually, as you could imagine.”

resentment and—an overused word, i know—nihilism can be seductive, look at online trolls or even the less ideologically driven mass shooters. trump’s “poetry”—basically a delight in triggering people—appeals to that part of people. I don’t know if i’d call it charisma

He's not a smart man but he knows what an oval is.

it's not that he just didn't understand the metaphor, it's that he didn't identify that here was even a metaphor there, he never stops to think "that's a strange thing to say" and instead just starts speaking about the layout of the room

Trump and Bush have almost opposite personality profiles. It doesn’t make sense to compare them.

Doesn't matter, he's got plenty of memorable lines, starting with Fifth Avenue and 'very stable genius' and 'look, having nuclear' and…

Bush was a figurehead for entrenched interests. Trump’s been doing things for those people too, but he got to where he is in a different way.

that's true but Trump's "memorable lines" seem to come from a totally different place; in a way he is exactly like my 4 year old, when I tell him "you need to put your jacket on, you're going to get cold", his response is "no, I'm hot! YOU'RE cold!!" Bush had difficulty recalling common phrases ("fool me once...") and his sentences were garbled but he at least knows what the words mean. I know plenty of people who speak like Bush. Nobody I know is on the same planet as Trump

@ BradNelson I get that my comment about "anti-drone activists not believing in the thing they're protesting" was perhaps inflammatory, and regrettable, and doesn't at all reflect my true feelings. A more useful example would be to consider the widely-stated criticism that many white women participants in the Women's March 2017 were not actually marching for people less privileged than themselves, but were marching to celebrate their own privilege-- but my access to that discussion is "read-only".

I guess what I'm saying is their opponents were nowhere near as memorable. They struggled to turn their patterns of speech into micro-events. I mean, Trump is memerific and Bush kind of was too.

Trump actually lost though—to a super normcore candidate, hillary. He won on a technicality

As did bush. He lost to the dullest candidate in memory, al gore

If only that were true…

He got more votes

The electoral college is a technicality?

No, I know, it's just that it hardly matters in the grand scheme of things. Like when Canada's Conservatives got a majority government in 2011 with a score of 39.6%.

xp

Kind of. If we’re analyzing that the flashiest candidate is the one who enchants the public

Xp

He enchants the only public that counts, I guess.

Absolutely dumbfounded https://t.co/yFz3ZzfmKg pic.twitter.com/cSgGV9WI40

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) May 10, 2019

reminds me of when the mooch bragged about trump draining 3 pointers and regularly hitting putts in from 3 feet away, er, 30 feet away

He’s so gross

It's kind of amazing how there's nothing about him that isn't completely hateable. Like not a single redeeming quality. That takes real dedication.

Maybe he needs compassion. Being a narcissist of this level is a painful way to exist in the world—needing to bully children to protect your ego.

can we once and for all please stop giving an iota of a shit about the inner life of this man

like any abusive relationship, there's no way to predict how your actions will effect what he does, there's no model of his mind you can rely on

it would be easier if we weren't living in the nightmare of his outer life

Maybe he needs compassion.

Understatement of the eon.

"but obviously if the democrats are going to nominate someone to Left of Castro like Kamala Harris or Joe Biden i'll be forced to vote for Trump the golf cheat. again"

It’s not even just cheating at golf. It’s openly cheating and for no reason—with no ability to feel embarrassment. Nobody else acts in this way.

I liked that his Kentucky Derby take was "calling out cheating = political correctness"

silby otm. one of the things that depresses me about him becoming POTUS is all the wasted time/thought/energy spent by millions of people on someone who isn't worth 1 second of consideration.

Hadrian also otm of course

it's a drag that we find it necessary to psychoanalyze this guy, it's just a consequence of there being no other recourse, just helplessly watching this endless stream of shit go by

especially as all of these so-called checks and balances are revealed to be contingent on good faith...what else is there to do btw now and next November but marvel at the psychology, I really don't know

we find it necessary to psychoanalyze this guy

17 votes upthread for "It doesn't matter." Of which, one is mine.

I think it matters that such a person was able to rise to the presidency. It says something about our society.

