PREFACE:
I have studied authoritarian leaders all my life, with a particular interest in how leaders like Hitler and Mussolini came to power how they persuaded at least a robust minority of blind followers, and the catastrophic fate of authoritarian movements. This essay establishes a philosophical foundation for looking at the current authoritarian leader, Donald Trump, based on his relationship to his followers. As an attempt to go to the roots of this relationship, I will begin with a report on the early Donald Trump, which will highlight the consistency in his entire career as an autocratic ruler:
This is from an interview with Norah O'Donnel and a guest who had interviewed Trump:
"O'DONNELL: Now, I should point out you spoke with Mr. Trump and interviewed him. Right?
FISHER: Yes. We spent, as a group, more than 20 hours with him. He was extremely generous and gracious with his time, despite all of his bluster against the media and against the Washington Post. He was quite forthcoming.
O'DONNELL: You go all the way back to his childhood to help reveal some of Donald Trump. What did you learn?
FISHER: We learned that, as he once said, he hasn't changed since second grade. Keep that in mind as you hear about some of the things that he did, such as throwing rocks at a toddler in the yard right across from his own home, pulling the pigtails of one of his classmates, getting into a physical altercation with a teacher that led to his father removing him from school and sending him off to a military boarding school.
O'DONNELL: In fact, in one of your interviews he admits that he gave his music teacher a blank black eye?
FISHER: Yeah. It's possible that was a bit exaggerated, but he certainly got into an altercation there and he sees this as evidence that he was a mischievous, rambunctious kind of kid. People who were around him during that time saw him as quite a ruffian, really. "
The earliest report we have, based on his own interview, of Trump is of a youth throwing rocks at a toddler. The pleasure that this gave him we can rightly call "sadistic." I will use this example of his early behavior as a template for his later behavior as a business tycoon and a successful Presidential candidate...and as a predictor of his behavior when he finally takes office.
Young Trump enjoyed throwing rocks at his toddler neighbor.
Here is what he said about torture: "Trump, Feb. 17: Torture works. OK, folks? You know, I have these guys--"Torture doesn't work!"--believe me, it works. And waterboarding is your minor form. Some people say it's not actually torture. Let's assume it is. But they asked me the question: What do you think of waterboarding? Absolutely fine. But we should go much stronger than waterboarding."
I would submit that throwing rocks at a toddler is a form of torture, an activity which young Trump enjoyed. I present this evidence as a magnifying glass onto the pathology of the President-Select, a man who clearly enjoys humiliating others, as his treatment of other primary candidates in debate makes clear.
See click here where he joyfully belittles Marcos Rubio, and
and consider this exchange, which initiated calling Ted Cruz, Lying Ted and claiming his father was complicit in the assassination of JFK:
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