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I believe Trump is a narcissist, megalomaniac, pathological liar, xenophobic and misogynist. Call it mental illness or personality disorders, but if the shoe fits etc.. Obama was all about no drama, where Trump thrives on chaos. He's obviously in way over his head.
But the more interesting thing is what his supporters think. From a recent Public Policy Poll.
- 40 percent of Trump voters insist that he won the national popular vote to 49 percent who grant that Clinton won it and 11 percent aren't sure.
- 73 percent of Trump voters think George Soros is paying protesters against Trump, with only 6 percent who think that's not true and 21 percent who aren't sure either way.
- 67 percent of Trump voters say that unemployment increased during the Obama administration, to only 20 percent who say it decreased.
- Only 41 percent of Trump voters say that the stock market went up during the Obama administration; 39 percent say it went down and another 19 percent say they're not sure.
This is not surprising since Trump himself cites fake news as real news and his aide Kelly Ann Conway recently said they use 'alternative facts'.
New York Times (Republican) columnist David Brooks had a recent column titled How to Resist (It depends on the threat). Is it authoritarianism, corruption or incompetence?
Our 240 year old democratic experiment can only survive with an informed electorate. Fake news isn't new as W. Russell Neuman wrote. Stories about Elvis, UFO's, fake moon landing, 9/11 being secretly planned by the CIA have been around for years.
What is new is the culture of political polarization that energizes and glorifies the rumor mills. When you have a president who believes things he reads on the internet like 3-5 million illegals voted for Hillary, or Ted Cruz's father was involved in the Kennedy assassination, or 1000's of people in New Jersey cheered after 9/11, or that Obama was some sort of Kenyan Manchurian candidate and propagated the birther movement, then we're dangerously close to our little experiment going seriously off course.