Here's an article from today that kind of covers that although I am one of the it doesn't matter people in regards to Trump.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/may/10/why-do-so-many-mediocre-men-rise-to-the-top

I like to occasionally psychoanalyze the massive nest of yellowjackets that have overtaken most of my guest bedroom. Why do they keep swarming and stinging the everloving shit out of me? What made them the way they are? Is there a way for me to stroll down the hall that will make them less mindlessly furious of my approach? It would really help my peace of mind if I could just plumb their intentions (even if it doesn't significantly lessen the chances of ultimately being horribly murdered by yellowjackets).

can we once and for all please stop giving an iota of a shit about the inner life of this man

"we"

also I know there's four years worth of US political scandal every day now, so there's no time to examine any of it, but that golf co-champion story came out months ago; it's not a new revelation

Hell, it's hard to juggle just the slew of golf-related stories demonstrating what a POS he is.

I think it matters that such a person was able to rise to the presidency. It says something about our society.

This is def the more fascinating and troubling aspect of Trump for me. Almost at 50% approval rating still! Truly mind-boggling.

To the extent that they personally are materially unaffected, many people apparently regard details about their elected officials as mere trivia, perhaps something you'd come across in an issue of People Magazine just after the latest in-depth coverage of the current season of The Bachelorette.

'Did you see this, Helen? That goofball Trump was laughing about shooting immigrants! What a goofball! Say, did you see that Big Band Theory finale? What a hoot that was!'

especially as all of these so-called checks and balances are revealed to be contingent on good faith...what else is there to do btw now and next November but marvel at the psychology, I really don't know

The only thing he has been checked by is his own stupidity and inability to keep his mouth shut. The US gov is over and the founding fathers were fools.

i think you're forgetting about the heroic stand of jeff flake

also I know there's four years worth of US political scandal every day now, so there's no time to examine any of it, but that golf co-champion story came out months ago; it's not a new revelation

the bit about him cheating an 11-year old kid to win it is new right? never thought I'd say "even for Trump that's low" but even for Trump, that's low

he's not a normal guy who happens to be an asshole. there is something seriously wrong wtih him.

I bet I know whose fourth term in office that kid won't be casting a vote for.

the kid is in his 20s, the guy who said he didn't know how old the kid was turned out not to know how old the kid was

never thought I'd say "even for Trump that's low" but even for Trump, that's low

he has ripped off childrens' charities* for decades, you think he wouldn't cheat a single kid at golf?


* staying focused on topic here, while in office as President he even used golf to rip off a childrens' cancer charity and his own kid at the same time

I don't think anyone in here is psychoanalyzing the president with the misapprehension that it will somehow change anything

but I mean there are how many Ted Bundy docs in Netflix right now? Trump fascinates that way

also OL you can just take a blow torch and flame those yellowjackets out

if it were possible to eradicate trump as easily we wouldn't be left rubbernecking the whole thing

but I mean there are how many Ted Bundy docs in Netflix right now? Trump fascinates that way

― d'ILM for Murder (Hadrian VIII), Friday, May 10, 2019 1:32 PM (fifty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't think that's why Treesh is so preoccupied

Yeah i’m not interested in serial killers

there is something seriously wrong with him.

that's not news. so, what can we do about it is what I'd like to know.

unfortunately, I observe that the Rube Goldberg machine that connects ordinary citizens to political power has broken somewhere between the birdcage that drops on the money's head and the string that jerks the meat cleaver when the monkey flinches. therefore the alarm clock never rings and our elected representatives never get out of bed on time. we need to fix this.

xp oh but come on he *is* compelling to you as a case study in malign ego, as an abnormality

we need to fix this.

*blows a gigantic gum bubble with a wrench inside and floats it toward the apparatus*

dudes i think that tape is real

at the very least it was developed by russian intelligence, and the thing that was discussed in the steele dossier. it was too convincing a fake to be an amateur job.

i know there are more important things now. why i didn't put this on the main thread.

wait a sec did the pee tape get leaked how did I miss this

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/inside-the-convincing-fake-trump-pee-tape.html

The only discrediting clue is the fact that the room seems to have been redesigned between the time this was alleged to have taken place and when the tape was filmed. The tape appears to have been filmed in the same room—the presidential suite at the ritz—or else a very good replica. But it’s 2015 decor, not 2013 decor—the giveaway is the direction of the bed.

