Habit
For the first 60 (he started young*) or so years of his life, Donald Trump has practiced the skill of doing what ever was in his own perceived self-interest, with little regard to how those actions affected others. You could say that for him, good behavior was conditional on whether it furthered his own interests.
Practice a skill like this -- and it is a skill -- like this, every day with cithe intent of getting better, and after 60 years, you should be pretty good at it.
Maybe, that it's not going so well with him at this time, is the result of his other character or personality traits.
The problem for him is that the behaviors -- the habits that he has been developing for so long -- are accepted in the world of real estate, and more generally in business, but are not acceptable and are sometimes illegal in the realm of governance (because governance requires working for the good of all -- though not always do this).
Knowing that his elect-ability was his qualification of being a successful business man, he implied that he was. He said that he would use his successful business tactics to achieve the kind of success for the country that he achieved for himself. Any evidence to the contrary was suppressed or ignored.
After he was elected, he ran the country like he ran his personal business -- businessman Donald Trump: make as much money as he can for himself. Note that the Trump Corporation is a family-owned business and that means that he can do whatever he wants and doesn't have to worry about being fired.
But this a bad long-term strategy (who said he was smart). The sort-term, while he is President, is an investment that he plans to cash-in on. He thinks that like any other politician, congressperson or cabinet official, he can get in office, network for the duration, and after he gets out, get a lucrative board seat or consulting job.
The trouble is that his behavior makes him persona non grata in most of the world, and those who would accept him do so at their financial peril. And he may be very frustrated to find that he can no longer call on American power as cavalierly as he once did.
NOTE: My somewhat informed diagnosis brings me to conclude that Donald Trump suffers Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Dyslexia. How ADHD and Dyslexia interact, I do not know.
Anybody can have these problems. They have nothing to do about whether you are a good or a bad person. You could say that there was a causal relationship between the two (e.g. ADHD will make you bad), but is also influenced by their environment. He may be really bad in urban society, but if he were the only person in a hundred miles, he might do fine, so long as he could socialize with others for a few hours every three months or so he'll be fine.
I wonder whether these traits give their possessors any evolutionary advantage.
Interestingly, ADHD and Dyslexia are, in a sense, mechanical problems, a different category from personality traits, or moral traits. Greta Thornburgh is supposedly diagnosed as exhibiting Autistic traits, but these traits have nothing to do with the existence of the environment that she advocates for. There can be a good person with ADHD and a bad person with ADHD, they may end up doing different things, but they will both be had to live with in the same way.
Evidence for ADHD:
1. Likes TV
2. Weird wake/sleep schedule
3. Short attention span
4. Difficulty at keeping still, wanders
Evidence for Dyslexia:
1. Has problems reading:
2. From the teleprompter
3. Shortened briefings to bullet points
4. No evidence of liking reading, not a reader
5. Seems to be more influenced by oral argument -- Fox TV
I wonder whether many of the facts he uses or makes up are from his memory of something he heard, rather than read. Some of his remarks have parallels in scenes from the movies, TV shows, and comic books: he references a scene from a movie about drugs on the US/Mexican border, quoting it as fact; Fox TV; when he refers to himself (that he refers to himself a lot is also significant) he tends to speak like a comic book villain.
* Unless you consider the apprenticeship kind of training, which began as early as 10 or 8-years.
Practice a skill like this -- and it is a skill -- like this, every day with cithe intent of getting better, and after 60 years, you should be pretty good at it.
Maybe, that it's not going so well with him at this time, is the result of his other character or personality traits.
The problem for him is that the behaviors -- the habits that he has been developing for so long -- are accepted in the world of real estate, and more generally in business, but are not acceptable and are sometimes illegal in the realm of governance (because governance requires working for the good of all -- though not always do this).
Knowing that his elect-ability was his qualification of being a successful business man, he implied that he was. He said that he would use his successful business tactics to achieve the kind of success for the country that he achieved for himself. Any evidence to the contrary was suppressed or ignored.
After he was elected, he ran the country like he ran his personal business -- businessman Donald Trump: make as much money as he can for himself. Note that the Trump Corporation is a family-owned business and that means that he can do whatever he wants and doesn't have to worry about being fired.
But this a bad long-term strategy (who said he was smart). The sort-term, while he is President, is an investment that he plans to cash-in on. He thinks that like any other politician, congressperson or cabinet official, he can get in office, network for the duration, and after he gets out, get a lucrative board seat or consulting job.
The trouble is that his behavior makes him persona non grata in most of the world, and those who would accept him do so at their financial peril. And he may be very frustrated to find that he can no longer call on American power as cavalierly as he once did.
NOTE: My somewhat informed diagnosis brings me to conclude that Donald Trump suffers Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Dyslexia. How ADHD and Dyslexia interact, I do not know.
Anybody can have these problems. They have nothing to do about whether you are a good or a bad person. You could say that there was a causal relationship between the two (e.g. ADHD will make you bad), but is also influenced by their environment. He may be really bad in urban society, but if he were the only person in a hundred miles, he might do fine, so long as he could socialize with others for a few hours every three months or so he'll be fine.
I wonder whether these traits give their possessors any evolutionary advantage.
Interestingly, ADHD and Dyslexia are, in a sense, mechanical problems, a different category from personality traits, or moral traits. Greta Thornburgh is supposedly diagnosed as exhibiting Autistic traits, but these traits have nothing to do with the existence of the environment that she advocates for. There can be a good person with ADHD and a bad person with ADHD, they may end up doing different things, but they will both be had to live with in the same way.
Evidence for ADHD:
1. Likes TV
2. Weird wake/sleep schedule
3. Short attention span
4. Difficulty at keeping still, wanders
Evidence for Dyslexia:
1. Has problems reading:
2. From the teleprompter
3. Shortened briefings to bullet points
4. No evidence of liking reading, not a reader
5. Seems to be more influenced by oral argument -- Fox TV
I wonder whether many of the facts he uses or makes up are from his memory of something he heard, rather than read. Some of his remarks have parallels in scenes from the movies, TV shows, and comic books: he references a scene from a movie about drugs on the US/Mexican border, quoting it as fact; Fox TV; when he refers to himself (that he refers to himself a lot is also significant) he tends to speak like a comic book villain.
* Unless you consider the apprenticeship kind of training, which began as early as 10 or 8-years.
posted by Godel at 6:30 PM
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