Jonathan Chait, today, in New York magazine:
There’s a term for a person who views other humans purely as instruments for his own advancement, and is unable to conceive of the idea of caring about them independent of his own self-interest: “sociopath.” The United States has had some terrible presidents before, but probably never a sociopathic one. When his own aides warn the public that he does not care if the people he is tasked with helping live or die, we should take their warnings with the utmost seriousness.
This comes via today's Daily Howler. But it also comes from an aide to VP Mike Pence, which I've been meaning to get to. This is from Olivia Troye, a former senior aide to Vice President Mike Pence and member of the administration's Coronavirus Task Force. She spoke on Friday, saying she will vote for Democratic nominee Joe Biden and encouraged other Republicans to do the same.
To recap the most striking part: She calls it
“...shocking to see the president saying that the virus was a hoax, saying that everything’s okay when we know that it’s not. The truth is, he doesn’t actually care about anyone else but himself. He made a statement once that was very striking. I never forgot it because it pretty much defined who he was, when we were in a taskforce meeting the president said, ‘maybe this COVID thing is a good thing. I don’t like shaking hands with people, I don’t have to shake hands with these disgusting people.'”
Can you imagine saying such a thing!? Robert Lewis Stevenson [is said to have] written, "All men have secret thoughts that would shame hell," but to say this out loud!! As President of the United States, in an important meeting?!?!
Of course there is more evidence, from Trump's niece, a trained clinical psychologist, that he is a sociopath. As the Daily Howler notes, the best-selling book by Yale psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee. And all the weird and disturbing things we've seen Trump do and tweet for years now. The constant lying. Constant and obvious. His strange denial of facemasks. The strange, anti-productive tweets like "LIBERATE MICHIGAN." The admission to Woodward that he intentionally lied to America about COVID-19. The book by Bolton. They all portray him as a lying dummy who understands nothing, and lies to cover up his ignorance. His lies that he has a health care plan just ready to go, two weeks away, which he's been saying since 2016. How f--king stupid does he think Americans are? It shows how stupid he is to think this is how stupid Americans are.
He simply doesn't care. About, apparently, anything. Except himself. Whatever's good for him. And that's exactly why he's a sociopath.
"...maybe this COVID thing is a good thing. I don’t like
shaking hands with people, I don’t
have to shake hands with
these disgusting people."
So there is one thing Trump and Hilary Clinton can agree on. Many Trump voters are "disgusting", or "deplorables" as Clinton put it.
ReplyDeleteI note the u-turn by Mitch McConnell on the subject of appointing Supreme Court judges in election years.
ReplyDeleteI date the decline in American politics to the day, ten years ago, when he told Nancy Pelosi that the Republicans would block any legislation put forward by Barrack Obama.
Since then, the tacit agreement that party politics should not obstruct proper governance has completely evaporated.
David,
ReplyDeleteOff-topic, but you might find this of interest.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-53640382
And the U-turns by Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, even Trump from 2016. I might write about this, if I can stand the deep stench of hypocrisy. (I'm also pretty busy on an article.)
ReplyDeleteMajor stench:
https://www.newsweek.com/lindsey-graham-earlier-vowed-president-their-last-year-1st-term-shouldnt-fill-supreme-court-1533070
He simply doesn't care. About, apparently, anything. Except himself. Whatever's good for him. And that's exactly why he's a sociopath.
ReplyDeleteI can't see why Trump fans cannot see this. Some of the signs of this are quite subtle but a lot of them are glaring.
Look at his superspreader rallies. One of Trump's most prominent supporters died of coronavirus after the Tulsa rally. We don't know how many other attendees died or spread it on to others. When Jonathon Swan asked Trump whether it was a good idea to cram 6000 people, most of them mask less, into a stadium he looked visibly annoyed and shocked. It wasn't 6000 he said it was 12000. That's how Trump's brain works. It's all about him even where the lives of his supporters are concerned. That's what makes the quote about not having to shake hands with discusting people believable. Last week after another superspreader rally in Nevada he was asked if he wasn't concerned about his safety he said no it's OK, I'm on a stage very far away. So that's a relief, it's only his supporters who are crammed together in the middle of a pandemic. I wouldn't want Trump to have to have a job leading a boy scout troop. The thought of four more years of him leading the most powerful country in the world is terrifying.
False statement: shocking to see the president saying that the virus was a hoax
ReplyDeleteCheers
"Trump retweeted a message from game show host Chuck Woolery that claimed “everyone is lying” about the coronavirus as part of a plot to sabotage the economy and hurt Trump’s reelection campaign.
ReplyDelete"“The most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19,” wrote Woolery in the message promoted by Trump. “Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most ,that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it.”"
https://twitter.com/chuckwoolery/status/1282499347117215745
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-identifies-another-hoax-the-coronavirus-152649383.html
Snopes
ReplyDeleteClaim: U.S. President Donald Trump referred to the new coronavirus as a "hoax."
Rating: Mixture
read:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-remark/
"Then Trump called the coronavirus “their new hoax.”"
ReplyDeletetheir being Democrats.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/28/trump-south-carolina-rally-coronavirus-118269
David - Snopes says In context, Trump did not say in the passage above that the virus itself was a hoax. He instead said that Democrats’ criticism of his administration’s response to it was a hoax.
ReplyDeleteNow, as Snopes points out, Trump wildly underestimated the seriousness of Covid-19. But, he never called the virus itself a hoax.
That the liberal Politico wrongly criticized Trump is no surprise. It's just one more instance of what Trump calls "fake news".
Cheers
Trump did not say in the passage above that the virus itself was a hoax. He instead said that Democrats’ criticism of his administration’s response to it was a hoax.
ReplyDeleteWhen Trump said this, many people thought he meant the virus was a hoax. That was certainly consistent with his prior attitudes, which admittedly changed by the day to whatever was most convenient to him at the moment, with no attempt to be consistent or scientific.
It was only later, when he was trying to get out of hot water, that he said he meant Democrats. He's a liar, so who knows what he meant.
If he didn't want people to think it was a hoax he shouldn't have used the word. It's hard to figure out what he was trying to say though. At one point he was talking like it was all over and he'd done a great job as only a few Americans had caught it. Then he was comparing it to the flu. If he was trying to say it was a democratic hoax because the democrats were saying coronavirus was a serious threat at that time then that's the opposite of what he's saying now. Now to counter people saying he should have done more then he is trying to make out that the democrats weren't saying it was dangerous during February.
ReplyDeleteBasically I think he just wanted to shoe horn what he calls the Russia hoax into a rant where he was saying the coronavirus threat was exaggerated and it was the fault of all those nasty democrats.