What I Have learned About Donald Trump

Like most of the people in this nation I too have watched the present administration that has had such an impact on not just the U.S. residents, but around the world.

Sometimes what I saw bordered on horrific; almost like watching a train wreck without having the ability to know how to stop it.

I was not alone.

Every person who has served in the capacity of the President of the United States has impacted the world in one way or another, but never on the level that we are experiencing now.

As a journalist I have watched many interviews with Mr. Trump and his staffers. I have watched political analysts that either supported his efforts or criticize his lack of leadership and inability to make the correct decisions.

I have attended rallies and watched people get mentally as well as emotionally twisted into what is similar into watching a shark feeding frenzy.

During this time, many people in the media as well as armchair psychiatrists on social media have stated that he was mentally deranged or had several (if not all) borderline personality disorders.

Whether that is true or not, such diagnosis should be left to those who are trained to determine that and only through a series of therapeutic sessions with Trump.

Making these statements does not lend itself to understanding him nor does it help the state that this nation currently finds itself in.

Experiencing Mr. Trump however can be a real eye opener as long as you’re willing to watch and/or listen with an open mind.

I believe I have learned some things about Mr. Trump just by watching what he does and listening to him as well. I have limited it to 10.

1.     He is a good businessman.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Read the above line again. I said good, not successful. Trump lacks the acumen to be a successful businessman.

As a good businessman he knows where all the pieces of the puzzle are and knows the strategy to get it done but lacks the skill set needed to implement his plan.

A successful businessman knows how to put the pieces in place efficiently.

They have to possess the ability to get others (employees) to put everything in place under their guidance which means that a leader must have good communication and social skills in order to be a successful businessmen.

This what is needed to not only get people to admire you, but those who don’t to put their trust in you.

Another skill that is required is being able to determine who your customer base is and then appeal to their needs. Donald Trump did just that.

He appealed to the ones who were angry, believed in conspiracies, were fanatically devout, racist, and overall felt abandoned by the people who run this country.

Once he realized what his customer base was, he started to talk to them through speeches, Twitter and any other way he could think of. They showed up in all their white power goodness feeling impowered because they suddenly had someone they could believe in as well as follow.

This, and the opposition’s failure to pull in the people who voted for Bernie Sanders, is how he got elected.

2.     Paranoia

It’s hard to figure out what made Mr. Trump paranoid. It could have been the way he was brought up, an incident in his teen years or when he became tabloid fodder after getting busted with having Marla Maples as his mistress while still married to his wife, Ivana.

Whatever the reason, he became convinced that anyone outside of his circle of family sought to harm him; that everyone was out to get him.

Trump also doesn’t like to be taped, recorded, or notes kept during his meetings. And anyone who spends time with him must sign a non-disclosure agreement.

This is also probably part of the reason why he continues to refuse releasing his tax returns.

He will eat his meal, which usually consists of sandwiches from McDonalds, in a locked room because he believes people are trying to poison him.

What is important here is to understand the root causes of paranoia which is fear and anxiety.

When a person is paranoid, or perceived to be paranoid, they often have thoughts or beliefs that are intense; they often have irrational thoughts or delusions even when there is no evidence as to what they perceive to be true.

Trump, especially since he’s been in the White House, has shown the classic signs of paranoia such as irritational beliefs, a hypervigilant sense of anger and betrayal.

3.     Social Media

Social Media seems today to be the best, either free or relatively cheap, way for people to promote themselves.

It’s hard to find a celebrity or politician who isn’t on Twitter, Instagram or other outlets. It is often considered to be the most effective way to put your message or brand out there.

Plus it’s free and mostly  without restraint.

Let’s face it – if you are a public figure, people will find you, friend you, and pass along whatever craziness you see fit to post.

You may have some people who post their own messages on social media (Ice T, Khloe Kardashian, Chrissy Tiegen), some who have others post, but post themselves (50 Cent, D.L. Hughley, Tom Hanks) as well.

Then you have Donald Trump who has staff to post for him, but is determined to do his own posts. The problem is everyone knows which posts are Trump’s and the ones that are from his staff.

So what is up with Trump’s obsession with social media and when will it stop?

Probably not because Trump believes that his rants on Twitter are somehow helping his agenda. 

Well, maybe.

It certainly helps when the Twitter Trolls respond to Trump’s tweets and then the media picks them up and even more people read them. It’s also important to understand that not all of the trolls are anti-Trump. Many of them are also his supporters.

So, if you look at it from this angle, the tweet was successful and brought more attention to Trump.

