Donald Trump's syndrome

Two days ago an anonymous commenter accused me of biasing my opinion of Donald Trump for political reasons. He said: 

Trump is a sociopath. No disguise can hides pathology. The fact that you do not recognize Trump as a sociopath illustrates your own political bias. Trump is also dumb. 

I replied: 

I'm going to write a post about this at some point. I agree that Trump isn't all that smart. But if he were a sociopath, he'd be better at hiding his narcissism, and his ugly side. And he'd lie about who he is, which he really doesn't. His attitude is more like, here I am, warts and all, and if you don't like it, fuck you. That's not how most sociopaths come across. Most of them, especially the ones in politics, pretend to be caring, and giving, and noble, and dignified. Trump doesn't bother with any of those things. He's an extreme narcissist. But that's not the same thing as being a sociopath. 

BTW. I'm not averse to pointing out Republicans as sociopaths when I see them. I've written about Newt Gingrich, Joe Arpaio, and Carly Fiorina in that regard. 

The two sociopath alerts about Gingrich are here and here. Nor is there any denying the sociopathy of either Arpaio and Fiorina. And here's a sociopath alert about Christine O'Donnell, the Republican candidate for US Senator from Delaware in 2010. 

I haven't been averse to criticizing Trump. I put him in a machismo contest with el Chapo and also compared him to Goldfinger. I suggested he try a little self-deprecating humor (and suggested he might choke to death on such). I wrote here about how being a billionaire has made Trump think he's better-looking, funnier, and smarter than he actually is. 

But the essence of sociopathy is to lie about who you are, do a lot of moral posturing, and in general put on a big act, and Trump simply doesn't do those things. 

One of the clearest examples of how virtue signaling works outside politics is in prison pen pal ads. Look at enough of these things, as I have, and you'll see a very clear correlation: the worse the criminal, the more they wax on about what kindhearted people they are.

Most of the inmates who are convicted of things like DUI or possession will advertise their sexiness, or talk about how they like long walks on the beach, or some such tripe. But they generally don't claim moral superiority.

The ads from Death Row inmates tend to have a completely different tone. If you take them at their word, there has never been group of more decent, humane, caring, loving people.

Spencer Brasure died last week of natural causes. Here's an excerpt from his ad, in which he describes himself as a "God-loving father of one" trying to organize "global opposition to capital punishment." (Brasure burned his victim's face with a torch, stapled wood to his head, broke glass in his mouth, and then doused him with gasoline and burned him to death.)

Or listen to David Berkowitz (the "Son of Sam") talk about what a wonderful, altruistic man he has become.

Here's an excerpt from Franklin Lynch's pen pal ad, emphasizing his sincerity and spritiuality. (He was known as the "Day Stalker," known for beating old ladies to death.)

The lesson to be learned is that the less virtue someone has, the more they feel obliged to signal such. The same rules of human nature which apply to inmates apply equally well to Hollywood stars. (It always seems to be the most egregious environmental sinners who lecture us most self-righteously about climate change.) And these rules apply to politicians as well.

Think of Bill Clinton, whom even Democrats don't bother to defend any more, telling us how he feels our pain. Think of him laughing and joking at Ron Brown's funeral, but then, once he sees a camera on him, pretending to wipe away a tear.  Everything with Clinton was a pose, as the photographs here and here illustrate.

Think of Wendy Davis saying, "I love this state," or pretending to love animals.

Think of Barack Obama saying that he's answerable only to "the steady gaze of my own conscience." Or claiming that he "chose" heterosexuality over homosexuality because "a same sex relationship would be less challenging and demanding than developing one with the opposite sex."

Think of Newt Gingrich explaining his extramarital affair by saying, "There's no question at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate."

Or Christine O'Donnell advocating against masturbation. (How pure she must be to abjure even that!)

These are the types of poses sociopaths strike. They want to be seen as saints, even though (or perhaps because) they are the opposite.

Trump doesn't bother with any of that. He doesn't pretend to be anything other than what he is: a vulgar, crass, insensitive, boastful, spiteful businessman.

That's narcissism, not sociopathy.

I've known both narcissistic personalities and sociopaths personally. I've ended up disliking some of the narcissists even more than I did some of the sociopaths.

Narcissists think the world of themselves, and disparage anyone who doesn't agree with their inflated self-opinion. Narcissists tend to be upfront about their egotism, and often seem to have absolutely no filter -- like Trump.