Other than that it’s flawless. The clues about his outfit and the rug color, which were also possible notes of discrepancy, weren’t convincing to me. I think he just took off his tie and jacket.

Ashley Feinberg is a great reporter btw.

https://compote.slate.com/images/41a6d2d0-157a-4ef9-be74-a0a34f138794.gif

This is the water,
and this is the well.
Drink full and descend."

Yeah also the video is terrifying and lynchian

As is trump himself to be fair

Lynchian (however worn out) def applies here.

He is, to rephrase what Jimmy Breslin said about Giuliani, a little man in search of his own death squad.

From NBC News about that Trump appearance before the staff of the UN Amb.

"A US official and another person briefed on the meeting by multiple people in attendance confirms the authenticity of the LA Times audio and what was said by Trump..."

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 26, 2019

"...this morning. The person briefed said that many of the diplomats in the room took particular offense because there were children in the audience and it was supposed to be a family-friendly event..."

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 26, 2019

"Instead, the kids there saw Trump talking ominously about treason and spies and how we need to be rougher on people."

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 26, 2019

an unsentimental education

Traumatizing children is all in a day's work for our president. Look at his own kids.

didn't his speech to the Boy Scouts include a line about the sex n' coke boat parties he used to go to

also didn't he tell a 7-year old "you don't still believe in Santa do you?" over Christmastime

I'd feel bad for Barron but somehow I doubt Trump could pick him out of a lineup

re: pee tape the renovation seems to close the case but both of these are pretty dumb

“The fact that his torso is completely motionless is a bit of a red flag that they purposely had an actor sit there motionless to easily composite a head back on"

excuse me have you seen the president before?

“filming a handheld video of another video playing on a screen absolutely destroys the quality, and is exactly the kind of thing you’d do to intentionally obscure detail and sell a fake.”

it's also exactly what asldkhfbldb oh nm

He’s a human obscenity

I need to look more carefully to see how different the renovations are. If it’s just the bed facing the wring way, that’s not necessarily a dealbreaker. The hotel could have been playing with the decor—moving things around as they planned the next renovation. These 18k suites aren’t occupied every night.

I think it could still be real.

The body language of the guy in the video seemed like Trump to me. Whoever made this made a real effort to get the details right.

man you are a trip

All I’m saying is I accept the conclusions of Ashley Feinberg. It’s likely not real. But it’s a weirdly convincing fake.

lol that is not all you are saying but whatev

yeah that's a much more realistic video than what I expected to flow out. Good job, deep state!

It's not convincing.

all we are saying is give peetape a chance

i thought it was likely that some fake pee tapes would get made, and this is likely one of them. really well done though. probably shot in the same hotel.

It appears that there’s a single soft white source directly above our subjects, somewhere on the ceiling between 45 and the buttocks,”

lol that is not all you are saying but whatev

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, September 26, 2019 5:08 PM bookmarkflaglink

All that he's saying... is give pee a chance

I thought there was always the thought that the original peetape could be a fake itself and mainly a commonly shared hope taht there was a real genuinely recorded tape that would be in circulation at some unspecified point in the future.
THough not sure if somebody would make a fake and not circulate it shortly afterwards i.e. 2016ish though it has always been something that was supposed to exist so that they had something to dangle just out of t's reach.

JUst realised this week that the trip that the peetape was supposed to be made on was 2013. Thought it was thought to be later.

What was that quote from the Watergate era about a steady "drip, drip, drip" of new revelations?

man you are a trip

'treeship's peetrip'. limited release soon.

Ok new theory: Team Trump created a deepfake themselves, so as to sow disinformation and doubt if the real tape ever surfaces. If there are multiple tapes in circulation no one will be able to say which is real.

Sort of an "I am Splurtacus" situation.

eesh trip

that’s basically what ashley feinberg’s slate article proposes xp

Yeah. The story is—the fake was weirdly good. They even filmed it in the same hotel room.

Sort of an "I am Splurtacus" situation.

