Discussion Take away Trump's enemies, and what's left of him?

[interchange]

There really is not a secret to why Trump is popular among his admirers. They feel, for once, there is someone out there with power to stick up for all the things about him that they identify with. Well, sticking up in this case means bashing his enemies. Destroying or trying to destroy all of Obama's actions as president, "Muslim ban", build the wall, etc. I'm hard pressed to think of anything Trump says or does which isn't hinged upon trying to destroy an enemy, be it real or perceived. So if we parse Trump's statements and we eliminate any policy or action or words that are directly based on thwarting something or someone else, what's left?

 

[IronWing]

This is why Trump's "deep state" claims are pure genius. He never defines the deep state so whatever aspect of government each person doesn't like, well, that's the deep state, and Trump is fighting it.

 

[Victorian Gray]

There really is not a secret to why Trump is popular among his admirers. They feel, for once, there is someone out there with power to stick up for all the things about him that they identify with. Well, sticking up in this case means bashing his enemies. Destroying or trying to destroy all of Obama's actions as president, "Muslim ban", build the wall, etc. I'm hard pressed to think of anything Trump says or does which isn't hinged upon trying to destroy an enemy, be it real or perceived. So if we parse Trump's statements and we eliminate any policy or action or words that are directly based on thwarting something or someone else, what's left?

A kind of proto or unformed fascism.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

He'll never run out of enemies because he'll just invent new ones.

 

[interchange]

He'll never run out of enemies because he'll just invent new ones.

This I know.

I am only hoping that a bit of perspective helps. Trump really isn't about building anything except monuments to himself. What does he want that is generative for all of us? What is there to him that isn't built on hate?

 

[trenchfoot]

Trump's use of vague, obscure enemies has been his MO from day one of his campaign during the primaries. He could have legitimate criticisms leveled against him from every sector of the nation and the world that are all bundled in with the "people are out to get me" catch phrase from within and outside the gov't.

For Trump there is no other reason than "people attacking him in order to steal his presidency away" that he can see as to why he is so unpopular with everyone except his base.. It's not that he is for a fact wholly incompetent for the job, nor is it his habit of making enemies of our allies and allies of our enemies that showers him with justified criticisms on a daily basis. He's convinced himself that he can do no wrong and everyone is supposed to follow his lead because he is the "Chosen One".

All he knows is he needs to do what he wants, when he wants, where he wants and to whom he wants without being picked on for his methods and style of play. That he violates laws, ethics and standards unbecoming the office he holds is no more than an irritant, obstacles that his enemies put in his way and rules meant to thwart his accomplishing his personal goals.

 

[brycejones]

A tiny mushroom dick?

 

[senseamp]

GOP is a party of grievance, not substance.

 

[interchange]

Trump's use of vague, obscure enemies has been his MO from day one of his campaign during the primaries. He could have legitimate criticisms leveled against him from every sector of the nation and the world that are all bundled in with the "people are out to get me" catch phrase from within and outside the gov't.

For Trump there is no other reason than "people attacking him in order to steal his presidency away" that he can see as to why he is so unpopular with everyone except his base.. It's not that he is for a fact wholly incompetent for the job, nor is it his habit of making enemies of our allies and allies of our enemies that showers him with justified criticisms on a daily basis. He's convinced himself that he can do no wrong and everyone is supposed to follow his lead because he is the "Chosen One".

All he knows is he needs to do what he wants, when he wants, where he wants and to whom he wants without being picked on for his methods and style of play. That he violates laws, ethics and standards unbecoming the office he holds is no more than an irritant, obstacles that his enemies put in his way and rules meant to thwart his accomplishing his personal goals.

Why do you think so many people find him so compelling?

 

[Moonbeam]

Below the hate I think there is an insatiable need, I repeat, a need that can never be filled in the way he seeks to fill it, owing to a loss in childhood of organic self respect. As I see it, the emergence of emotional health takes this path. Depression gives way to sadness, sadness to rage and rage to grief. Grief leads to healing. Trump is at the revengeful stage. He wants to inflict on others what happened to him.

 

[interchange]

Below the hate I think there is an insatiable need, I repeat, a need that can never be filled in the way he seeks to fill it, owing to a loss in childhood of organic self respect. As I see it, the emergence of emotional health takes this path. Depression gives way to sadness, sadness to rage and rage to grief. Grief leads to healing. Trump is at the revengeful stage. He wants to inflict on others what happened to him.

Why do you think so many people find him so compelling?

 

[Jaskalas]

Why do you think so many people find him so compelling?

He lies to them, and they want to be lied to. Because they were all harmed and broken much earlier in their lives.

A shared mass psychosis, the human condition.

 

[ivwshane]

Why do you think so many people find him so compelling?

Because they lack the necessary tools to understand human emotion and therefore aren’t able to tell when people lie. They also suffer from a larger than normal fear factor and are therefore motivated by emotion rather than facts.

They are useful soldiers and take commands well without question and who value loyalty above all. They are basically fodder for humanity, useless in this point in time unless there is a war to fight. I suspect their brains are more primitive or contain more DNA from more primitive forms of humans.

Or they could be, as South Park suggested, angry men with really small penises.

South Park | southpark

South Park steht für radikalen Zeichentrick-Witz und bitterböse Dialoge abseits aller Normen.

southpark.cc.com

Either way, they’ve become a cult and trump is their cult leader.

