"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Today's Must-Read: Another Point of Contact

Trump's sense of his own superiority, no matter how unjustified by real-world events, rests on a foundation that -- well, it's flimsy at best. Digby takes a hard look:

Like history's monarchs, Trump believes that the qualities that make him successful are in-born. He once said he possesses a genetic “gift” for real estate development.

“I'm a big believer in natural ability,” Trump told me during a discussion about his leadership traits, which he said came from a natural sense of how human relations work. “If Obama had that psychology, Putin wouldn't be eating his lunch. He doesn't have that psychology and he never will because it's not in his DNA.” Later in this discussion, Trump said: “I believe in being prepared and all that stuff. But in many respects, the most important thing is an innate ability.”

Perhaps Trump's conviction that DNA — not life experience — is everything explains why he proudly claims that he's “basically the same” today as when he was a boy. “When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I'm basically the same,” he said. “The temperament is not that different.”
(Emphasis added.)

Do I have to comment?

That whole passage is so ridiculous as to defy analysis. And he probably believes every word of it.

And it's not that big a leap from that attitude to the idea (which I find somewhat bizarre) that people not like him (i.e., brown people) are inferior.

And people wonder why he's such a big hit with people like Tony Perkins and David Duke.

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