Not Spartapiss?

Ok new theory: Team Trump created a deepfake themselves, so as to sow disinformation and doubt if the real tape ever surfaces. If there are multiple tapes in circulation no one will be able to say which is real.

do we really think they're smart enough to do this? have they been able to lie convincingly about anything?

I think this was made in 2016 by the russian government and that this is the tape steele was told about. All the russiagate nerds used to talk about how Putin would make fake “kompramat” all the time.

My intuition suggested that the tape was made by Team Trump themselves, but I was too embarrassed at the extent of my conspiracy theorizing to feel comfortable about expressing it here.

It might seem to make zero sense, except for this reason: the issue with Peetape was less that "Donald Trump might be into piss stuff" and more that "Putin has leverage here"; getting a fake tape out to non-credible sources would obfuscate the situation significantly and also remove any "Putin has leverage" narrative.

getting a fake tape out to non-credible sources would obfuscate the situation significantly and also remove any "Putin has leverage" narrative.

Evidence suggests that the sophistication of Trump's idea of protecting himself from outside threats has never risen past the level of sending threatening letters from his shyster lawyer or else sending hired goons to threaten physical violence. I'm not sure why he'd suddenly get so much more cunning, devious and sophisticated about it.

I was wondering what story would be on a totally fabricated peetape since the leverage thing is central. Presumably means you would need to show it to a limited audience who would leak out word of its existence. Since you wouldn't be able to rely on the memory nagging on the film subject's mind.
Rumour needs to get out to such an extent that weight of rumour outweighs 'victim's chance of dispelling its supposed existence.
& everybody already wants to think the worst of Trump which might undermine the weight of the threat since he's got little good name to besmirch.

you could just make a second peepee tape, Trump is absolutely dumb enough to get caught again

Oooh like a sequel?

a peequel

There's a reason they're so horny to depress voter turnout. They know that if all the dems actually show up and vote for dem candidates, they're toast.

I swear to god I am going to Lawnmower Man my through through the internet and manifest in the room of the next person who makes a pee tape joke so I can drop elbows

(I'll save the impeechment joke for another time then)

wait a minute, dip, I'm a peeceful man

djp (fucking autocorrect)

it doesn't take a whiz to know that trump's looking out for number one

To show you how dishonest the LameStream Media is, I used the word Liddle’, not Liddle, in discribing Corrupt Congressman Liddle’ Adam Schiff. Low ratings @CNN purposely took the hyphen out and said I spelled the word little wrong. A small but never ending situation with CNN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2019

hyphen? does he think an apostrophe is used after something to indicate it's cutesy or misspelled and not shortened? Liddle?

so much and so little going on here

I just remembered that he is a rapist

Wish he could be impeached for that

I honestly think that is his greatest tweet, it's a goddamn masterpiece

Going back to the thread title, there was lots of good stuff in Tony Schwartz's AMA, but this jumped out:

I believe deeply that most people are better than their worst behaviors. I also believe there are some who are simply irredeemable and evil. Scott Peck called them "People of the Lie." They lack any conscience, as Trump does, and so they're almost purely evil. Trump is the most purely evil human being I've ever met, and also the most insecure.

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/d6ges4/im_tony_schwartz_and_i_ghostwrote_trump_the_art/

Don't forget that Trump made up a fake Civil War battle on one of his golf courses https://t.co/woyLrdvNs8 pic.twitter.com/qi0VipZBGr

— Adam Rothman (@arothmanhistory) September 30, 2019

for some reason I can't find things like this anything other than funny now

always a good and subtle move to sign off on a memorial with a full sentence, including an exclamation point

During his campaign, Trump questioned how historians could dispute the battle. "How would they know," he told the Times. "Were they there?"

good point

the story that quote comes from is worth adding to that picture
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/us/politics/in-renovation-of-golf-club-donald-trump-also-dressed-up-history.html

In a phone interview, Mr. Trump called himself a “a big history fan” but deflected, played down and then simply disputed the local historians’ assertions of historical fact.

“That was a prime site for river crossings,” Mr. Trump said. “So, if people are crossing the river, and you happen to be in a civil war, I would say that people were shot — a lot of them.”

