Future historians, political scientists, and media watchers are going to spend a vast amount of time and effort analyzing the current election during which the term ‘unprecedented’ risks going up in flames from overuse. I can see a blizzard of dissertations and books in our future. One of the things that they will focus on is what drives the seemingly erratic behavior of creepy Donald Trump.
People who have an analytical bent tend to look for reasons underlying the actions of individuals, trying to find motives that can explain what might otherwise seem irrational. And that is where the trap is when it comes to creepy Trump, who lurches from one outrageous statement to another, from one easily disprovable lie to another, from one racist or otherwise bigoted trope to another, all with a rapidity that makes one’s head spin and leaves one struggling to keep up. It is tempting to throw in the towel and say that there is no hidden motivation to unearth, no strategic plan, no shrewd cunning, and that he simply says whatever comes into his head at any moment, triggered by whims or grievances or petty annoyances or whatever he happened to see on TV just prior.
But at the same time, there is the unsettling feeling that such explanations may be too facile, that there may be some underlying reasoning at work that we just have not figured out as yet.
A great example of this problem is creepy Trump’s performance when he attended the meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists. Before the event started, it was assumed that he was trying to reach out to the Black community which has traditionally favored the Democratic party. But right out of the gate he picked a fight with the first questioner, continued in a querulous and antagonistic tone, and then went on to make the astonishing allegation that Kamala Harris only ‘became Black’ just recently. You can be sure that an audience of Black journalists, unlike his audiences at his MAGA rallies, would know immediately that this was utterly false and the audience reaction showed it.
So why did he do it? Chris Christie says that this in example of juvenile behavior.
“You can’t imagine that anybody who understands anything about politics would say, hey, here’s a great idea: Go to the National Association of Black Journalists and question whether Kamala is really black or not,” [Chris Christie] said during a panel discussion with Stephanopoulos and longtime Democratic strategist Donna Brazile.
Christie, who ran against Trump in the 2016 and 2024 GOP primaries, said that Trump’s rhetoric reflects panic on his part and also cited his attacks Saturday on Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and first lady Marty Kemp.
“This is who he is, George. This is personal. He’s juvenile,” Christie said.
Was he merely being juvenile because although the appearance was originally intended as outreach, the tough questions he faced got under his thin skin and, in a fit of anger, he reached for all the attack lines he could think of even if such behavior was counter-productive? Or, even more alarmingly, does he really believe his own words, which implies a dangerous level of delusion?
We are at the stage where each political party is trying to do three things: firm up their base of support, get their supporters enthusiastic about voting, and win over uncommitted voters (or even those on the other side who might be disaffected with their party for whatever reason) to vote for them. Given the highly contentious nature of the current election, there is probably not a large pool of people in that group of uncommitted and persuadable voters. But given how close the election is expected to be, every vote counts and so, for example, the Harris campaign is making an effort to win over Republicans in a program called ‘Republicans for Harris’.
The program will be a “campaign within a campaign,” according to Harris’ team, using well-known Republicans to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. The program will kick off with events this week in Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Republicans backing Harris will also appear at rallies with the vice president and her soon-to-be-named running mate this coming week, the campaign said.
…Her team is trying to create “a permission structure” for GOP voters who would otherwise have a difficult time voting for Harris. The effort will rely heavily on Republican-to-Republican voter contact, with the belief that the best way to get a Republican to vote for Harris is to hear directly from another Republican making the same choice.
How successful this will be remains to be seen but such efforts are important and a standard part of political campaigns.
Creepy Trump on the other hand is not only not making that kind of effort, he is attacking even those within his own party whose support he desperately needs. For example, Georgia is a closely contested state where the two senators are Democrats but the top state officials are Republicans. He lost the state to Joe Biden by less than 12,000 votes in 2020. So what explains creepy Trump holding a rally in that state and harshly attacking the governor Brian Kemp (and even his wife) and the secretary of state, all Republicans who have said that they were working to help elect him?
“If it wasn’t for me, [Kemp] wouldn’t be your governor. I think everybody knows that,” Trump bloviated, describing them as disloyal.
“Governor Kemp, and Raffensperger, are doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for Republicans to win. Why do they do it? I don’t know. They’ve got something in mind. You know, they’ve got a little something in mind. Kemp is very bad for the Republican party.”
