Sunday, June 24, 2018

Understanding Trump


First, Donald Trump cognitively is a corporate leader. Corporations are by their very nature dictatorships ruled by CEO's and often a board of directors that is somewhat beholden to  shareholders. The sole objective of corporations is to accumulate wealth and power (to facilitate further accumulation), for top executives and board members, and shareholders.

Employees are merely expendable ciphers of the corporations, a necessary evil to be eliminated whenever possible. Trump's lack of concern for his workers and failure to pay some of his small business vendors over the course of his life is a result of this mindset. Be loyal and produce or your fired, until I don't need you anymore. He has also demonstrated the same lack of concern for clients exemplified by the lawsuits against Trump University.

For Trump and the super rich like-minded, laws and regulations get in the way. The environment, the quality of life for Americans, the future of anything are irrelevant annoyances and consideration of them stands in the way of their one and only purpose. Traditions, institutions, civility are roadblocks that must be torn down. Wealthy donors and supporters are his shareholders. No matter, as Balzac stated, "Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."

Trump likes dictators. He likes Putin and Jong-un. They are his contemporaries. Their corporations run relatively smoothly.

And foremost, Trump is also an entertainer, a showman in the vain of P.T. Barnum. And though he craves validation, he fully understands that he is CEO of America because of his base. He was elected because they are discouraged, disenfranchised and afraid. He continues to play on their frustrations. He continues to delve into the dark corners of their minds, and has shocked them to the point of giddy stupefaction. He must have their ratings or the show will be cancelled.

Trump is the culmination, the final product, of the Revolution of Insanity in America that began with Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. Back during that period, when facts and figures, reality, and the truth still had some relevance, Tea Party thinkers criticized deficit government spending. They argued that since American families must live within budgets the Federal government should also. Government should be run like a business. Then when they began to consider healthcare, care of the elderly, education, addiction, and support for small businesses not to mention the Blackwater debacle which broke the budget, they ceased. Faced with the idea of "firing" a sick family member whose medical bills exceeded the family budget or farming out a child to avoid father's income from being taxed, they soon realized the folly of this analogy.