The sociopaths I've known have been far more conniving. They sometimes bragged, but more often would put on a pretense of modesty and self-effacement. Many of the sociopaths also had a great deal of personal charm, at least at first; the narcissists generally had none. Look up the definition of "sociopath" in any psychology textbook, and you'll see "personal charm" listed among their traits.

Do you find Trump charming?

I don't know anyone who does, even among his supporters. (Some people find him funny, but no one is really charmed by him.) As I've said many times on this blog, if I knew him personally I'm sure I would end up despising him. He's a walking, talking, billowing cloud of bombast and unabashed egotism.

But the one thing he doesn't do is pretend to be nicer than he is. He doesn't blather on about his conscience, or how he cares about others, or his niceness, or his love of animals.

So I don't think Trump is a sociopath, as personally off-putting as he is. I could be wrong. And yes, I do support him politically. But I think I'm open-minded enough to see it if he were one.

When Trump insulted Carly Fiorina's looks, most people probably thought, what kind of comment is that for a presidential contender to be making? Others thought, that soft-looking fatso ought not to be criticizing anyone's looks. (I thought both things.)

When Trump said General Mattis wasn't "tough enough" to be Secretary of Defense, most probably reacted by thinking, General Mattis has seen combat, while Trump got a draft deferment by claiming bone spurs. What a hypocrite Trump is! (That's how I reacted.)

When Trump gets into spats with various reporters or show business types, most people react by thinking, why can't he just ignore them? (That's how I react.)

When Trump said he was a "stable genius," most people thought, what an egotistical buffoon! He's constantly flying off the handle, and he's hardly a genius! (I honestly didn't react that way. I just thought, well, he is stable in the sense that his personality never changes -- you can always count on him to lash back when someone criticizes him. And while he probably doesn't have a high IQ by any standardized measure, he's been extremely successful, so who cares if I had higher GMATs or can fill out a Sunday Times crossword better? I'm a nobody, and he's a billionaire who's a historical figure.)

And when Trump says all these things, a lot of people also react by thinking, how can he be so stupid as to not realize he'll just alienate people by saying that? (Which is how I react.)

In any case, there are a long list of hypocritical, self-serving things he's said which have turned people off, and understandably so.

If you've ever known a narcissist personally, you've undoubtedly found him infuriating. He will consistently overrate himself, in every possible way. He even seems to think himself better than you at things where you're objectively, measurably better. In the long run, it's impossible not to end up despising someone like this.

It's often hard to see the dividing line between sociopaths and narcissists, especially since all sociopaths are by definition narcissists as well. (Sociopaths are a relatively small subset of narcissists.) The crucial difference seems to be that sociopaths will do absolutely anything to achieve their ends, whereas narcissists will draw the line somewhere.

What makes that difference even more difficult to see is that sociopaths are far more likely to purposely lie about their character, whereas the merely narcissistic don't. So if you're inclined to take people at their word, the sociopaths may actually seem nicer, at least at first.

With Trump, it's even harder to see, since he's such an extreme narcissist.

The criticism I got from the commenter quoted at the beginning of this post reminded me of a similar criticism I got after my post about how steroids shape the body. In the course of the article, I mentioned two British swimmers and a Brazilian swimmer I suspect of juicing, and also said that I thought the vast majority of recent champions -- Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Sarah Sjostrom, and Katie Ledecky -- were clean. I was then accused of having a pro-American bias (even though Sjostrom is Swedish). In response, I pointed out that I'd written previously about Dara Torres, Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, and Michael Johnson, and had said about all of them that I'd thought they were juicers. 

Whenever I'm accused of bias, it occurs to me that my accuser is probably guilty of a similar bias going in the other direction. It's a fairly safe assumption that the commenter who accused me of having a pro-American bias (and who used the screen name "Slaying dumb Americans like Trump") himself has an anti-American bias. 

I'm also guessing that the commenter after the previous post about Elizabeth Warren has a pro-Democrat, anti-Republican bias.

Sociopath alert: Elizabeth Warren

When Elizabeth Warren's claims of Indian ancestry first became public in 2012, I found her subterfuge funny -- if mildly despicable -- and even wrote two posts to that effect, here and here. At the time, I figured it was it was just a one off, a single fib that she had felt obliged to defend, and which then took on an embarrassing life of its own. 

At the time it didn't occur to me that Warren might be a sociopath because she seems such an unlikely one: her cherubic cheeks, tremulous voice, and slight build are the opposite of threatening. But I shouldn't have been swayed by such superficialities. 