“How would they know that?” Mr. Trump asked when told that local historians had called his plaque a fiction. “Were they there?”

Mr. Trump repeatedly said that “numerous historians” had told him that the golf club site was known as the River of Blood. But he said he did not remember their names.

Then he said the historians had spoken not to him but to “my people.” But he refused to identify any underlings who might still possess the historians’ names.

“Write your story the way you want to write it,” Mr. Trump said finally, when pressed unsuccessfully for anything that could corroborate his claim. “You don’t have to talk to anybody. It doesn’t make any difference. But many people were shot. It makes sense.”

pushing for "Many people were shot. It makes sense" for the October thread title

Trump after claiming the US is "respected again": "We're not laughed at. And it's getting more and more that way."

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 23, 2019

obviously he also has fervent fans, but: given the current world population and state of global communications technology, has there ever been a human being laughed at more than donald trump? and considering that it's his greatest fear, does he have any inkling of it?

johnny carson

johnny carson

― j.

great beach boys song

Would have never guessed that sub-Saharan Africa would be relatively favorable.

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/06/PG_2017.06.26.US_Image-02-0.png

I want to live in a Spain, but I live in a South Africa

Aw shit, that’s from spring 2017

I was going to say, I thought his approval in Israel was sit high

sky high

such a weird lie to continually insist on

i mean does juche even require north koreans to weep in the chairman's presence

Trump just told his story about how when he signed his Waters of the US order, there were people in his office, "strong people, very strong men and women, and almost all of them were crying."

This is his funniest tears lie to me because the event was on video and nobody cried. pic.twitter.com/fhcspVty0m

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 12, 2019

as we enter these hearings and Jim Jordan et al just keep hammering away with their fact-resistant theories...a reminder of the time this guy INSISTED despite being repeatedly corrected that 17x6=112

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMIKzUAY8n4

and how for a few moments everybody in the room just decided yeah ok then I guess it must be

You know what they say: once multiplication gets into triple digits, no one can prove anything

lol

112 is the highest number

Three Dog Night running out of material

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl2NCXzg1FQ

He’s just a Bad Boy for life!

because of 13.3% unemployment

Trump said that hopefully George Floyd is looking down from heaven and saying today is a great day for the country.

“It’s a great day for him and it’s a great day for everybody,” he says.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) June 5, 2020

w/ Frederick Douglass

kevin was right upthread -- narcissistic personality disorder is the better descriptor. i don't think he can fathom another way of seeing that doesn't have himself at the center of it.

Full quote really sends it home

“We all saw what happened last week. We can’t let that happen. Hopefully George is looking down and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country. (It’s) a great day for him. It’s a great day for everybody. This is a great, great day in terms of equality.”

In heaven
Everything is fine

he's a huge piece of shit who has always been rewarded for being such is that really a medical condition

Unfortunate choice of wording or something more sinister?

As an American citizen, and a member of the "Liberal MOB", I find this utterly chilling. pic.twitter.com/YUCL4bsKzb

— Ben Stephens (@stephens_ben) June 5, 2020

fuck them in the hat

KAGA is gonna be his 2020 slogan?

Kind of suggests the Making America Great project was a resounding success, and it now needs to be kept that way. You'd like to think this fiasco fucks the Republicans for a generation, but probably not.

I humbly propose they go with Keep Us Not Them

It’s kind of amazing literally anyone would look at America in 2020 and think “Yep, we did it. We made this country great again. Four more years of this, please.”

Y’all are clearly underestimating the Deep State.

starting to think the accelerationists were right

It was never about 'making America great' in any practical way; it was only ever about keeping down the people you don't like and making sure they stayed down.

Improve America's Gait

It was never about 'making America great' in any practical way

wait...WHAT?

KAGA is gonna be his 2020 slogan?

Donald Trump plans to update his ubiquitous campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” when he seeks reelection in 2020, he says, to “Keep America Great!”

“‘Keep America Great,’ exclamation point,” the president-elect told The Washington Post in an interview published Wednesday, during which he also requested that his lawyer trademark and register the phrase, with and without the punctuation mark.

...

