We're getting Trump's reaction all wrong
Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2020 3:54 pm
Over and over again for the last few days, we've been hearing learned commentators say the same thing: Trump is refusing to accept the results. He can't believe he lost.
I think that misses the point.
Trump has lost a lot in his life...Trump U, the casinos, Trump Air, the USFL, real estate deals gone bad...the list is long. He was almost broke before Celebrity Apprentice--in fact, he could technically be considered broke now.
But what he's always managed to do is cheat his way out of losing--minimize the loss so it's a net break even or even a kind of win. See: taxes.
Trump's true pathology as a sociopath is his belief, drilled into him by his father, that cheating to win is still winning. In fact, in the words of the great Bobby the Brain Heenan, it's not illegal if you don't get caught. Trump knows he is cheating--he doesn't care, as long as he wins.
What Trump cannot believe, what we're asking him to accept for the first time in his life, is not that he lost--it's that he can't cheat his way out of it. And, under that kind of pathology, what is he capable of doing?
I think that misses the point.
Trump has lost a lot in his life...Trump U, the casinos, Trump Air, the USFL, real estate deals gone bad...the list is long. He was almost broke before Celebrity Apprentice--in fact, he could technically be considered broke now.
But what he's always managed to do is cheat his way out of losing--minimize the loss so it's a net break even or even a kind of win. See: taxes.
Trump's true pathology as a sociopath is his belief, drilled into him by his father, that cheating to win is still winning. In fact, in the words of the great Bobby the Brain Heenan, it's not illegal if you don't get caught. Trump knows he is cheating--he doesn't care, as long as he wins.
What Trump cannot believe, what we're asking him to accept for the first time in his life, is not that he lost--it's that he can't cheat his way out of it. And, under that kind of pathology, what is he capable of doing?
