He wants to make it personal
Trump explains to his advisors that he can’t take their advice because he’s too stupid.
DONALD TRUMP HAS NO PLANS TO HEED the advice of his aides and limit himself to policy contrasts when he debates Kamala Harris. He wants to make it personal.
“This is just the way I am. I hate my opponent. I hate my opponents,” Trump told a confidant who advised the former president to consider backing away from calling the vice president “stupid” or “dumb” at their high-profile standoff in a few weeks, which he has done repeatedly.
Trump explained to the confidant that he’s treating Harris the same way he did Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. “Hillary, Joe, Kamala. It doesn’t matter. I just hate them.”
That’s toddler-talk. Normal people, adult people, know better than to admit that kind of thing, because they know how repellent it is.
I suppose people like it in Trump because it’s “real” – it’s a break from adult inhibitions or hypocrisies. He’s not fake.
But the thing is, those inhibitions aren’t just hypocrisy. They’re morality, too. It’s not good to heap abuse on people, it’s not good to jab and poke and bully.
On the other hand a lot of Murricans love it, so there’s that.
Well it makes sense. He can’t speak intelligently about policy, but he does know how to project hate and sling insults. If this is the only thing that he knows how to do, of course he’s going to want to use it at the debate.
I think it’s a measure of how we’ve changed that hating your opponent has become the norm. You don’t have to hate them! You can disagree with them, debate with them, and point out their weaknesses without hating them.
But Trump can’t. He can’t like anyone who doesn’t bow down and worship him. He can’t do anything but hate those who disagree with him, because that’s who he is. As you say, that’s childish behavior. The problem is, there are too many people right now who hate people they don’t know simply because they disagree with them…and sometimes only on one thing. There are probably quite a few issues the trans activists share similar sentiment with the TERFs, for instance, but they hate them…hate them, not disagree with them.
I’ve always said that our nation is sort of a teenage nation, with a teenage mindset. I think we’re regressing.
Good point, GW. In fact he can’t speak intelligently about anything, so insults are all he has.
Contempt is Trumpism in a nutshell. Othering, hating, being divisive. It’s a seductive trap that becomes an addiction, always looking for new targets to sustain itself. Sounds perfectly miserable.
Dear Kamala Harris,
Please please please please pretty please slip a quick “Stupid says what?” taunt during the debate please please please!
You can hate and despise people without being impolite or trying to destroy other people; I do it on a daily basis at the plant.
This man has the *luxury* of not having to act like most humans do…