Why Trump is the way he is

[RAB910]

https://imgur.com/a/lR0mU9q

[empedocles]

1. Great perspective

[ginnyinWI]

2. but why did he start the lying in the first place?

Most normal people would not be able to live that way even for a little while. Something compelled him to begin his life of deception, maybe very early in life. It's the old question of nature v.s. nurture. Maybe it was a combination of both.

[greymattermom]

3. I always remember this.

He was the rich kid whose parents sent him to military school. That means that he had serious behavioral issues for years before, because they will try other things before sending him off. Did any of his brothers or sisters get sent to military school?

[PatSeg]

12. Yes

I think as a kid, he was always in trouble and felt he had to lie when he was confronted. Lying can become a bad habit, even addictive. I've known people who would lie about the smallest thing for no apparent reason, when often the truth was a lot easier.

[kskiska]

19. His father had had enough of him

when he discovered a cache of switchblade knives he'd collected after numerous forbidden trips to Times Square with a buddy. His father immediately enrolled him in military school. This wasn't the first incident of behavioral problems. A neighbor once caught him at a young age throwing rocks at her toddler son in his playpen.

[colorado_ufo]

31. That sounds like a very sad, frustrated toddler.

Different parenting would have made a huge difference in the outcome with this man.

[dhol82]

33. Not necessarily

Some people are just wired differently from birth.

[colorado_ufo]

35. Perhaps.

But I hope that is not true.

[TexasBushwhacker]

43. Don't forget, he was son #2

He only got in daddy's good graces when son #1, Fred Jr (Freddy) decided he wanted to be a pilot rather than go into the family business. Freddy died of alcoholism when he was 43. Donald may have suffered from the typical middle child neglect and jealously.

[Squinch]

47. Sounds to me like a future serial killer. Or trump.

[RAB910]

4. Best guess

He was trying to be successful in business. He was given nearly unlimited funds by his daddy, but he found it very challenging due to his low IQ and being intellectually lazy. Lying proved to be the cheat that allowed him to compensate for his natural weaknesses.

[smirkymonkey]

7. I think he was born bad, and his upbringing only made it worse.

His siblings grew up in the same home and they didn't turn out to be sociopaths. There was something very wrong with little Donny right from the beginning.

[Scarsdale]

9. Too many people ignored

his lies, and fawned over him. Look at how the gop acts around him. He lies daily, and they all gather around to protect him. As long as there is something in it for them, people will coddle this rat bastard. The fact that others are suffering matters little to any of them who protect this worthless orange turd.

[pangaia]

27. Yes to this.

Nothing mysterious about it.
And then worsened in early and later life.

[shanny]

32. apparently the siblings were all fine

with reaping the rewards from their tax-dodging daddy so they aren't shining versions of humanity either....but yeah, little donnie is orders of magnitude worse. I think you are right: nature and nurture in his case.

[TexasBushwhacker]

44. His oldest brother was an alcoholic who died at 43.

[PunkinPi]

11. Here's an old article from 2016 on his upbringing...

he has serious daddy issues.

It is a telling comment, invoking as it does the two propelling forces of Trump’s life: besting his father, and getting himself across the river to Manhattan. To understand the man who is expected to accept the Republican nomination for president on Thursday night requires understanding those twin threads: the need to outdo his father while also seeking his approval; the determination to impress moneyed New Yorkers while also claiming not to care what anyone thinks.

“The answer for every question about him really, no matter what the question is, is ‘dominance’, the need to dominate,” Gwenda Blair, author of “The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate” said in an interview with Yahoo News. “Everything is focused on that, that’s his whole MO, and it all goes back to his dad, and to getting out of the outer boroughs.”

Harry Hurt III, author of “Lost Tycoon,” one of the first biographies of Trump, agrees. (His book, published in 1992 was just re-released via a Kickstarter campaign because the original publisher declined to risk a lawsuit from Trump by bringing it out again.) “It all goes back to his father. Since he was a child, he’s been vying for his father’s attention and everything else in his disturbed existence is rooted in the crazy need to prove he can outdo his father.”

This prism, they say, is the key to deciphering the presumptive nominee. (The Trump campaign did not return requests for an interview with the candidate for this article.) It explains Trump’s need to win, his seemingly racist, misogynistic and victimized worldview. And his sensitivity to insults and slights — the mark of someone who never felt fully accepted by the powers that be in the world he aspired to join. And it comes as close as anything to predicting Trump’s future — from the internal dynamics of his family to the raison d’être of his potential presidency.

