Reaching the pinnacle of power, raised up on the shoulders of Americans to the highest office, often has the perverse consequence of making presidents more paranoid, introverted, insecure, reckless or downright nuts.
So what would happen if Donald Trump, a clinical narcissist with a thin skin, touchy temperament and taste for flattery, got into the Oval Office?
.. So, I ask him, couldn’t people manipulate you based on your ego? Given that you get easily swayed by what people say about you, pro and con, wouldn’t you be malleable?
.. Wouldn’t it be smarter to move beyond this feud? “I’m really rich and successful,” he replied. “I don’t have to make up with everyone.”
.. I tell him that Newt Gingrich, who has praised him in the past, told Bill O’Reilly that people want to assess how stable a president will be when hit with crises, and Trump’s petulance about an admittedly juvenile Fox news release could “shrink” him. “Newt said that?” Trump said, sounding hurt.
He’s a very sensitive guy, for a guy who can be very insensitive.
Trump, Sanders and the Revolt Against Decadence
.. the worst-case scenarios of the post-Great Recession era haven’t materialized. Obamacare is limping along without an imminent death spiral, and health care costs aren’t rising as fast as feared. The deficit has fallen a bit, and inflation is extraordinarily low. The stock market is wobbly, but we haven’t had a double-dip recession.
On the cultural front, out-of-wedlock births are no longer rising. Abortion rates have fallen. Illegal immigration rates are down.
.. But it resonates because the diagnosis resonates — especially with older Americans, who grew up amid the post-World War II boom, the vaulting optimism of the space age, the years when big government and big business were seen as effective and patriotic rather than sclerotic and corrupt. Trump is offering nostalgia, but it’s not a true reactionary’s lament. He wants to take us back to a time when the future seemed great, amazing, fantastic.
.. After Obamacare became law it seemed to many people that the welfare state project was basically complete, that the future of American liberalism mostly involved tweaking entitlements around the edges to keep them solvent. But Sanders is telling liberals, younger liberals especially, that the heroic age of liberalism isn’t over yet, that they can have a welfare state that’s far more amazing and fantastic than the one their forefathers constructed.
.. But the envy of more heroic moments, the desire to just do something to prove your society’s vitality — Invade Iraq to remake the Middle East! Open Germany’s borders! Elect Trump or Sanders president! — can be a very dangerous sensibility.
Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump Voters Share Anger, but Direct It Differently
Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say they are angry, and whites are more likely than African-Americans to say they are angry.
.. Mr. Sanders distinguished his message from Mr. Trump’s, saying the Republican candidate was “using it to scapegoat minorities.” Mr. Trump said he would cool his tone once the campaign battles were over.
Trump: I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo
Still Mr. Trump did not hesitate to get highly personal with Ms. Kelly again on Wednesday, saying on Twitter, “I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!”