“I never thought I’d be giving my expression for four years,” he said. “But I am so confident that we are going to be, it is going to be so amazing. It’s the only reason I give it to you. If I was, like, ambiguous about it, if I wasn’t sure about what is going to happen — the country is going to be great.”

Trump said he came up with his 2016 campaign’s slogan himself and trademarked it in 2015. His most fervent supporters loved the slogan, shouting it at rallies and wearing red hats that proudly showcased the phrase.

That was 18th January, 2017. He's been selling KAG hats on shop.donaldjtrump.com since August 2018.

Must be popular, never seen anybody wear one

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EeDIfLyWkAA63gO?format=png&name=large

MLA - mouth like asshole

ngl that screencap is extremely relatable

he's gone full Portishead

MLA - mouth like asshole

― XVI Pedicabo eam (Neanderthal), Wednesday, July 29, 2020 10:23 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Black like your sole

the Yankees first pitch story is so fucking weird, any other person on the planet who tried that would never be taken seriously again

he's done it before. not with the Yankees, but backing out of invites he never actually received.

the episode of seinfeld where george temporarily becomes the owner of the new york yankees

It's not a new insight, nor probably helpful to continue pointing out, but it still blows me away that this numbnuts shits out something on a near daily basis that would have fed FOX news with months of outrage and probably instigated immediate hearings had Obama done the same.

what, you mean like if Obama had ordered federal troops to US cities on a vague "peacekeeping" mission clearly designed to create television footage for his election campaign? naaaaah, conservatives wouldn't be angry about that.

he's done it before. not with the Yankees, but backing out of invites he never actually received.

Yeah, of course that. Obama would have been impeached within days for that one. I'm also talking about the constant lying and smaller, more insidious shit that also would have freaked the GOP out. Instead we're all just in this "lol, oh Donald" place with it. It's maddening.

I had a prez
Donald was his name
Since he took office
I've never been the same
'Cause I hate this fuck
Donald, why won't you leave?

Numbnuts don't care about federal troops in the streets because numbnuts have been allowed to stockpile guns to defend themselves from violent government overreach, duh. Other presidents might not have sent troops to cities, but they would have taken away guns, so how could numbnuts defend their liberties? The logic is airtight.

yeah they're still treating him like he's a fucking Jersey Shore character

They don't call it the Situation Room for nothing.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eg6bVkvUYAEH_w7?format=jpg&name=small

protection against those dang ramps
also mashers

i would love to throw that shoe at him

imagine that trying to stamp on a human face for a few minutes until it gets tired

Utterly cursed.

beatle boots

https://vinyl-records.nl/R/RO/Rolling_Stones/tattoo-usa/rolling-stones-tattoo-you-6741412.jpg

he's an autocratic quite-fascistic psychopathic beatle booter

I thought "beatle boots" were chelseas? (i.e., laceless)

https://www.tmj4.com/news/local-news/kenosha-business-owner-declines-president-trump-photo-op-former-owner-replaces-him

they couldn't find anyone in kenosha to participate in trump's photo-op. they wanted to pose at a camera store but the business owner declined (“I think everything he does turns into a circus and I just didn’t want to be involved in it”). so instead, they found the former owner of the store (and current owner of the property, even though he no longer owns the store) and just pretended that he was the current owner.

To Gram’s surprise, he watched on TV as the president showed up with the store’s former owner and President Trump made it seem like the store was still his.

“John Rode III, owner of Rode’s Camera Shop,” President Trump said as he introduced Rode during a round table conversation on Tuesday.

...“I just appreciate President Trump coming today, everybody here does,” Rode said. “We’re so thankful we got the federal troops here. Once they got here things did calm down quite a bit.”

“A day earlier would have saved his store,” President Trump responded.

Gram said President Trump’s references to John Rode III as the owner of Rode’s Camera Shop and it being “his store” were deceptive. Gram says he is disappointed Rode III’s comments Tuesday were construed to reflect the views of current ownership.

so fucking pathetic. you can't find a real person willing to be on tv with the president

Only new thing here (AFAICT) is the sociopathy on display at a visit to Arlington cemetery:

Atlantic: Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’

according to sources with knowledge of this visit, Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave, turned directly to his father and said, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” Kelly (who declined to comment for this story) initially believed, people close to him said, that Trump was making a ham-handed reference to the selflessness of America’s all-volunteer force. But later he came to realize that Trump simply does not understand non-transactional life choices.

