For a few minutes I watched Donald Trump give a Memorial Day address and that’s all I could take. His displays of pseudo sincerity are always sickening, but worse yet when he pretends to care about those who lost their lives protecting our shores and our way of life over the years.
Donald Trump cares little about anyone but himself and maybe some of his family to some extent. Ivanka, yes. As for the others? I realize that is exceedingly harsh, but I have spent hours and hours reading, watching and thinking about him over the past year and I have no doubt about it. There is something basically wrong with this guy.
Tony Schwartz, the “co-author” of the Art of the Deal, sees Trump in the same way. And he actually spent much time over the course of a year with Trump, so I doubt few know the man better. I put co-author in quotes because Schwartz says he actually wrote the book, with Trump making a few minor corrections.
Schwartz also has said that Trump could not sit still for an interview for more than a few minutes, so he had to follow him around and listen in on phone conversations and piece together the book from that. Fairly recently, he said that if he could rewrite the book, he would call it: The Sociopath.
Many have debated whether Trump has a narcissistic personality disorder or he is a sociopath. Hey, why not a bit of both? Both cases share an extreme preoccupation with oneself and a lack of empathy and care for others. Most thought provoking to me about the rise of Trump is that so many of his fans still don’t see this, but as he said, he could shoot someone on New York’s 5th Avenue and they still would vote for him.
A wave of public insanity that will foster many a book in coming years.
Schwartz has expressed regret many times over this past year or so for helping Trump produce a winning public image through the book and he finds it truly “frightening” the man is president with the nuclear codes in his possession.
I share the uneasiness to be sure, which is why I meant to write this post to examine what seems the most stable element of the Trump administration, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, I want to share some highlights of a recent article on him because while Trump is ignorant of history and so much else – shallow to the core – Mattis is knowledgeable and thoughtful which means a lot given the inexperience and toadyism of so many of those around him.
Think of this post as a preamble to the next one.
AMERICAN TITANIC: Joseph R. Biden in Command 