Then Trump went after Kemp’s wife, who told people she wrote her husband’s name in for president in the Republican presidential primary this year. “I haven’t earned her endorsement? I have nothing to do with her. Somewhere he went bad. And you know what? Your numbers in Georgia are very average. Your economic numbers, your crime numbers, all of your numbers are very average. You can do a lot better and you’ll do a lot better with a better governor.”
Such an attitude has baffled Republicans and pretty much everyone else.
“In 2020, Trump lost the state by less than 12,000 votes and 30,000+ refused to vote for president,” wrote the conservative Georgia talkshow host Erick Erickson on Sunday.
“Attacking a guy who has endorsed you, whose ground game you need to win in 2024, is not wise. Luckily for Trump, Kemp is not a petty man. Unfortunately for Trump, he’s reminding those 40,000+ voters who wouldn’t vote for him in 2020 in Georgia why they didn’t vote for him.”
On Saturday, Trump handed his opponents soundbites about what he thinks about Georgia, its popular governor, and how he expects the state election board to overturn an election he may lose, that will be replayed on YouTube ads on every iPhone between the Fox Theater and the Lake Lanier for the next 91 days.
And Republican political professionals know it.
“Trump has a political death wish in Georgia,” wrote the political messaging guru Frank Luntz, pointedly noting how Trump in effect told Republican voters to blow off the Senate runoff in January 2021 because he was claiming the Georgia election was rigged.
“Attacking Brian Kemp, the popular governor who defeated his hand-picked GOP primary challenger by 70-30, is so stupid. Republicans cannot win if they are divided, yet Trump continues to divide them.”
Even some GOP supporters such as Matthew Bartlett, a GOP strategist and former Trump administration appointee, are describing his behavior as “a public nervous breakdown”.
Then creepy Trump attacked Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers, who had just endorsed Harris, calling him a ‘stupid person’.
The United Auto Workers’ decision to endorse Kamala Harris’s presidential run has apparently gotten under the skin of Donald Trump, who has responded by insulting the union’s leader as “a stupid person”.
In a new interview with Fox News on Sunday, as reported by the Hill, the former president said of union chief Shawn Fain: “Look, the United Auto Workers I know very well – they vote for me. They have a stupid person leading them, but they vote for me. They’re going to love Donald Trump more than ever before.”
Creepy Trump has considerable support among blue-collar workers but he has to be careful when it comes to the UAW. Fain is very popular with the rank-and-file because of his successful negotiations within the last year with auto manufacturers that gained them huge wins, hardly the work of a stupid person. The UAW is not the Teamsters, whose members have been more supportive of Republicans and whose president Sean O’Brien even spoke at the GOP convention, though his speech was not entirely supportive of Republican policies towards workers and unions.
One explanation that is often put forward to explain creepy Trump’s seemingly inexplicable behavior is that he is always, always, playing to his base and the things that he says and does that observers think are crazy are things that his cult following love. So he may well think that increasing the outrageousness will make them love him even more.
But even there, surely the law of diminishing returns has to kick in. His cult will always vote for him come hell or high water. At some point a plateau has to be reached. Creepy Trump generally keeps the level of rhetoric at 11. Will ramping it up to 12 produce any significant benefits? After all, however passionate you are about your candidate, you still have only one vote.
Aside: The phrase ‘cranking it up to 11’ has slipped into common usage to signify absurd levels of intensity. I often use it, assuming that people get the allusion. For those who don’t, it is from the classic mockumentary This is Spinal Tap (1984) where Rob Reiner, playing a documentary producer, interviews Christopher Guest, who plays the lead guitarist of the heavy metal band Spinal Tap, described as ‘one of England’s loudest bands’.
This is Spinal Tap was very much beloved of rock musicians in my day.
Apart from the amp that’s “one louder” because it goes up to eleven, there was dobly, the recreation of Stonehenge, the multiple attempts to find the stage, the spontaneously combusting drummers, being support act to a puppet show, the unacceptably round food on square bread…
When I were a lad Spinal Tap was to musicians like Life of Brian was to atheists. X-D
(It’s old but everyone should see it. The bass player is Harry Shearer, more famous as Principal Skinner from The Simpsons.)
Stop trying to make fetch happen! He’s weird!
ObRef: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit
Ever notice how Trump has an obsession with IQ? He wants to be considered a “High IQ” person, which of course he is not. When feeling threatened he taunts folks by calling them “Very Low IQ” people.
But he is the one with low IQ, and low EQ, Emotional Quotient. He has that of an 8th grade bully.
Why does he act that way?
He wants to be the Alpha male; he has a need to be worshipped at the top. He lost it and wants it back, by any means and regardless of the costs.
