The Three Pillars of Trumpian Wisdom
By 
Damon Poeter posted the following comment to my post yesterday morning:
[Quoting post] As I was saying yesterday, that’s it. There isn’t anything else going on here other than that Donald Trump is a complete moron, who thinks that a trade deficit means that one country is ripping off the other country.
This is exactly it. But why does Trump think this? Yes, he’s very stupid. Yes, he’s pathological. But I also think it’s a function of how Donald Trump actually lives his life as a rich, famous, powerful person.
The toxic combination of ingredients is this:
1. Trump was trained to believe & has internalized the idea that there is no such thing as a mutually beneficial (‘win-win’) transaction. There can only ever be a winner & a loser in ANY deal of ANY kind… there can only ever be the humiliator & the humiliated. He learned this a young man. Fred Trump & Roy Cohn are the two devils always whispering from their perches on Donald’s shoulders whenever he is in a ‘negotiation’.
2. Trump only values cash money as the marker for winning a given transaction. Did you give me $ for something I sold you? I win! Did I give you $ for something you sold me? I lose
3. Only chumps pay for stuff. This is where Trump’s ‘thinking’ has ‘evolved’ on these matters over time. Because as he’s become richer, more famous and more powerful, he’s been able to access more of the perks that come with such status. Trump doesn’t ‘pay’ for meals, they’re comped. He doesn’t fork over cash for cars, they’re thrown in as lagniappes on other deals. Only total losers give away their cash money for goods & services!
These are the three pathologically stupid, infantile and privileged pillars of Trump’s entire worldview. 1. There can only ever be winners & losers in all aspects of human interaction. 2. Extracting cash money from other people instead of paying them cash money is the only measure of who wins a transaction. 3. It is possible to live a life where everybody else gives YOU goods & services and you give THEM nothing or the bare minimum in return.
And for some reason, we’ve given this stunted, spoiled brat of a man the reins of the global economy.
I think this pretty much precisely nails the essence of Trump’s psychology as it relates to his world view. I would add that in this respect he’s just a particularly extreme specimen of a very common personality type among both the plutocracy proper, as well as among countless upper class strivers, who dream of joining Trump in the most flagrantly immoral and irresponsible ranks of the American ruling class.
Speaking of which, the astounding tone deafness of this, released by the White House literally hours after Trump’s idiotic actions needlessly incinerated trillions of dollars in the equity markets, is the kind of thing that seems bound to hurt Republicans in next year’s election and beyond:
The White House press pool reported, “The President won his second round matchup of the Senior Club Championship today in Jupiter, FL, and advances to the Championship Round tomorrow.”
The White House ignored the protests of an entire nation and instead talked about notorious golf cheat Donald Trump’s “victory” at a tournament held at his own club.
Yes I realize that 35% or so of the voting public is completely indifferent to this kind of thing. But elections are won and lost depending on the whims of the Ariana Grande Theory of Politics voters, and these people, despite their nearly invincible ignorance and generally poor reasoning skills, can still be reached by simple messages that emphasize the grotesque depravity of Trump’s Pillars of Wisdom, when they manifest themselves in this sort of extraordinarily brazen way.
Lots of people admire Trump because he’s a flagrant sociopath, but it’s good to remember that, in societies that live close to the ecological margin, flagrant sociopaths are simply killed off as a matter of course, because those societies literally can’t afford to tolerate this sort of person. It’s a sign of both our extraordinary privilege and extraordinary decadence that we’ve allowed such a creature to become the most powerful person in our own society. But no combination of privilege and decadence can disguise forever that this is what we have done, or have allowed to happen.