The Big Why: What's behind Donald Trump's apparent self-sabotage?

[marmar]

The Big Why: What’s behind Donald Trump’s apparent self-sabotage?
His escalating threats of violence and spiraling out of control leave more questions than answers

By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV
Columnist
PUBLISHED JULY 22, 2023 7:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) Here's a guy, he's in his late 20s, maybe early 30s, he owns a big hotel in midtown Manhattan, he's a millionaire many times over, he's in the papers so much that he's famous just for being who he is, he can have anything he wants in life, he can have any woman he wants. He's on a cross-country flight from L.A. to New York seated in first class next to an attractive woman. So what does he do after they have the first-class dinner service seated side by side?

He leans over, and without asking or even saying a word, he starts kissing her on the mouth and groping her breasts. When he takes his hand and starts reaching up her skirt, the woman picks up her purse and flees through the drawn curtains into the coach cabin.

....(snip)....

He was Donald Trump, of course.

It was the late 1970s. He had a wife and children. He owned real estate all over the New York City boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. He owned the Miss Universe pageant, where dozens of beautiful young women competed for his attention. If he wanted to be unfaithful to his wife, he could simply pick up the phone and have, as it was said, any woman he wanted. With all his money, all his fame, all the attention he got on a daily basis for doing ordinary things like having dinner at a restaurant or appearing at a nightclub or even walking down the street, why did a man who didn't know the woman sitting next to him on a commercial airplane, in full view of the other passengers and flight attendants, grab her breasts and then attempt to grab her "pussy," as he would later describe the same act when speaking to a reporter for a major television program?

....(snip)....

That has always been the question about this man, hasn't it? We're going to get into what might be called The Big Why in a moment – why he has risked his own freedom by allegedly committing multiple felonies trying to overturn an election he knew for a fact that he had lost, why he took hundreds of classified documents from the White House when he left office and mishandled them and then tried to cover it all up from the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ). But for right now, let's consider these other why's, because he did the same thing he did on the airplane again and again throughout the decades that followed. They were sexual assaults, and he's alleged to have committed most of them in public. ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2023/07/22/the-big-why-whats-behind-donald-trumps-apparent-self-sabotage/

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. Because he's felt entitled from birth and hasn't face serious consequences for any of it

Next question?

[milestogo]

2. He's a totally fucked up human being

I don't need to read anything to find out why. I just want him removed from society.

[LiberalFighter]

3. Any Mafia connections? Keep them quiet. He knew they wouldn't talk

because women knew it would be difficult.

[Boomerproud]

4. Sabotage? Who's stopping this?

Every day there's a new post or Interview.

[dalton99a]

5. The piece of shit does not need or deserve our understanding.

It is long past time for criminal punishment.

[Swede]

6. He's a dark triad personality, nothing can fill the hole in his ego.

But he keeps trying to fill the bottomless pit.

[snowybirdie]

7. Read in Mary Trump's

book that his mom had a breakdown or severe post partum depression after a miscarriage when he was a small toddler. She rejected him and his young sister had to care for him as a toddler. Daddy worked all the time and didn't want to hire childcare. That seems to explain things. A very disturbed individual.

[bucolic_frolic]

8. Currently his campaign/insurrection redux tour

is about fear and guilt. The past just feeds the present. Uncontrollable, lacking moral compass. All the noise and lawsuits are about how to extricate himself from the mess he's made.

[PSPS]

9. Last sentence: "the level of his irrationality is like measuring his girth: It just grows and grows.

[GreenWave]

10. He CANNOT have any woman he wants. Most reject him.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. I noticed that. He could have "had" many women, if their standards for personality and integrity

were overridden by considerations of fame or money. That gave him plenty to choose from, but far from "any".

[betsuni]

23. Yes, what the hell. A celebrity touches them or waves cash in their faces and

any woman will flip over on their backs? We're all mindless animals!

[yardwork]

11. Personality disorder.

[Captain Zero]

18. Maybe many, including 'oppositional defiance,'

as a FEATURE.
OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANCE IS AN obsessive feature of his personality disorder(s).

