To understand why, it’s worth keeping in mind that my chief worries about Mr. Trump were never strictly ideological; they had to do with temperament and character.
This isn’t to say that I didn’t have worries based on Mr. Trump’s deviations from conservatism, a political philosophy he seems to have no real interest in or acquaintance with.
.. The more pressing concern many of us had about Mr. Trump is that he simply isn’t up to the job of being president. And much that has happened during the transition period has confirmed those concerns. One example: Last weekend Mr. Trump gave an interview to the Washington Post in which he said his administration would quickly put out its own health proposal, which would cover everyone now insured and cost much less.
One problem: There is no Trump proposal.
.. Which leads to my main worry about Mr. Trump: His chronic lack of restraint will not be confined to Twitter. His Twitter obsessions are manifestation of a deeper disorder.
.. Donald Trump is a transgressive personality. He thrives on creating disorder, in violating rules, in provoking outrage. He is a shock jock. This might be a tolerable (if culturally coarsening) trait in a reality television star; it is a dangerous one in a commander in chief.
He is unlikely to be contained by norms and customs, or even by laws and the Constitution. For Mr. Trump, nothing is sacred. The truth is malleable, instrumental, subjective. It is all about him. It is always about him.
The personal character of public figures
White evangelicals don’t care as much about corruption in political leadership as they used to. A Public Religion Research Institute poll released in October reported that white evangelicals have dramatically revised their opinions about politicians’ personal morality, in recent years.
In 2011, 70 percent said they cared about public figures’ personal morality. Personal ethical behavior was connected, they believed, to faithfully fulfilling the duties of public office. In 2016, only 28 percent of evangelicals still thought this, while the majority of them told pollsters that public figures’ personal morality didn’t really matter.
.. Obama’s personal character, his family life and his finances, provided no fodder for his enemies. Attacking him on that basis was like trying to smear Fred Rogers — or Steve Rogers. So his opponents and enemies had to turn elsewhere — to fantasy, fake news, and the fetid racist fever-dreams of “alt-right” neo-Nazis, Alex Jones loons, and the “birther” lies of a lecherous faux-billionaire.
In other words, an emphasis on “personal ethical behavior” ceased to matter because it ceased to be useful.
If personal ethics and character were treated as meaningful and important, then white evangelicals would have to concede that — despite any disagreements they might have with his policies — Barack Obama, as a person, deserved their respect. And, since they couldn’t bring themselves to concede that, they simply tossed aside their earlier “principled” belief that “Personal ethical behavior was connected … to faithfully fulfilling the duties of public office.”
.. White evangelicals toyed with one unqualified not-Romney candidate after another before eventually, begrudgingly, settling on the Mormon. Mitt Romney’s scandal-free personal life wasn’t perceived as a virtue by white evangelicals, just as the rubbing of salt into an old wound — the constant reminder that Latter Day Saints always seem, as a whole, to be way better at white evangelical piety than white evangelicals have ever managed to be.)
.. Evangelical concern for the personal morality of political leaders probably peaked after Watergate, which was a big part of why, in 1976, they supported a governor from the Bible Belt who was a Navy hero, a Baptist Sunday-school teacher, and a man of almost painful personal integrity. Four years later, though, they abandoned that guy, rallying behind the religious right as it rallied behind a twice-married former Hollywood star who campaigned on states rights and saber-rattling anti-Communism.
Reagan’s history of Hollywood and divorce were, very briefly, matters of ethical concern for white evangelical voters. His pledge to support “states rights” — at a campaign kick-off in Neshoba County, Mississippi
The End Is Nigh
A man, filled with fear and insecurity, created a hatemongering character and followed it out the window. And a woman, filled with fear and insecurity, hunkered down and repeated bad patterns rather than reimagining herself in an open, bold way.
.. From Cohn, he learned about winning, without regard to right and wrong. And from Steinbrenner, he learned about indiscriminately grabbing the limelight.
.. “Donald was not a big night life person, except for Le Club,” said one former Steinbrenner staffer. “He was always very likable in those days. He had a big personality, but he was the youngest of the group. He was never arrogant or full of himself. He always was respectful and pleasant to everybody.”
.. Before he jumped into the presidential race, Trump was seen as bombastic, vulgar, a bit of a buffoon and a cave man, but there was also, as Tina Brown put it, “a cheeky brio.”
.. “he was set up as the Decider and a very discerning judge of character.”
.. If he had stuck with his judicious TV boss persona in a race that fused politics, social media and reality TV, who knows what would have happened?
.. But he created another character for the Republican primaries
.. “He saw the crowd’s adulation and it drove him. He started to get the biggest cheers for saying the most offensive things.
.. “He detached himself from himself. I don’t think he believes in the Muslim ban or half the things he’s saying. It was more, ‘If this gets applause, I do it,’ in a Pavlovian dog kind of way. He just got into this character.
.. And the irony of all this is, he didn’t have to. He could have run as an outsider with a populist message without all the evil and mean components.”
.. Hillary started as a young lawyer on the House Watergate committee, yet she never learned how paranoia can act as an acid on dreams. She couldn’t dismantle her wall of secrecy and defensiveness and level with the public and the press; instead, she built the wall higher and clung to attack dogs like David Brock and Sidney Blumenthal, needing to surround herself with people, no matter how dubious, who would walk the plank for her.
.. The Clintons have earned $230 million over the last 15 years, and if Hillary becomes the first woman president and Bill becomes the first first lad, they will reap many tens of millions more in book money and speeches afterward. So why buckrake on the eve of her campaign with Goldman Sachs speeches?
.. The problem with Donald Trump is: We don’t know which of the characters he has created he would bring to the Oval Office.
The trouble with Hillary Clinton is: We do know. Nobody gets less paranoid in the White House.
How Much Does Trump Really Want to Be President?
Blair says that Trump escaped collapse by convincing his creditors he was more valuable to them “financially alive rather than dead.” He proceeded to recoup his losses by shifting from real-estate deals to licensing his well-known name.
.. When asked if he is ever introspective, Trump replied, “I don’t like to analyze myself, because I might not like what I see.” When queried about his temperament, Trump said: “When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I’m basically the same. The temperament is not that different.” He said he “loved to fight” as a child, “any kind of fight, loved it, including physical.”
.. As a grade-schooler Trump threw cake around a birthday party and gave a teacher a black eye because he was ignorant. His behavior was so out of control that his parents exiled him upstate to a military academy. His experience there only cemented his bully-boy traits. Trump has described the students and the drill sergeants there as people who would “smack the hell out of you,”
.. But his success in capturing the GOP nomination against all odds seems to have created a belief in his own invincibility and reinforced his traits. “He is like a 13-year-old teenager who can stay up as late as he wants, eat junk food; there’s no adult who has the right to take away his phone and stop the tweeting.”
.. Yes, Trump’s lack of impulse control has also been an asset to him. He comes across as spontaneous, funny, and unscripted — the opposite of most politicians. “It’s the paradoxical effect of the bad little boy,” D’Antonio wrote in an article for CNN in March this year. “Yes, he’s out of line and must be taught to respect others. However, the sight and sound of someone behaving with such an unbridled enthusiasm is also thrilling.”