“He can’t fathom the idea of doing something for someone other than himself,” one of Kelly’s friends, a retired four-star general, told me. “He just thinks that anyone who does anything when there’s no direct personal gain to be had is a sucker. There’s no money in serving the nation.” Kelly’s friend went on to say, “Trump can’t imagine anyone else’s pain. That’s why he would say this to the father of a fallen marine on Memorial Day in the cemetery where he’s buried.”

Good bullet point summary of his relationship with the military:

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/im2uc1/trump_americans_who_died_in_war_are_losers_and/g3wwpwk/

THe heels on a Beatle boot are a lot more shapely. They're Cuban, I think they were originally related to flamenco dancing and similar styles.
THis would indicate taht people thinking he was lying about being 6ft 2 a few years ago might have something to go on. I thought there was a widespread rumour that he wore internal lifts like Alan Ladd or others. & it had been put forward as a possible reason he stood in that half centaur stance.
That kind of block heel would seem to be a bit conspicuous though.

Half centaur (1/4 horse?) stance makes sense, considering his heels make it look like he has hooves. You know, like the Devil.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/16/48/d9/1648d9f7faec73c565f91a05280374df.gif

Isn't that a satyr. I think the reason that it's thought of as being a half centaur is that it looks like a stance off set by having the weight of a 4 legged body balancing it, but that body isn't where it was meant to be. Like he stands in a way reminiscent of the front part of a horse body just cuts off at that point. & to make more sense and be healthy with that stance he'd have to have teh rest oif taht body.
Since he doesn't he looks a bit weird.

Satyrs were teh creatures with goat legs, tended to be more hedonistic etc like Pan and a few others.

I mean yeah can see that that's Simpsons' christian neighbour depicted as the devil but in Greece tehre's adifference between a centaur and a satyr.

Oh, for sure, I was just making a joke. Centaur is a horse with a man's torso and above. Satyr is a man's torso and above on goat legs. But Flanders is still the Devil.

Trump probably envisions himself a manly centaur, but he's really just a run of the mill satyr.

https://garydevore.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/satyriconwtf.jpg

When you've gone past satire to satyr.

Nobody likes Reverse Centaur.

https://res.cloudinary.com/teepublic/image/private/s--xSGWTJoC--/t_Preview/b_rgb:eae0c7,c_limit,f_jpg,h_630,q_90,w_630/v1446244662/production/designs/297923_2.jpg

hahaha

horse dad with giant horse dick: do not look at human dick, my son

we horses have perfect, blessed dicks. the human dicks are shameful and cursed

they're just so...out there and in your face

Omg Becky, look at his dick

endangering his secret service detail in order to give his fans a drive by greeting is unfathomably callous. he should be especially sensitive to the fact that contracting the disease is a serious concern given that two days ago he was reportedly panicking about it himself as his oxygen levels dropped to concerning levels.

He also made some comment about "meeting some of the soldiers" there. Not sure if he was bullshitting trying to sound commander-in-chief-y.

why should he worry about giving covid to someone else? by definition, someone else is not him, so...

?

he does not believe that other people are even real, with the possible exception of one (1) of his five publicly-known children

exactly

that is why i bumped the psychopath thread. maybe he is just a narcissist. i don't know if labels help, but there is something "off" about this dude.

I'm wondering if there is one thing "on" about this dude

I think Trump is stupid and reckless and a bad person in pretty much every sense of the word but this joyride thing is the first time I've thought he's literally an insane person

I don't know where the line between hyper-narcissist and psychopath is, or if the two aren't really connected. If such a line does exist, he has put down a marker where it is the past few days.

He's also quite clueless in gauging public reaction beyond his cult.

conservative america thinks 'freedom' is the unrestrained right to dominate. trump has no sense of others beyond himself at all, therefore he's maybe the purest possible embodiment of this ideal.

