(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Another Perspective on a Recent Catastrophe [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-11-13 There is a principle in Engineering: when you are surprised by an outcome, you immediately know that there are things about the project you don’t understand yet. The recent election outcome was surprising. It recently dawned on me that the “How could so many of us have gotten it so wrong” question is one that I had answered for myself, in another context, many years ago. We begin with DJT in childhood, in the situation outlined by Mary Trump, amongst others. He has a profound learning disability that renders him functionally illiterate. I’m 357 days younger than he, and recall how unlikely it would be that he would encounter anyone in the school system that would recognize this and be able to assist. (When Donnie was a 7-year-old schoolyard bully, I was a 6-year-old scrawny autistic kid who was bullied — except in my neighborhood, his name was Jerry.) He doesn’t understand the Constitution, because he has not read it, and cannot read for understanding if the body of text is much larger than a Twitter post. He is capable of functioning as a human text-to-speech converter, but that takes rehearsal and coaching. Over a period of time, dealing with this and other issues, Donnie found that making up the story as you go along (i.e. lying constantly) was a plausible and effective tactic. He was helped in this by constant exposure to Peale’s doctrines about how you can create your own desirable universe by constantly affirming what it is you want the universe to be. The Trump family were regular attenders at Marble Collegiate. Along the way, he developed his central, useful talent: the ability to convince people he is very good at things (other than just being able to convince people that he is very good at things). The first person conned by this was himself, as is necessary for a good con. The second person conned by this was Fred Trump, his father. Trump the Elder was not exactly a sucker; he was successful at what he undertook as a business, and was able to assist his eminently capable son in various enterprises, all of which, sooner or later, collapsed ignominiously. Dad did not bail out Donnie due to loyalty to family and offspring; the treatment of Fred Jr gave clear indication of this. Instead, he appears to have dropped by the failing casino to purchase $2MM in chips that would not be cashed in, confident that this was just another setback that could be weathered with a handy bit of cash rather than an exhibition of utter incompetence. He went on to con coaches/mentors, investors, lenders, and others (such as the ruler of Russian Empire 3.1a, and the rulers of what was once the Republican Party, still operating under that name). In all cases, those who buy into the premise that DJT was enormously capable, reliable, and Able To Fix It, fail until late in the game to realize that they have been had: DJT is instead an incompetent who manages to blunder his way into positive outcomes, now and then. In the end, a significant percentage of voters, however much they might have considered him an odious toad, went with The One Who Can Fix It, whatever their personal “It" might be, oblivious to piles of evidence that this was a foolish choice. The ample evidence that this is a criminal, fascist, toxic dotard in rapid mental decline was not enough to overturn the “Trump Can and Will Fix It” message that had already infested their mental processes. Thus, in my estimation, the hand wringing and blame fixing are not particularly useful in gaining an understanding of how exactly this talent of his works, why some, such as my retired journalist wife, are completely immune, and why some of our most intelligent friends, astonishingly, are not. It’s as if Lamont Cranston’s ability to cloud the minds of men (without needing Mandrake’s hypnotic gestures, unless the accordion hands do more than we might expect) has manifested itself in someone who shouldn’t have such a power. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/13/2285988/-Another-Perspective-on-a-Recent-Catastrophe?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/