As someone who attempted and/or believes that they are a celebrity, Trump has bought into the whole belief that any press is good press.

Trump has also been able to dominate the news and keep the media’s focus on him intense.

Lately most presidents have used trending media outlets to heighten their popularity: Clinton had the MTV generation and Obama used podcasting, Facebook and Twitter. He also greatly tapped into the Oprah Winfrey Generation.

So despite what people may think, the use or monopolizing of social media was not created by Donald Trump.

The ability to get the attention that he has, was most likely caused by posting something random; something that was inadvertently tweeted causing the trolls sleeper cells to wake up.

It was most likely one of his interns that realized what a public relations gold mine it was to tweet random and crazy messages. One of the interns probably put the idea out there because Trump isn’t really all that astute.

Still, because Trump likes to be in control, he uses social media to divert America’s attention and in this day and age that’s not hard to do.

Remember the wall, children from the border, the sexual assaults, his tax returns……the list goes on.

Whenever something is going very wrong in this country, there will suddenly be a new issue and a vile tweet to go along with it.

4.     Gaslighting

Although it’s important to leave the official diagnosis to professionals, the term gaslighting can be used to describe some of Trump’s behaviors as they are grouped together; almost like they are working as a team.

The term gaslighting has been around for years and was even a movie, but has picked up a resurgence lately through social media websites as people struggle to understand the behaviors of those in their lives.

Gaslighting is a method used by people to manipulate or control others. Some of the techniques they use to confuse or control their target are to deny something they said even if you have proof, such as a video tape in which they stated exactly what they are now denying.

Making claims that they are being persecuted by those who may be part of the other persons’ support system is a frequent method used by gaslighters in order to elicit sympathy from their victims.

Although many people believe that the gaslighting technique is used in interpersonal relationships, it’s also used to control and change the narrative in areas of business as well as politics.

Donald Trump routinely uses the gaslighting techniques on his followers in an effort to get them emotionally charged into an us versus them mentality.

His use of fake news is a part of his gaslighting technique.

5.     He’s acutely ill-concealed

People with public personas have to be effective when it comes to communicating with the masses and nobody does this better than politicians because even when they lie, you can still see what the truth is.

Even when their lies are more complicated to understand, understanding what the truth is usually is not.

Donald Trump’s lies are even easier to figure out because they’re just bad. He doesn’t even try to make his lies more complicated to figure out.

When he speaks in his rallies, the words he uses to describe people, races, cultures, sexual identities or religions are acutely ill-concealed; his disdain for them is really easy to recognize.

You can see the revulsion dripping out of his mouth.

This is intentional. It’s like some kind of secret code he’s sending to the antennas of his followers that will insight them like a pack of wild animals.

6.     He’s a part of the master-race

To be honest, Trump is truly a product of his upbringing.

He was born and raised in a family that, due in part to the German lineage, believed that theirs was a master race; that they are the superior race.

Although Trump has never openly admitted that he is a card-carrying member of any number of organizations who still buy into the whole master-race dogma, his attitude towards people of different races, socio-economic classes or educational backgrounds as well as applying some of Adolf Hitler’s tactics has clearly demonstrated that he is.

His attacks on people who don’t meet his owned warped sense of physical beauty while ignoring his own lack of physical perfection (known these days as body shaming), attacks on non-white immigrants, constant shame-based references to those whom he considers unacceptable (poor people, single mothers, the disabled, the mentally ill, and minorities) are right out of the master-race handbook.

7.     K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid)

The acronym, K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, stupid) was created by the U.S. Navy in 1960 and has since continued to be used by different military branches as well as the prepper movement.

It is also the best way to describe the way Donald Trump has chosen to address the public regardless as to whether or not if they are followers, the media or those he deems to be his enemies.

His hero, Adolf Hitler, believed that the people of Germany, and any others he wanted to reach, were not that smart. He felt that these people also had difficulty remembering anything that was told to them in great detail.

To that extent, he used a lot of slogans.

Trump being who he is, followed Hitler and can often be heard yelling his own slogans “Make America Great Again,” “Grab her by the pussy,” “Lock her up” and “Build the wall.”

What Hitler was able to do and what Trump can’t do is to talk down to people without coming across as stupid himself.

Trump can’t help but come across as a petulant 4 grader with the spelling ability to go with it.

He thinks his tweets are getting his message out there and to have an open pipeline of communication among the people, but all it has done has created a sharper division among U.S. residents and perhaps that’s what his primary objective is; for his Twitter rants to create a divisive environment throughout social media.  

