My meeting with Trump: A damaged, pathetic personality

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My meeting with Donald Trump: A damaged, pathetic personality — whose obvious impairment has only gotten worse

http://www.salon.com/2017/08/12/my-meet ... ten-worse/


In 1994, I visited the home of Donald Trump. He was a Democrat then, of sorts, and I was the party’s nominee for governor of Connecticut. He’d taken an interest in our state owing to his keen desire to lodge a casino in Bridgeport, an idea I found economically and morally dubious. I had scant hope of enlisting him, but made the trip anyway, thinking that if I convinced him I might win, he’d be less apt to bankroll my opponent.

I arrived at Trump Tower in early evening, accompanied by my finance chair and an old friend and colleague. Stepping off the elevator into his apartment, we were met by a display of sterile, vulgar ostentation: all gold, silver, brass, marble; nothing soft, welcoming or warm. Trump soon appeared and we began to converse, but not really. In campaigns, we candidates do most of the talking; because we like to, and because people ask us lots of questions. Not this time. Not by a long shot.

Trump talked very rapidly and virtually nonstop for nearly an hour; not of my campaign or even of politics, but only of himself, and almost always in the third person. He’d given himself a nickname: “the Trumpster,” as in “everybody wants to know what the Trumpster’s gonna do,” a claim he made more than once.

He mostly told stories. Some were about his business deals; others about trips he’d taken or things he owned. All were unrelated to the alleged point of our meeting, and to one another. That he seldom even attempted segues made each tale seem more disconnected from reality than the last. It was funny at first, then pathetic, and finally deeply unsettling.

On the drive home, we all burst out laughing, then grew quiet. What the hell just happened? My first theory, that Trump was high on cocaine, didn’t feel quite right, but he was clearly emotionally impaired: in constant need of approbation; lacking impulse control, self-awareness or awareness of others. We’d heard tales of his monumental vanity, but were still shocked by the sad spectacle of him.

He never says anything that has much depth. He comes up with cliched stock phrases in a parrotlike fashion which somehow many Americans seem to like.

An uncouth title like a damaged pathetic personality, pretty much takes away the credibility of this tale from my perspective.

Far as I'm concerned it might as well be titled, I voted for Hillary, Trump won, I'm butthurt.

Journalistic integrity overall really seems to have deteriorated greatly in my time. So much of it seems so thoroughly tabloidish.

^ based on what I've seen in journalism that goes back a couple of decades or more.

...lol

Indeed. A lot of now versus then msm reads noticeably differently when compared side by side. Fortunately outlets such as Reuters, NPR, AP, PBS and BBC seem to have retained journalistic integrity for the most part.

Lets be clear, this is an opinion piece, but it is an opinion of someone who has worked in politics for decades.

On the other hand it is very easy to label something as "fake news" if it contradicts your beliefs and then dismiss

What I look for is the reputation of an msm outlet based on political bias and tendencies towards sensationalism, using tools such as: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com

Yeah, but does that mean he is necessarily wrong?


your least biased sites

Donald Trump's malignant narcissism is toxic: Psychologist
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/ ... 101243584/

Donald Trump 'is psychologically unbalanced'
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-can ... unbalanced

The USA Today article is quite an eye opener and definitely not written in a sensationalist way. There are thousands of people better qualified to be President than him.

I wouldn't have felt comfortable voting for either of the two main candidates you US guys had to pick from.

Yeah, I think most sane people threw up in their mouths a little when they found out that it was going to be a race between Trump and Hillary.

Given the consistency with which people who've met him use terms like 'damaged pathetic personality' to describe his personality, consider the possibility that the title might be reasonable. Just because it's not politically correct to speak with that sort of honesty doesn't make it untrue.

The problem as I see it is what can be interpreted as hyperbole. That's the problem I've seen in a lot of this. In not referring to any particular article posted in this thread, when the speaker comes off as making exaggerated statements and claims, it comes off as unreliable. I think there's difference between someone who sounds like they are genuinely concerned regarding someone's behaviors and personality traits and someone who just comes off as being on a smear campaign.

There's been a huge amount of smear campaigning going on. It's most noticeable in daily hyperbolic attacks from Stephen Colbert and John Oliver and the like. And I think it's counter productive.

It's not that Trump is being attacked that bothers me. It's that I think it's counter productive because it's overdone to such a large degree. It's laid on too thick. It's overkill.

Why do you classify these as smear attacks? Are they lying about trump?

Fourth person charged in destruction of Durham Confederate statue

I think when the truth is delivered with lage doeses of constant vitrol hyperbole and sensationalism, it gets buried in all that and ends up looking like nonsense and kookery from sore loosers, to those who might otherwise be reached and won over by a more dignified practical approach.