Friday, May 19, 2017

Insisting you are the best is part of being the worst

"Reception du Grand Conde par Louis XIV" by Jean-Louis Gerome (1674)


     Buckle up. You’re about to read the best column ever written, penned by the greatest columnist Chicago has ever known.
     Kidding. Let’s talk about grandiosity.
     Even if I thought the opening sentence were true — which, for the record, I most profoundly do not — I’d have enough self-awareness not to say it. Everyone hates a braggart and wants to bring him down, even when he is correct.
     Especially when he’s correct.
     When he isn’t, when his claims are just oblivious flummery, it just seems sad and deranged. Think of the stereotypical insane asylum. Who does the cliched inmate believe himself to be? Napoleon, right? Delusions of grandeur.
     I do not want to join the platoon of armchair psychiatrists speculating about the mental health of the president of the United States. I am not qualified to diagnose what may be wrong with him. And I recognize that a significant, if dwindling, chunk of the country thinks that the only thing wrong with the president is the vast deep state conspiracy allied against him. A mindset we can examine another day.

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9 comments:

  1. Perfect photo. Too bad Trump can't buckle on a ceremonial sword too.

    I feel sorry for the poor deluded souls who still believe Richard Nixon got the shaft from the "Establishment." Long after Trump goes to his eternal reward, similar souls will continue to suffer from his seemingly permanent distortion of reality.

    john

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  2. So Trump thinks, with surety, he has been treated worse than any politician in history? He thinks he knows but he doesn't know, perhaps he was sick the day in high school world history when they taught the fate of Benito Mussolini or Julius Caesar. He thinks he is smart with a high IQ, he's not so smart, his intellect is a flickering dim bulb next to that of Al Gore who invented the internet!

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  3. To me the most offensive aspect of the quote you cited was the venue. Speaking as the young graduate's future Commander in Chief, he chose to whine about how badly he is being treated. As an inspirational message it's not right up there with Henry V before Agincourt.

    Tom

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  4. Trump is great at one thing, and that's self-aggrandizement. It's what's got him this far, so why would he change? Overweening self-confidence, no matter how unjustified, is admired by a surprisingly large proportion of the population.

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  5. I don't understand how someone who's "Greatest in Everything!" as Trump finds the need to play the victim, over and over again. If he's often the victim, doesn't that make him weak and ineffectual?

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  6. I was just reading Ebert's Great Movies review of the original "Alien". He quotes the science officer saying of the alien creature: "I admire its purity, it's sense of survival, unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality". Sound like anyone?

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  7. if i met donald trump at a party i would soon move on to speak with a different more tolerable guest . sadly he's in charge of the most powerful nation on earth. I've met several powerful and influential people. their not always outwardly bright, well spoken, kind, pleasant or modest. we elected him , so we have to put up with him.

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