But really he is like an old baboon that was once the leader of a primate harem but has been banished in a fight with a younger fierce male with long sharp teeth. The old toothless baboon can no longer fight and has lost respect of the tribe, and he can’t even crack open the fruit that “fall out of the coconut tree”.
Because that’s what narcissists do? It’s a common abuse tactic similar to gaslighting which is known as DARVO.
It stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender
Deny- he never committed fraud, started an insurrection, stole classified documents, and he doesn’t know E. Jean Carroll or Stormy Daniels.
Attack- Horseface. Pocahontas. Dox the judges daughter.
Reverse Victim- he is the most persecuted man ever.
Crooked Joe Biden and Jack Smith are out to get him.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I seem to recall he recently called for all Republicans who opposed him to be purged from the party.
If he succeeds, it will merely ensure the party will get too dysfunctional to challenge the Democrats, except in deeply red regions.
The billionaries who feed “campaign donations” into the legal bribe machine wants better return for their money than that. Even if some will keep financing the crazies for ideological reasons this opens the door for a potential new conservative party.
(And if Rick Scott once again gets in charge of election campaign finances they will go broke for sure)
Maybe he wants to lose? Then he can claim the election was stolen, and play victim till the end of his days. And those will be fat days for the Trump Road Show & Extravaganza.
Nah.
In 2016, he expected to lose. Never imagined he could win. But he did.
This time?
Wants to win.
One possibility for the apparent schizophrenia may be because he may no longer have full control of his schedule/appearances.
Can you imagine the Trump of 2016 signing up to speak at the National Association of Black Journalists? After years of attacking Obama he would be well aware that he would be heading into a hostile venue which would ask tough questions. So, either Trump is not remembering things (which is possible) and accepting/asking for invitations from/to anyone who would let him speak, or he has delegated his campaign appearance strategy to his campaign managers. I suspect the latter. It’s quite possible he did that in 2016 and 2020 as well, but maybe those people were better campaign managers.
We all know Trump is autocratic and will countermand actions performed by underlings simply to assert his control. But we also know Trump is lazy. The fact that he appeared to give an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists was more surprising to me than the crap he said at it.
@5: exactly! Trump is a textbook malignant narcissist.
@4: did you see the PBS documentary on primates, too? One of their topics was an elderly male, excluded from the troop, who found a coconut, but was toothless and lacked the ability to open it. Also, yes, Trump is desperate to seem smart, which is likely why he brings up the uncle who went to MIT as proof that Trump himself is smart. Obviously a truly intelligent person wouldn’t have counseled the country to drink bleach in a pandemic.
OT
Kamala Harris picks Minnesota governor as running mate.
OT
I think Harris made a great choice.
@9 flex: I suspect he is having the same problem with campaign staff that he is having with lawyers. The good ones won’t work for him because he doesn’t listen to advice and still hasn’t paid for previous work. He also likes to blame them when things don’t go well even if it’s not their fault. Both lawyers and campaign staff are used to some of that but Trump goes overboard. He won’t say his campaign staff didn’t work out as well as hoped, he will say they are the worst ever.
With campaign staff he also has screwed up the Republican national organization. Not a huge issue because they don’t do a lot for presidential candidates but it does cost him some prepared organization that would help him organize state level offices.
Because he wasn’t trying to “reach out”. He was trying to win and in the Trump mindset, the only way to win is to attack and be strong, forcing the other side to submit.
Because he’s trying to win. He really believes that if he just acts with enough strength, they’ll accept him as the superior and fall in line. Can’t blame him; it’s worked so far.
Throwing a shitfit in front of the journalists seized the press attention (and yours) immediately away from Vice President Harris. She was getting an obvious groundswell over the entire week, not only in RL also but among all the fake news that normally would be kissing his keister thoroughly. He didn’t say a goddamn new thing, it was not *news*.
Throwing a shitfit also works for him because his side believes in violence and domination. It sounds like he is snivelling, but he is not, he is attacking and threatening. Since violence and domination is the game he is playing, the people he needs to do it hardest on are exactly places like Georgia, where it might go the other way and in which people who are (at least pretending) that they like law and freedom thwarted him.
I kind of view it as an aspect of his narcissism. He only really cares about what he thinks. He can play to his base because they reinforce what he thinks of himself (or maybe what he desperately wants to think of himself but struggles to actually believe). But he has no empathy because he doesn’t care about other people. So anyone who isn’t reinforcing his mental image of himself he’s going to alienate. He doesn’t think about other people’s viewpoints because if they’re not fawning over him he just doesn’t care.