Source --> https://www.yahoo.com/news/killer-king-education-donald-trump-000000711.html

[calimary]

18. Quite illuminating.

Thanks for posting this, PunkinPi.

[ginnyinWI]

34. and now that he is president,

and has clearly gone further than his daddy--is he happy? I'd say NO!

[FakeNoose]

36. There's another aspect to this, having to do with his brother Freddy

Donald's older brother Freddy was groomed as a young man for their father's real estate business and eventually take over. I think he was 4 or 5 years older than Donald, and he received a good education at Ivy League schools. Freddy had -zero- interest in the real estate business but he really tried to do it in order to please his father. Meanwhile Donald had a flair for real estate and chose business management classes to further his interests in the family business.

Father Fred Trump's early dismissal of Donald (sending him to military school and not showing much interest in him) all changed when brother Freddy finally admitted he didn't want to work in real estate. What he wanted was to be an airline pilot and he left the Trump family business. Donald saw an opportunity and jumped into it, partially to prove to his father that he could do everything Freddy couldn't, and also because he saw opportunities to make a name for himself. (I read a lot of this in David Cay Johnston's biography of Trump.)

So it was "daddy issues" and also "brother issues." Sadly Freddy became an alcoholic and eventually died from it when he was around 40 (I believe.) Donald says he never touches alcohol because of Freddy, but who knows, competition between the brothers may have been part of Freddy's problem. There's more, having to do with Donald trying to cheat his brother's children out of their inheritance when Grandpa Fred died. That went to court with the other Trump siblings all siding against Donald. Nasty stuff.

[kskiska]

38. He used to poke fun at Freddy

saying that piloting an airliner was the same a driving a bus.

[FakeNoose]

40. And then he BOUGHT an airline

... and bankrupted it.

[Martin Eden]

13. The truth didn't meet his emotional needs

Lying to himself and to others creates alternative facts much more to his liking.

Some sort of unfulfilled emotional need started him along this path at an early age.

[certainot]

45. sex on the wrong brain, most of us have some

trump's just got a lot more of it, maybe genetic - he's a classic case. sex on the wrong brain theory is a unified theory explaining a lot of human thought and behavior -

the lying starts from the irrational need for certainty, which is caused by sex energy being diverted to parts of the brain for rational thinking, logic, etc. (a lot of that is generally left side of the brain) sex energy is impatient and wants satisfaction and it's supposed to go to the parts of the brain where it fuels emotion, creativity to get into his or her loincloth, sex, and orgasm - a lot of that on right side of the brain.

logic is supposed to be patient and objective but instead the sex energy just wants the thinking to end. it wants quick easy answers. it wants conclusion, finality, certainty.

since the universe is complicated and infinite and little is certain that irrational need for certainty causes stress and fear. the stronger the need for certainty the easier everyday uncertainty turns into fear.

logic is surrounded by centuries of quick easy answers and judgementalism tempting it to judge the world in absolutes to create that irrational certainty and ease the fear. at first logic resists but the fear builds to the point where it has to open the gate to the creative side to help it deny reality and rationalize those easy answers.

and that's when some of that sex energy escapes to finally have its way in the pleasure centers on the right side. that's when trump first realized the pleasure of being a stupid racist (absolutism) liar.

unfortunately, without sex education most humans will continue to learn sex with the hand connected to the left side of the brain, burning in long-lasting neural associations.....

for some reason trump has a lot of sowb. maybe it had to do with the affluence and the privacy he had growing up, maybe he had access to a lot of porn and as a spoiled rotten jerk he couldn't possibly get a date.

[Honeycombe8]

46. He gave an interview years ago that sort of explains it.

He said something like: There are two types of people - driven, aggressive, ruthless, and there are the not so driven, weak ones. Throughout history, it is the driven, aggressive ones that have built societies and won. Not the others. That's just the way it is.

His father probably trained him from a young age that way: winning is everything. Remember the wacko Charlie Sheen videos, where he said the word "winning" a million times, obsessed with it? It's maybe something that alpha males focus on more than others. Everything else pales, compared to winning.