10 Signs You’re Probably In A Cult

Cults aren’t as easy to spot as you might think. Most cults don’t wear robes or live in communes. In fact, most cult members don’t even…

medium.com

 

[Jaskalas]

Because they lack the necessary tools to understand human emotion and therefore aren’t able to tell when people lie.

I am deeply confused as to how this sentence makes sense. What does "understand human emotion" have to do with "tell when people lie"???

 

[interchange]

Because they lack the necessary tools to understand human emotion and therefore aren’t able to tell when people lie. They also suffer from a larger than normal fear factor and are therefore motivated by emotion rather than facts.

They are useful soldiers and take commands well without question and who value loyalty above all. They are basically fodder for humanity, useless in this point in time unless there is a war to fight. I suspect their brains are more primitive or contain more DNA from more primitive forms of humans.

Or they could be, as South Park suggested, angry men with really small penises.

South Park | southpark

South Park steht für radikalen Zeichentrick-Witz und bitterböse Dialoge abseits aller Normen.

southpark.cc.com

Either way, they’ve become a cult and trump is their cult leader.

10 Signs You’re Probably In A Cult

Cults aren’t as easy to spot as you might think. Most cults don’t wear robes or live in communes. In fact, most cult members don’t even…

medium.com

Do you really think Trump supporters are lesser people?

 

[interchange]

Double post

 

[BoomerD]

Take away Trump's enemies, and what's left of him?

A bad comb-over and spray tan...

 

[Jhhnn]

Do you really think Trump supporters are lesser people?

I think they are beguiled.

 

[ivwshane]

I am deeply confused as to how this sentence makes sense. What does "understand human emotion" have to do with "tell when people lie"???

Human emotion encapsulates many things including how people lie and how people are able to tell when others are lying. It’s similar to how some people get sarcasm and others don’t.

 

[ivwshane]

Do you really think Trump supporters are lesser people?

If you think the qualities I listed makes them lesser people then yes, I guess so. I happen to think those are simply qualities that make them more likely to like trump. Whether or not that makes them lesser people depends on the situation. In a time of war? Nope. In life or death situations? Probably not. As teachers, scientists or other positions that require deep thinking and questioning? Yes. Creating policy? Yes. Implementing policy? No.

 

[trenchfoot]

Why do you think so many people find him so compelling?

Trump satisfies some kind of emotional quirk that these many people found could not be remedied any other way. As for what those reasons are, you can rest assured its not something that's logical, or practical or pragmatic. If that were the case, he would have, if not the support of the nation as a whole at least some regard for his intellect and ability to do what's normally expected of our presidents. He relied on exploiting people's emotions in order to have them discard their common sense, their ability to see through his scam that he was and is playing on them.

Trump is abnormal, an aberration, but this is what's so compelling about him to those folks who somehow feel that Trump is the answer, the solution to what they felt was never fulfilled before by any other POTUS.

What's so compelling about him that's so unique from any other POTUS? Well the answers are there for all to see and decide whether they are what we as a nation need in this time of trending prosperity that his immediate predecessor gifted him with. Trump is totally dependent on the state of the economy to keep him afloat. He has no other redeeming qualities that would compel a reasoning thinking person to reelect him other than his ability to play on people's fears and hatred of "those others".

Without it, can you just imagine how worse things could be for the nation where a failed businessman like Trump is leading a nation in desperate times with a failing economy? He would have been impeached long ago.

The lies that he is notoriously known for of which he beguiled millions of people to support him would never have solved the problems he'd have to have faced if the economy was in a downturn and getting worse. His lies, his deception, his willingness to make unbelievable impossible to fulfill promises to get elected have now proven to be his worst nightmare come home to roost and incessantly crow and crow above the din of his other lies he's been telling to keep in office.

edit - syntax

 

[dawp]

Why do you think so many people find him so compelling?

he tells them what they want to hear, whether he believes what he says in is immaterial, what does is THEY believe the garbage coming out of his mouth.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Actually what`s left of him is -- tada----

 

[Moonbeam]

Why do you think so many people find him so compelling?

A number of people above have given their answers to this and I find much to agree with in them. What I was taught when it was suggested to me by my teacher about the universal disease of self contempt and what I had previously discovered for myself is that we have unconscious motivations that we are terrified of seeing because some of the real facts about ourselves are not all that appealing or so we have been led to believe. In short we are caught in a catch 22 from which only unpleasant realizations offer any escape and those are what we do not want to do. I call this ego defense, where the part of us that defends us from self realization is motivation-wise blind to itself. That's the catch 22. Another way that my teacher put this as a practicing psychologist is that we come into therapy not hoping to get well but to become better at being sick. We want to improve on out sickness not make it go away.

With that said, what I think Trump offers is exactly that which so many are motivated to find, deep mental illness in the form of profound ego pride. He is what we fear to admit without shame or hesitation, without doubt or regret. He is what we fear to become. He offers freedom from self hate by accepting it and going with, surrendering to it, without all the effort that real healing requires, self confrontation and self awareness of what we really feel. He says its great to be sick and we have been trained since children that all there is are material things. Joy is in ownership, wealth, and power. There is no such thing as enlightenment or the joy of just being. He tells us the grief of what we have lost must never again be experienced. Deny and counter attack and most of all lie and lie and lie. Fake it until its real. It's what we all want and all one needs is to deny what we feel via dishonesty.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

What remains if Trump eliminates his enemies? He has no sense of purpose, an aimless wanderer who needs to look out and hate others so he doesn't risk introspection.

Why is Trump popular? I suggest that many supporters need a protector from whatever fear they are told to have at some point in their lives.