He is not hard to figure out and at least [art of the problem with people trying to figure him out is them making assumptions about his future behavior that he has given them no evidence to believe.
Why would anyone “assume” that he was there to reach out to Balck voters when he has NEVER given any sign that he ever given a hot d*** about attracting Black voters? Up to this point, he has been content to simply believe we like him and are going to vote for him, despite any and all evidence to the contrary, and that alone may have been enough to get him to meet with these journalists.
He is whatever you see on the surface. There is nothing underneath that surface but a gaping hole. He is not a puzzling or enigmatic, and hard to figure out person, once one understands the basic rules of being a malignant and abusive narcissist. The only assumption that can be reached about him is that he will act exactly however you’ve already seen him act before.
So yes… everyone here sees it.
His behavior is transparent, a true reflection of his character as a person, and of course both behavior and character are horrible. He’s a nasty piece of work form all possible angles, always has been.
PLUS: dementia is ravaging him, robbing him of any semblance of control. Normally a malignant narcissist will be adept at masking his true character, but he’s no longer able (and willing) to do so.
It may be facile, but it fits the facts. Now, why are so many attracted by this human disaster area, that’s the real problem.
“such efforts [to woo opposition voters] are important and a standard part of political campaigns”
If only someone had explained that to Clinton we might never have had Trump in the first place.
It has been reported that Trump delayed the start of the Black Journalists convention by almost an hour. There was an audio problem but it was was quickly fixed. Trump did not want to be fact checked live. They insisted. It wasn’t until the moderator said he would fashion a statement explaining the delay and read it to the audience that Trump changed his mind and took to the stage. Having just been thwarted, Trump was angry and combative on stage.
Unless you show up to the polling place with a gun in place of a pen.
The thing worrying me is that Trump might have given up on winning by conventional means altogether, and is therefore totally uninterested in any kind of outreach to centrist/moderate/independent/whatever voters (if there are even any left after 8 years of such a polarizing candidate heading one party). Instead he may be throwing red meat to his base to get them salivating for blood, ready to unleash them during or after the election in ways that will make J6 look like a minor dinner-table tiff by comparison.
How prepared are the security at the polling places and at critical sites for tabulation? Not to mention the Capitol and other locations that will be important later in the process.
But I worry he may be intending to use fifth columnists among the cops and courts, in combination with his brownshirts, to effect another coup.
Smart. Harris, or someone on her team, apparently understands the psychology of high-RWA persons and how to persuade them using things like their especial susceptibility to peer pressure and their need for a permission-slip to break from norms. (Which is also why they seek out permission-slips to do shit like Charlottesville and J6, and thus why demagogues like Trump who hand such out like candy are so dangerous.)
Oh FFS! We had this crap right from the 2016 campaign:
“He wants to lose”
“He didn’t want to win”
“He’ll resign as soon as he’s inaugurated”
“He won’t stand for re-election”
“He wants to lose”
“He deliberately lost”
“He’ll just spend the rest of his life claiming the election was stolen and playing the victim”
“Maybe he wants to lose”.
How the fuck can anyone continue getting Trump’s psychology completely wrong after he’s been nearly a decade at the centre of public attention when it’s absolutely transparent?
Am not sure that the Angry Cheeto actually wanted to lose the 2016 campaign, but also am unsure his goals extended anywhere beyond “hey, they’re all chanting my name!” and wanting to continue basking in the adulation. Like, total narcissist, you know? Suspect that he genuinely was not expecting to win, and was kinda scrambling to deal with the consequences of his unanticipated victory.
This time around, yeah, dude wants to win. Dude wants to see his enemies and opponents… and everyone who simply doesn’t agree with him that Donald J. Trump is the bestest most everything human being OF ALL TIME EVERRRR… to be crushed, ground into the dirt before the Angry Cheeto. Problem is, dude is known to stiff his contractors and shit. Dude is known to drop people who fail him, regardless of whether or not they actually had anything to do with the failure in question, regardless of whether or not they even could have done anything to make the failure in question not happen. Which means dude has significant problems getting anybody who’s actually, you know, competent, to sign on with him. And when you surround yourself with incompetents and yes-men, well, what you get is shit like the disastrous NABJ interview.
Exactly, cubist.
He’s a known figure, and he now has history.
(And oh boy, was his incumbency ever so bad for the USA and the world!)