I think he also said something about his heritage having something to do with his driven nature, his aggressiveness...I suppose meaning his ancestry of German and Scots blood or something. Or maybe that part was in a separate interview.

[AdamGG]

49. To him, the greatest compliment is to say that someone's "a killer"

[CousinIT]

5. He's a sociopath. n/t

[lunatica]

37. Yes! He is also a Malignant Narcissist

I’m surprised so few people understand that fact. People who are sociopaths, psychopaths Malignant narcissists are born, not created.

Maybe some day the fault will be found in DNA. A lack of something in the building blocks or a break in them. If it’s ever found out I hope they find a fix for it which is the opposite of the theme of the book Brave New World!

[PWPippinesq]

6. Pleasure vs. pain

I suspect Trump may have started lying as a young child to escape his father's harsh punishment, thus being drawn to the pleasure versus the pain that might have been meted out. When it worked, it reinforced the behavior. As his mother said, "What kind of son have I created?" A sociopathic narcissist of the first order, Mrs. Trump. Past time to call him on all his lies and to mete out the "pain".

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. That's truly insightful and so a propos to these times as well. Thank you! . . . nt

[Achilleaze]

10. This fits the whole republican party, as it continues to degenerate morally

republicans are at this point without honor.

[Texin]

14. He's a sociopath. They're born - not made.

His own mother, I believe it was in the mid-eighties, was appalled by his behavior and of reports about his wild party style (cocaine, and who knows what else), along with his philandering around on Ivana, etc., along with his lavish ostentation. She was quoted as saying something to the effect, "how did we create such a monster?" I presume she was speaking of Fred as part of the "we". The eighties in general were as most remember, a period of cheap, conspicuous consumption and I believe tRump is still stuck in that time warp.

[kskiska]

21. His mother's quote

was in response to Trump wanting to divorce Ivana, whom the family loved.

[sarge43]

15. My only criticism

An insult to animals. Even a honey badger has more empathy and compassion than Moron.

[2naSalit]

28. +1

[pazzyanne]

16. Sounds spot on!

[IronLionZion]

17. I knew a chronic liar

she of course blamed her mother for training her to lie over her whole life. Her mother was a cheater so she was a cheater. Lying came so naturally to her as a way to get what she wants out of life, and do so very convincingly as she had made herself believe her lies. And then break down crying when she got caught.

Trump just isn't very convincing and he breaks down into temper tantrums and angry tweetstorms when he gets called out for lying.

I recently watched a documentary about hate groups. And they admit that they lie to people in economically depressed areas to recruit them. It's easy to find frustrated people and tell lies to make them angry and riled up, then they are more easily manipulated to do what you want. Trump's lies are obviously not for us. It's for his supporters to feel emotions and it appeals to their delusions and fears.

[calimary]

20. This too. Explains the willfully blind devotion of the deplorables.

[IronLionZion]

22. He appeals to the worst fears in people's imaginations

hearing a public figure tell it makes them feel vindicated and important in a way.

[2naSalit]

29. And some are addicted to adrenaline, anger is a quick fix...nt

[Moostache]

23. I don't really care...do u?

Fuck him and hid malignant narcissism. I hope he chokes to death every single day. The sooner his heart explodes or a french fry clogs his wind pipe long enough to choke him, the better off the planet will be.

Please Gaia, destroy the orange monster and free the people who cry out in pain to your mercy.

[world wide wally]

24. Trump lies becausee it works and it is easier than telling the truth.

He learned at an early age that there were no consequences for lying. It enabled him to get what he wanted with little to no effort. Now he has his GOP lackeys reinforcing it again.
The only reason not to lie is a moral one and he has trained himself to be devoid of morals.

[oldsoftie]

25. Boy am I gonna piss off some facebook friends when I post this

Thanks!

[DemoTex]

26. Grab him by his ...

PUSILLANIMITY!

[2naSalit]

30. +1

[Yeehah]

39. I stopped trying to figure it out a long time ago

and just accepted there's a lot of assholes in the world.

[Scurrilous]

41. K&R

[Trueblue Texan]

42. Now y'all don't be so hard on Little Anthony!

Else he'll blast you into cartoonland!

[Grasswire2]

48. Narcissistic injury as a small child.

We don't have to guess about it.

Psychologists have quantified and analyzed the phenomenon.

Untreatable when it grows into NPD. (Narcissistic Personality Disorder)