[Irish_Dem]

12. Committing crimes turns him on.

It is the thrill of being a criminal and not getting caught.

He could buy whatever he wanted. But stealing it is much more fun for him.

[chowder66]

13. Unbridled white privilege.

[hatrack]

14. Zero impulse control - it's who he is . . .

.

[allegorical oracle]

25. While it's historically one of his behavior characteristics, he appears to be worsening. He could

be showing symptoms of Alzheimer's. His father had it. And I recall dozens of psychologists signed a letter (can't remember whether it was before or after he was in office) suggesting he was seriously disturbed.

From Psychology Today:

Our neomammalian brains — and, in particular, our frontal lobes — govern our behavior, inhibiting the primitive drives from our reptilian brain when they are not socially appropriate. When Alzheimer’s dementia is in the moderate or severe stage, the neomammalian brain deteriorates to the point that it can no longer regulate the reptilian brain, such that primitive urges and drives are acted upon.

[pwb]

15. He has been groomed. Fuck his wife is a comrade.

He was an easy target and he divided just like Vlad and those before him wanted. He just fucked it up like all pukes do, they all over step.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. I think he measures himself, and others, by power. So the power to impose himself

physically keeps his ego fed. And women are the victims of his physical assertions - he's physically stronger than most of them, and society has been very bad at giving justice to assaulted women, especially by rich or connected men, certainly up to MeToo. So he'd "win" the encounter, and suffer no consequences. If he'd been a poor man, it wouldn't have been so easy - if he'd poor but been in better physical shape, he might have been starting fights with men to "prove himself".

He also asserts his dominance by belittling people. But he defers to dictators, because he knows they have frighteningly real power from fear (rather than the power over toadies that he has). He hates being shown to be stupid, of course - the anger at President Obama's jokes about him at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, his hatred of Dr. Fauci for contradicting, with intelligence and common sense, his ideas and decisions about Covid, and other long-term grudges, come from him being shown to be intellectually inferior. He'd love to think he's naturally intelligent (his claims about genes, and his professor uncle, point to this), but reality eats at him.

[lindysalsagal]

19. Definition of Narcissistic Sociopath: verywellmind.com

https://www.verywellmind.com/understanding-the-narcissistic-sociopath-4587611#:~:text=The%20term%20narcissistic%20sociopath%20is,could%20be%20considered%20narcissistic%20sociopaths.

The term narcissistic sociopath is used to describe someone who manipulates and harms others for their own personal gain. People who have aspects of both narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) and antisocial personality disorder (APD) could be considered narcissistic sociopaths.

While there is no official diagnosis of "narcissistic sociopath," the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) recognizes both NPD and APD. Narcissistic sociopaths are sometimes called sociopathic narcissists or sociopathic malignant narcissists.

Most people assume that others have the same moral code as themselves. We assume that others agree it is wrong to lie, steal, and manipulate others for our own gain. So, it can come as a shock when you cross paths with someone who shatters that perception.

[Vinca]

20. This isn't a real mystery. His entire life he's never been held accountable for anything.

He just assumes somehow, some way he'll weasel out of all of his current messes, too, and if anyone can do it, he can. In this case, the worst case scenario - Trump convicted, waiting sentencing, wins the election, pardons self, end of current story.

[Hortensis]

21. He has very evident Cluster B personality disorder of some type,

many experts believe, including his niece, and perhaps qualifies for other mental diagnoses. All explanations might offer something, but none accounts for him that doesn't include whatever the truth is about his mental disorder.

My evaluation: he's miswired and missing some important pieces a human being needs to have.

The Fifth who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

[Cha]

22. And then the Chicken Shit Perverted

Treasonous ASSHOLE Denies Everything.

[tanyev]

24. Because he gets no pleasure from taking things with consent.

[Captain Zero]

26. If the other person consented then they were in control

[Kid Berwyn]

27. Truscott is a great writer and human being.

His family includes descendants of Thomas Jefferson. When some in a family association refused to recognize the third president’s African American descendants through Sally Hemings’ lineage, he organized those in favor and won. The campaign took 20 years.