The Self-Destruction of Trump-1000s of Americans are dying because Trump can't even help himself

[kpete]

DAVID CORN

........Trump, perhaps the most self-interested man ever to reside in the White House, cannot see that his own and much-cherished personal interests—notably, getting re-elected—are aligned with the public interest of curtailing the pandemic.

Do Trump and his campaign minions believe that he can be reelected as the number of COVID deaths top 200,000 or 250,000? Shouldn’t he be doing whatever he can to prevent these headlines in the final weeks of the campaign? What the hell gives?

The responsible course for the president was not tough to discern. Follow the recommendations of public health experts. Model the appropriate conduct. (Wear a mask!) Assist front-line medical workers. Seek to help the economically dislocated. Mourn the dead and address the national fear and anxiety. Yet Trump’s own inner compass is so broken that he could not even fake concern for his own political benefit. His deep-rooted pathologies—I know best, I can bullshit through anything—blocked him from adopting simple measures that would actually advance his own personal agenda.

One small example: In the early weeks of the pandemic, Trump picked a fight with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat. She is a popular pol in the Wolverine State. She was elected 53 to 43 percent in 2018. And she was doing a good job responding to the crisis. Michigan is (or, now, maybe was) a key state for Trump. It was part of his “beautiful” electoral map in 2016, and he could well need it again to win. Yet he appeared more eager to feud with Whitmer than to help the state acquire equipment it needed to combat the coronavirus. “Don’t call the woman in Michigan,” Trump said he told Vice President Mike Pence. Why piss off Michiganders when you desire their votes? It’s in Trump’s nature. (See the story of the scorpion and the frog.) He placed his love of revenge over his own political survival.


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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/08/the-self-destruction-of-donald-j-trump/?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=naytev&utm_medium=social

[Mike 03]

1. What a great point that demonstrates how deeply sick this president is.

A wise sociopath would have allowed the governors who were doing well with COVID to keep going because it made him look good, but he couldn't resist the impulse to take them down.

He actually is predictable, but it's confusing at first because he never does the thing that is in his own self-interest, except for very short bursts of reading off a teleprompter, and then regretting it later.

So, even if you understand sociopathic narcissists, Trump is still unusual in how utterly self-destructive he is. He wants to experience gratification right this second, even if it robs him of greater victory two months from now. He has zero impulse control. You know, even Ted Bundy could control his impulses sometimes, if there was a payoff later.