[_yb2s]

Next time you read all of my comments, read the context also and you won't miss important stuff like that ;-)

Honest question- whatever you like about whatever this politician says, do you believe it's sincere? If not, do you feel like your views and ideals deserve representation from people that sincerely share them and would actually make some person sacrifices to make them happen?

It's absolutely crazy to me that people like you assume if you question anything on 'their side' you must be 'on the other side' - as if all of human perspectives reduced to a single bit of information. I mean, if they really were even on their own side they'd be more critical of it.

[richrichie]

I have no grand opinion about Trump. He is as good as any other politician, though he might be marginally better from the prior that he is not a career politician and from the posterior conditioned by the fact that the bi-partisan establishment and the corporate media hate him. These are too strong a signal to ignore.

What irks me is the cheap virtue signalling by the laptop class which has been told to hate him since 2016. They had no opinion of the man - who is a literal Hitler and who was 70 years old in 2016 - before that. I despise such fakery.

[_yb2s]

I also despise fakery, but there’s a lot more overall fakery going on here from all sides than you seem to be noticing- and understanding the dynamics of narcissism and emotional manipulation makes it more obvious. People aware of this stuff are impressed by Trumps skill in creating and maintaining false narratives.

They didn't dislike him before 2016 because he was one of them, he went to their parties, donated their favorite people lots of money, and did TV interviews repeating all of their talking points.

Trump is absolutely nothing like Hitler- Hitler was a completely sincere true believer in his cause, solidified his views clearly before he had any fame or power and stuck to them consistently, and was himself willing to die for the cause of blaming all problems on people different than him. Trump switches stories and allegiances like an 8 year old girl trying on princess outfits until one 'clicks' and gets attention- and doesn't care if the one he ends up with is left right or center- he tried them all.

Both your "cheap virtue signalling by the laptop class" and Trump have an identical underlying strategy and postmodern world view that things like integrity, principles, and ideals are for suckers, and the only thing that matters is constructing a narrative that gives you the most power and attention right now: e.g. fakery.

Both are even using the same basic absurd narrative that some evil outgroup that deserves to be dehumanized is causing all of your problems, and supporting authoritarianism with them in power will solve it- just different outgroups but both chosen strategically by the same process.

There hasn't been any president during my lifetime that didn't have narcissistic personality traits and strategies, but I am not 100% sure all of them definitely had full blown NPD, I'm not a psychiatrist. It's a disability than harms the person affected more than anyone else- people with it are very alone as they make no real friendships or connections with people, and are not capable of improving their life through self reflection and self criticism. They can be very successful but won't ever enjoy it- they will still just be terrified and anxious about their facade collapsing. It is a disorder where fakery is the very core of every action.