Donald Trump may have believed that he could emulate Hitler and his style that would make him an effective, if not diabolical, leader of Germany. That is apparently not the case.

What he failed to understand, what he always fails to take into account, is that there are certain realities that cannot be changed or altered.

Reality #1: This isn’t Germany circa 1930s. This is the United States of America and the world is a lot more sophisticated now than it was back then.

Reality #2: With the internet and social media, it is virtually impossible to pull the same stunts that worked for Hitler.

Reality #3: Even with people Trump deems to be stupid or ‘unsophisticated’, they are still smarter than people were back in the 1930s.

Reality #4: A lot of people don’t like Donald Trump and many of those didn’t like him before he decided to run for office.

Reality #5: When he attempts to talk down to people, he comes off sounding like the only stupid person in the crowd whether it’s through misspellings or using made up words and his constant simplification of his thoughts, to quote Donald Trump ‘…is very, very bad and it’s very, very sad.’

8.     Globalizer or populist?

When looking at whether Trump is a globalizer or a populist, it’s important to understand what each word actually means.

A globalizer is someone who, through the process of deregulation and taxes such as tariffs, helps develop, encourages the development of and, eventually, takes advantage of the unfettered free market that was intended to help poor countries to develop and grow economically.

A populist, on the other hand, is usually a politician who convinces people – typically registered voters- into believing that certain people or groups -such as other politicians or political parties-don’t have their best interests at heart and are ignoring their needs.

As a private businessman, Trump was certainly a globalizer and as a president he has continued to attempt to be one by disrupting trade talks or conferences with his childish antics.

He is more so, as a president, a populist who has managed to persuade his followers that their needs-and even more so their rights- are being ignored.

Although he isn’t altogether wrong, it is his execution of this message that has him churning up hate, racism, sexism and homophobia among certain groups of people who have felt they were being sidelined because of these values.

9.     He’s an immoderate

Despite surrounding himself with people who may or may not have the necessary requirements to do their jobs, it is hopeful that they had a couple of ounces of common sense.

Over the last two years, many of his staffers (and soon to be former staffers) had to remove documents off his desk so he wouldn’t sign them; had to try to brief him on issues that he didn’t want to learn about; tried to explain to him the importance of certain issues that he didn’t care about anything beyond what he believed; Trump’s refusal to stop tweeting rants that compromised the integrity of the office of the presidency; making up facts as he went along; verbal attacks on other world leaders, and had to try to explain to him why an idea he had wasn’t feasible because it was really illegal.

So why was a cabinet job with Donald Trump 200% more difficult than with other sitting presidents?

Donald Trump is an immoderate; he is excessively self-indulgent, reckless and dangerously unrestrained.

When you’re an immoderate and unwilling to compromise or to change your ways in order to better serve the people of this nation the only purpose it serves is to wreak havoc on a nation and its allies.

10.  He speaks with a forked tongue

Of course he lies. Everyone knows he lies. The lies he tells are about as convincing as a knock off Persian rug.

I know convicted criminals who are much better liars and the thing that probably doesn’t surprise people is that he doesn’t care if he’s a bad liar.

That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the duplicitous ways he sends conflicting messages.

1.     In 2000 and again in 2013 he supported violating the 2 Amendment, but in 2015 and in 2016 while running for president, after receiving campaign contributions from the NRA, he advocated for the 2 Amendment. It’s not that he’s actually for or against it, he’ll say whatever he has to in order to garnish attention or to profit from what people value.

2.     Fake news. He accuses everyone he can of reporting fake news when he himself says things which aren’t true. What is really the basis of fake news? It’s propaganda which is the foundation of everything that comes out of his mouth.

3.     As his attacks against Barack Obama continues on two years after he left office, his calls for Hillary Clinton to go to jail for her emails on a non-secured server as he continues to use a cell phone that is unsecured, his Elmer Fudd goes a wabbit hunting attack on the New York Times for printing an anonymous opinion-editorial that criticized his administration while acting as if the same laws that he accuses others of violating doesn’t apply to him or his family.

4.     The Resistance is a movement that refuses to comply with what is called Trumpism; the bigotry, intolerance and racism that is the Trump organization,

Trump claims that he is The Resistance, but not that resistance. What he’s resisting is anyone’s guess. Perhaps he’s resisting getting indicted. Maybe resisting against telling the truth. He may just be resisting to come out of that locked room and eat with everyone else.

5.     He promised he was going to drain the swamp; that he was going to make the government honest again not that it was ever honest to begin with, but okay let’s go with that. There has been nothing honest about Donald Trump or the GOP so basically they are the swamp.