insults

Donald Trump is America’s Silvio Berlusconi

Calculated buffoonery is a longstanding tactic for right-wing demagogues looking to alter national political calculations to their own advantage — masking as farce the tragedy they portend.

.. Berlusconi started out as a wealthy demagogue on the brink of bankruptcy, whose celebrity was — like Trump’s — rooted in both real estate and popular entertainment culture. Berlusconi presented himself as Italy’s strongman, speaking like a barman, selling demonstrably false promises of wealth and grandeur for all.

.. Presaging Trump, the Italian media mogul cast himself as the only viable savior of a struggling nation: the political outsider promising to sweep in and clean up from the vanquished left and restore the country to its lost international stature. “I am the Jesus Christ of politics. I sacrifice myself for everyone,”

.. just as Berlusconi promised Italians to make them as rich as he was, while in reality his companies were deeply in debt at the time he first ran,

.. reminiscent of Berlusconi’s history of misogyny. He once dismissed opponents as “too ugly to be taken seriously” and insulted a fellow European leader during a conversation with a newspaper editor, referring to German Chancellor Angela Merkel as “an unf—able fat bitch.”

.. But, like Berlusconi, he responds to tough questions with scandalous insults so as to focus the conversation on those insults rather than on his platform.

.. Trump’s political path has been carved by a media culture that favors entertainment over news.

.. Berlusconi’s opponents fell into his PR trap in the same way in Italy, rushing to condemn his gaffes and his deliberately provocative statements calculated to rouse the far right. Like Berlusconi, Trump has already succeeded in making himself the center of the conversation.

.. Berlusconi appeared on my TV news show and proceeded to deny having ever supported the Iraqi war, going as far as to claim that he had tried — in vain — to dissuade President George W. Bush from undertaking the ill-fated venture. If necessary to avoid a potential pitfall, Berlusconi was willing to deny in the evening precisely what he had stated that same morning.

.. in an apparent effort to ingratiate himself to me, Berlusconi cited the fact that he had dated Arab women as “proof” that he did not actually believe Muslims to be inferiors.

.. Trump’s bullying of Univision’s Jorge Ramos also has a Berlusconi antecedent — Italy’s best journalists, such as Marco Travaglio, Michelle Santoro and Enzo Biagi, were either sued or fired from their jobs because they dared to challenge Berlusconi’s policies.

.. Trump, meanwhile, sued HBO’s Bill Maher for mocking the tycoon’s hairdo.

.. Ultimately, it was the leaders of the European Union who forced him to resign, in exchange for rescuing Italy’s tanking economy during the debt crisis. Berlusconi stepped aside amid fears that the Italian economy, the third largest in Europe, was headed the same way as Greece.

Why is everyone surprised Ted Cruz didn’t endorse Trump

But why is everyone so surprised? Trump nicknames him “Lyin’ Ted,” argues he’s a Canadian ineligible for the presidency, retweets an image mocking his wife’s appearance, and suggests his dad had a role in killing JFK, and never apologizes for any of it . . . and the Trump team is surprised Cruz didn’t endorse him?

Donald Trump: Sociopath?

Taking his biographer’s claim seriously

Tony Schwartz, the writer of the best-selling book, said that he “genuinely believe[s] that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes, there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”

.. I’m not here to be Trump’s doctor. He has a doctor, and his name is Harold Bornstein—the fellow who wrote in his official doctor’s note, “I can state unequivocally [that Trump] will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”

.. And in the context of an election where Trump has repeatedly, strategically branded people with single words that seem to have proven influential—“Little Marco,” “Lyin’ Ted,” and “Crooked Hillary”—would “Sociopathic Donald” be an intellectually honest equivalent?

.. different people define the terms differently, with understandings converging around the feature of lacking “a conscience.”

.. Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which the Mayo Clinic defines by “an inflated sense of [one’s] own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of ultra-confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism.”

.. He had tweeted about me frequently in the weeks following its publication—often at odd hours, sometimes multiple times a day—denouncing me as a “dishonest slob” and “true garbage with no credibility,”Coppins recalls. “For two years, Trump continued to rant about how I’m a scumbag, or a loser, or ‘just another phony guy.’”

.. Manipulativeness: Frequent use of subterfuge to influence or control others; use of seduction, charm, glibness, or ingratiation to achieve one’s ends.

.. Steve Becker, a psychotherapist who specializes in Narcissistic Personality Disorder, has written that “we’ve reached the point where we expect our politicians to behave like psychopaths.” We view psychopathic traits as acceptable, perhaps necessary, and even advantageous attributes of politicians.

.. some thought it telling that when Melania Trump spoke of her husband on Monday night, she delivered an endorsement that could have come from anyone. She said nothing of him as a husband, lover, or father to her child—the insight that many were hoping she would provide. On Tuesday, his daughter Tiffany was somewhat more illustrative, saying that her father would write notes to her on her report card.

.. In one incident, he sent The New York Times’ Gail Collins a copy of her column, having circled her photo and scrawled “The Face of a Dog!”