Put it this way: if 1% of the population is a sociopath, I find it hard to believe that there are 780 million people on the planet who care less about others than he does.

wow that's higher than i thought. i thought sociopathy was rare.

'Trump told advisers on Sunday that he was getting bored being in the hospital and was tiring of watching coverage of his hospitalization.' He briefly left the hospital to greet fans as confusion continues over his health @ToluseO @jdawsey1 @goldsteinamy https://t.co/O9QgVTACck

— Juliet Eilperin (@eilperin) October 4, 2020

seriously what the fuck

Put it this way: if 1% of the population is a sociopath, I find it hard to believe that there are 780 million people on the planet who care less about others than he does.

62 million Americans voted for Trump because he promised to hurt people

Put it this way: if 1% of the population is a sociopath, I find it hard to believe that there are 780 million people on the planet who care less about others than he does.

not that it affects things that much, but 1% of the population is around 78 million, not 780 million

but let's just make it an even 62 million

I'm talking world population.

He was probably tried of hearing himself described as overweight in every story about how the disease could affect him.

i mean, unperson is going to sweep in and "nail" me for this, but i don't think that was the prime motivator of most of his voters. a lot of those people just always vote for the republican because they think their tax bill will be lower or they think abortion is murder or whatever.

Oh sorry, you're right and I'm not reading properly. 78m yes!

xpost

Apparently some people think it's as high as 4%

https://cmc.marmot.org/Record/.b35000260

I'm talking world population.

7,800,000,000 * .01 = 78,000,000

it's a lot

wonder if any ilxors are psychopaths

^classic psychopathic speculation

I know none of u are psychopaths because none of u r real

I'm closer to believing no one else is real than not caring about anyone else's feelings. Solipsism is much more socially acceptable than sociopathy, and that matters to me.

He's also quite clueless in gauging public reaction beyond his cult.

Okay but he also doesn't care. Like, I have no problem agreeing that he doesn't know... but if he knew, he still wouldn't care.

I guess? I dunno. I am drinking bourbon and probably shouldn't also be doing amateur psychoanalysis.

he doesn't want people imagining him in a hospital bed so he is doing everything he can to replace that mental illness with these different images, like him tottering around in his suit signing documents or riding in a motorcade or whatever.

even the way he walked to the helicopter--unaccompanied, giving the thumbs up, he wants to seem in control. and you know, there isn't anything psychopathic about this. the problem is that he is putting others in danger.

Xps:
Narcissist, sociopathic, histrionic and borderline personality disorders enough commonalities that psychologists just lump them together as cluster B.

I've lost my family of origin because of a guy with elements of all the cluster B disorders dropped in 27 years ago. I'm not so keen on dissecting which ones he qualifies for in the Venn diagram. I think Trump is much the same.

I'm closer to believing no one else is real than not caring about anyone else's feelings. Solipsism is much more socially acceptable than sociopathy, and that matters to me.

yup. I noticed that sly one, too.

Okay but he also doesn't care.

I agree with that to a degree (and the same thought occurred to me after I posted), but he supposedly watches just as much CNN as Fox, and being delusional is part of his narcissism; when he went for his little joyride today, I bet part of him wanted to be admired--to be awed by his courage--by even those whom he knows hate him.

He totally cares. That's his whole thing! Nobody is that angry with every perceived slight if they truly dgaf

I'm going with totally clueless. He's always wanted everyone to adore him but doesn't know how to do it. In his 7th decade of trying he finally stumbled upon being a far right wing agitator. He could have a good deal more followers even he wasn't so fucking clueless about how boasting about your own intelligence, wealth and prowess turns many people off. Likewise, insulting women and ethnicities prob got him some laughs and attaboys in the country club locker room but…

I mean I've known quite a few people who make it pretty easy to deduce that they consider themselves to be world class geniuses but they at least have had enough social sense to not just BLURT IT OUT.

Dunno about psycho, but him and his cronies are def sociopaths according to Chomsky:

I have no independent evidence about what is inside people's minds. In the case of the Trump administration, I simply think that they don't care. They are sociopaths.

https://www.salon.com/2020/10/17/noam-chomsky-if-you-dont-push-the-lever-for-the-democrats-you-are-assisting-trump/