It took me years to convince my best friend (forgive me, best friend) that my dad was a psychopath who had done me and my brothers a lot of harm.
He came across, at first and in pieces and at a distance, as wonderful, radiant, charismatic, funny, different...the same way a product looks all shiny on the shelf. As a kind of ad about himself.
It was impossible for my friend to discern the fact that this was ALL he had, that this was a common technique of psychopaths to lure people in, not even deliberate, but because it's ALL they've got...and once you see under the surface, it's American Psycho time (this happens several times in the novel if you've read it; Trump makes some cameo appearances).
The desperation I've felt over the years since 2015 at people looking on at Trump as this incredible being...thing is, his disinhibition looks incredible, like witty party guy life and soul stuff, in small doses. And if you're white and male and still watching the whole thing like it's on TV, it's all small doses, and you get off on his cruelty, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes fully consciously.
And on that note, there is a whole masochistic thrill, of the "A Child Is Being Beaten" kind (Freud). The glee a child feels when another one is being punished, around the corner. The whole "enjoy your life and we will punish the other for you" is appealing to this basic basic psychic layer.
So to recap: it's fascinating snippets, and glimpses of stimulating punishment.
The truly demonic aspect is that these feelings have been marshaled forever in the service of enslavement and white supremacy, along with misogyny. This is some tired, deep old shit he's playing with here. The bargain basement bottom of the life toilet bowl of white western humanity.
I'm going to watch The Apprentice now. I'll let you know what I see.
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