Apologies on length here.
There have always been two oddly contradictory views of Trump - one that he is hopeless inept, someone who clearly should never have gotten to where he is, and that he will eventually collapse as the consequences of his action finally catch up with him, the second that he is some kind of uncannily savvy genius, a huckster who has managed to pull the wool over everyone's eyes and escaped justice over and over again.
I think both views are wrong. Trump is perhaps the perfect textbook definition of a malevolent charismatic narcissist. In simple terms, he is a sociopath who has no ability to feel compassion, is completely focused on his own personal status, is sadistic, and sees everything as transactional. He is also in early onset Alzheimers, which means that his ability to think, to plan, and to act, is more and more compromised every day. This is not atypical for narcissists, by the way. They tend to self-destruct rather spectacularly, usually because they become addicted to breaking the law.
Now, let's talk about Project 2025. It is essentially a sociopath's game plan for world domination, and likely had its origins all the way back in Nazi Germany. A lot of it reads like Goebbels works. The problem with Project 2025 is that it needs a charismatic narcissist to make it happen.
Charismatic narcissists are generally not all that intelligent, at least by the popular definitions of intelligence, but they're also not stupid. They are generally lazy - for them, the campaign, chasing the deal, these are the things that drive them, which is why they are so attracted to politics even though they are so manifestly unfit for government office. Many of them are salespeople, with no real investment in what they are selling beyond making a profit from it. This describes Trump over and over again. He managed to buy casinos, then run them into the ground because he just couldn't be bothered with actually doing more than the absolute minimum. It's why he eventually got to the point where he could not longer convince others to give him loans because he had failed so badly, so eventually ended up just licensing his name and a reputation for wealth.
Based upon what I've seen, I think Trump was "bought" about twelve years ago. Whether it was the Putins (the obvious guess), the Saudis, or someone else, he was paid to become President. This is the only thing that makes much sense to me about his history, because at the time, he was flailing financially (again). If he'd been smart, he should probably have tested the waters by becoming Mayor of New York, but the jump from being a political neophyte to President was to me an almost absurd leap, UNLESS, he was incentivized to do it not by narcissism but by desperation. Suddenly he was made whole, he was dominating the airwaves, and he was going against a wounded political candidate with a lot of baggage, and all he had to do with play the populist schtick. With the right levers being pressed, dirty tricks at just the right time, and a slow steady corruption of the GOP, he won the electoral vote, even after losing the popular vote.
One other common trait of charismatic narcissists - they are almost impossible to control. They need near-constant adulation or they fall into depression (imbalances of both Seratonin and Dopamine in the brain), and having achieved an objective, they rapidly lose interest unless there is another crisis to parade in front of.
A really good administrator is someone who keeps things calm, heads off crises before they happen, and most of all is able to build consensus. Biden was probably one of the best administrators we've had in the modern era. However, people like that are dull - they are quiet, relatively unassuming, appearing when needed but usually not hogging the spotlight, choosing instead to focus it on others. The press hates people like this, because they don't sell eyeballs.
The charismatic narcissist, on the other hand, practically demands crisis, because it feeds their sense of ego and entitlement, their narcissism. They also get petulant when they don't receive the attention they feel is due to them, and that petulance can turn into vindictiveness (which in turn feeds into paranoia, another trait that gets worse with time for narcissists). They also of course develop a following (Trump would have, in another life, made a powerful televangelist) - this is what defines the charismatic aspect of the personality. Part of the reason for the separation of church and state is the desire to keep charismatics out of office on the part of the founders.
I honestly believe that Trump is going to lose. He's publicly decompensating, and its getting harder for his handlers to either control him or keep that decompensation from being obvious. He doesn't have momentum anymore, and the press is sensing that, which is part of the reason why I'm seeing more and more coverage along the lines of the Rise and Fall of Trump, even as the proponents of Project 2025 are now worrying that their investments were wasted.
= new reply since forum marked as read
