David Brooks: When the World Is Led by a Child
Ouch! That's going to leave a mark...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/opinion/trump-classified-data.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Columnist
When the World Is Led by a Child
David Brooks
MAY 15, 2017
At certain times Donald Trump has seemed like a budding authoritarian, a corrupt Nixon, a rabble-rousing populist or a big business corporatist.
But as Trump has settled into his White House role, he has given a series of long interviews, and when you study the transcripts it becomes clear that fundamentally he is none of these things.
At base, Trump is an infantalist. There are three tasks that most mature adults have sort of figured out by the time they hit 25. Trump has mastered none of them. Immaturity is becoming the dominant note of his presidency, lack of self-control his leitmotif.
First, most adults have learned to sit still. But mentally, Trump is still a 7-year-old boy who is bouncing around the classroom. Trump’s answers in these interviews are not very long — 200 words at the high end — but he will typically flit through four or five topics before ending up with how unfair the press is to him.
His inability to focus his attention makes it hard for him to learn and master facts. He is ill informed about his own policies and tramples his own talking points. It makes it hard to control his mouth. On an impulse, he will promise a tax reform when his staff has done little of the actual work.
Second, most people of drinking age have achieved some accurate sense of themselves, some internal criteria to measure their own merits and demerits. But Trump seems to need perpetual outside approval to stabilize his sense of self, so he is perpetually desperate for approval, telling heroic fabulist tales about himself.
more...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/opinion/trump-classified-data.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0
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I've thought this for months. This quote:"We’ve got this perverse situation in which the vast analytic powers of the entire world are being spent trying to understand a guy whose thoughts are often just six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar." 
My favorite comment, from "Alec from Providence": in my wildest dreams, I never imagined I'd feel some hint of warmth for Trump. But as this last week has unfolded, I noticed a surprising feeling rising in me: pity. His impulsive firing of Comey, his flailing, bizarre interviews, his treasonous misstatement—they have exposed him not as a devious wanna-be tyrant but as child in way over his head. A toddler put at the controls of a 747—randomly pushing buttons, furious that he can't get it to do what he wants.
It feels so strange to say it, but I actually feel bad for the man. Of course, I feel a heck of a lot worse for us.
. . . . you've gone FULL fuck-up.
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