Donald J. Trump may be the first to run because he sees a presidential campaign as the best way to attract attention to himself. There seems to be no other driving passion in him, certainly not the passion to govern.
.. The shift is from politics to grabbing attention, and, quite possibly, from winning the election to winning the defeat, which is how he has spent practically his entire career.
.. Mr. Trump is no fool. He couldn’t possibly have thought that insulting the Khans, who had lost a son in combat, or dithering over whether to support the speaker of the House, Paul D. Ryan, or disingenuously hinting that the only way to stop Hillary Clinton was to shoot her, would have boosted his prospects for winning. They only boosted the attention paid to him.
.. It was a decision designed to make sure he continues to be an attentionmonger rather than another pol. Mr. Bannon, a provocateur at Breitbart, has never run a campaign, but he knows a lot about how to get media attention.
.. Sarah Ellison of Vanity Fair and Brian Stelter of CNN have speculated that Mr. Trump may want to use his new notoriety to build a media empire. His alliance with Mr. Bannon may help him do that. So may his reported linkup with Roger Ailes for campaign advice.
The age of stream of consciousness — and insanity
My point, which I hope is obvious by now, is that such streams of consciousness describe the beginnings of too many of my mornings, and probably many of yours, too. Need I say this is insanity? It’s little wonder that the human attention span is minimized at the bottom right of your screen. Or that today’s children, who have known no other way of being, are so jacked up, agitated and distracted that they need amphetamines to calm them down. (Whatever happened to running laps?)
.. Much has been written about the effects of the Internet on our minds and culture, including Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.” Not only are we forging new neural pathways in the brain, but we’re also losing the capacity to absorb and retain complex information.
Computers and the Internet may make us smarter in some ways, as neuroscience finds, but baby boomers who grew up with three channels and rabbit ears are the last generation to have been formed primarily by books requiring lengthy, focused attention, as well as the experiential learning that comes from engaging one’s imagination rather than navigating someone else’s often-bizarre, interactive digital fictions.
They Want Trump to Make the G.O.P. a Workers’ Party
Ronald Reagan’s notions that policies that benefit the rich and big business lift all incomes now appear outmoded in an era of rising wealth inequality and stagnant wages.
.. “The biggest thing that Trump offers these voters is finally somebody paying attention,” said Henry Olsen, a scholar at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center.
“Imagine that they’re the wallflowers at the high school dance and they’re sitting off, ignored by everybody. Suddenly, the football hero comes up and says, ‘Come dance with me.’ That’s intoxicating.”
.. But he acknowledged differences in tactics and substance. His group and its allies favor conflict, like government shutdowns, for instance. And they still want to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut taxes for everyone.
Trump Is Getting Even Trumpier!
He doesn’t really speak in sentences or paragraphs. His speeches are punctuated by five- or six-word jabs that are sort of strung together by connections that can only be understood through chaos theory: “They want the wall … I dominated with the evangelicals … I won in a landslide … We can’t be the stupid people anymore.”
Occasionally Trump will attempt a sentence longer than eight words, but no matter what subject he starts the sentence with, by the end he has been pulled over to the subject of himself... Here’s an example from the Mike Pence announcement speech: “So one of the primary reasons I chose Mike was I looked at Indiana, and I won Indiana big.” There’s sort of a gravitational narcissistic pull that takes command whenever he attempts to utter a compound thought... McKay Coppins recalls the fusillade of abuse he received from Trump after writing an unflattering profile (he called Mar-a-Lago a “nice, if slightly dated, hotel”).Trump was so inflamed he tweeted retaliation at Coppins several times a day and at odd hours, calling him a “dishonest slob” and “true garbage with no credibility.” The attacks went on impressively for over two years, which must rank Coppins in the top 100,000 on the list of people Donald Trump resents... But Trump could not keep his attention focused on this through line — since the subject was someone else — so every 30 seconds or so he would shoot off on a resentment-filled bragging loop... you had to do a rough diagram of the Trump remarks it would be something like this: Pence … I was right about Iraq … Pence … Hillary Clinton is a crooked liar … I was right about “Brexit” … Pence … Hillary Clintons ads are filled with lies … We’re going to bring back the coal industry … Christians love me … Pence … I talk to statisticians … Pence is good looking … My hotel in Washington is really coming along fantastically … Pence... Donald Trump is in his moment of greatest triumph, but he seems more resentful and embattled than ever... If the string of horrific events continues, Trump could win the presidency. And he could win it even though he has less and less control over himself.