Why did Donald Trump welcome Sarah Palin's endorsement with open arms? It's very simple.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

Donald Trump will wholeheartedly embrace anyone--anyone--who manages to stroke his ego and pay him homage. It's who he is as a narcissist.

So conventional wisdom's that Sarah Palin is campaign poison and comes off as the incoherent babbling run-on idiot that she is? No matter. If she has something good to say about Donald Trump, he's going to shout it from the mountain because it's validation in his mind.

Let's not forget that the proto-dictator of Russia, a man who has no respect for foreign boundaries and who many believe imprisons and even has killed political opponents, calls Trump an "outstanding leader." Trump's response is that Putin's words are a "great honor."

Take a look at Trump's Twitter page. When it's not him going off on a rant against some "loser" who he feels insulted him or underestimated him, it's full of re-tweets from other Tweeters praising everything about Donald Trump. You might think he's doing that to make those anonymous Twitter users feel special, but in fact, it's just to show the world that everybody loves Trump.

Trump's tendency to blindly retweet anything he views as personal praise of himself has lead to some hilarious results at the hands of pranksters:





Those "parents" are actually British serial killers Fred and Rose West, and the man in the military uniform is Jeffrey MacDonald, a man convicted of killing his wife and children.

Of course, that isn't who Donald Trump is. Donald Trump doesn't fall for scams:



See? He even tweeted it.

The crazy thing is, as simple as Sarah Palin may be, she's actually coming off like the shrewd one here. If--God forbid--we ever see a President Trump, I'm sure Sarah Palin will come knocking at 1600 Pennsylvania asking about being appointed Secretary of Energy or Secretary of the Interior or Secretary of the Moose (and won't those confirmation hearings be entertaining.)

On the other hand, Donald Trump just heralds Palin's support for the simple reason that it feeds his never satisfied ego.

[emulatorloo]

1. Because she will help him defeat Cruz in IA

She's very popular with IA Republican caucus voters. Lots of them are evangelcals, her endorsement might move them away from crazy-theocrat Cruz.

I don't know what the long term trump strategy will be regarding Palin.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. At this point, I doubt Trump has ever had a long term strategy.

As long as he's at the top of the headlines, that's all that matters to him.

And being elected President will ensure he remains at the top of the headlines. So I don't think he's in it as a joke or as some sort of agent of chaos sent to destroy the GOP or help any other candidate.

[Eleanors38]

3. You summed up American culture and tRump's enduring popularity.

[snagglepuss]

4. Do you think he himself responds? I imagine he has his minions

to tweet. All he cares about is high traffic not content.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. He's the one person who I think actually does respond personally.

Based on the lack of intellectual thought put into the tweets, the amount of personal offense put into the tweets, and then measured against Trump's own personality....I honestly think he himself is doing the tweeting.

Which, given the product of said tweets, is incredibly sad.