Sociopaths come in all sorts of guises, even genteel lady academic.

Since 2012, Warren's behavior and character have become more public. A closer look at her overall slipperiness shows that her most famous lie wasn't an anomaly, but part of a pattern.

Most people, when caught in a lie, are, at the very least, a little embarrassed. Not Warren. Rather than admit to her most famous lie, just kept brazenly going with it. She commissioned a DNA test (not from an established DNA service but from a friendly colleague). When it revealed that she was somewhere between 1/256th and 1/1024th Native American, she insisted this proved her right. 

Those tiny fractions might make an interesting tidbit for a cocktail party conversation; they certainly don't justify categorizing oneself as Native American. But Warren had actually listed herself that way during her stints at both Penn and Harvard law schools. (Harvard Law School actually advertised her as their first tenured "woman of color" on their faculty during the 1990's, an era in which the school was under pressure for not having a more diverse faculty.)

Warren claimed that her academic career had never benefitted at all from her having claimed minority status. (But why else would she have done it?) 

She got a number of people from Harvard and Penn to back up her claim that she hadn't been an affirmative action hire. But what academic in his right mind would ever publicly admit that a certain professor wouldn't have been hired if he hadn't been a minority? Any university spokesman knows such honesty would result in instant termination. (Warren obviously counted on this.)

It also turned out that Warren had contributed two recipes to a "Pow Wow Chow" Indian cookbook. She claimed that these recipes, one of which included crab with tomato mayonnaise dressing, had been in her family for generations. But then it was discovered that she had stolen these recipes from French chef Pierre Franey.

When Trump mocked Warren's dishonesty by referring to her as Pocohontas, she responded by saying that Trump was using a racial slur and insulting all Native Americans. But this was obviously not the case: he was merely mocking her for claiming to be something she is not. Twisting the truth this way is a sociopathic specialty.

Warren also said that Trump "likes to call my mother a liar." But Trump has never referred to Warren's mother: he simply calls Warren a liar. (Warren's mother never gained professional advantage by claiming to be Native American.) But Warren knows that she will come across as if she is nobly defending her family (and motherhood) by phrasing it that way. Again, twisting the truth.

Warren's "apology" for her big lie was a masterpiece of obfuscation: "I'm not a tribal citizen. My apology is an apology for not having been more sensitive about tribal citizenship and tribal sovereignty. I really want to underline the point, tribes and only tribes determine tribal citizenship." 

In other words, by claiming to be Native American, she didn't actually lie -- you see, it was just a little matter of misinterpretation, of emphasis, of sensitivity, of semantics. That's all.

This is the kind of word-parsing that's reminiscent of Bill Clinton's lawyerly evasions about what the meaning of "is" is. Or of Wendy Davis saying "My language should be tighter. I'm learning about using broader, looser language. I need to be more focused on the detail."

Sociopaths almost never admit to dishonesty; they just try to wriggle out on technicalities.

More recently it emerged that Warren's claims of having been fired from her first teaching job because she was pregnant were untrue. 

Warren has campaigned against school vouchers and against charter schools. Three weeks ago in Atlanta a woman said to Warren that she wanted her children to have the option of where to go to schools, just as Warren's had. Warren replied, "My children went to public schools." 

Technically, that's true: her daughter attended public schools, and her son attended public school through junior high. But after that, he was sent to a private school which cost $17,000 a year. So Warren's reply was disingenuous, at best. 

When Warren announced her candidacy from her kitchen, she said, "I'm gonna get me a beer" and then drank it from the bottle to show she's just a regular down home gal. But she's about as much of a regular gal as she is an Indian. 

You can say that a certain amount of posturing is unavoidable with a political candidacy. After all, kissing babies and trying different cuisines has long been a staple of campaigns. And getting elected usually requires pandering to different constituencies. But pretending to be something you're not is the essence of sociopathy.

And that seems to be second nature with Warren.

Warren was a Republican until she was 47. There's nothing wrong with that; people are allowed to change their minds. But her justifications for her switch simply don't ring true. She says now that she used to be a Republican because they seemed to be the party which supported the markets, but that she no longer thinks so. But Republicans are still more supportive of markets; in fact, they are still frequently criticized for being supportive of the financial asset-owning classes at the expense of the poor. Warren's reason for switching parties is simply not credible. 

Look at this picture of Warren closely. What you see is not an expression of sympathy, but rather an attempt to mimic one. 

The only genuine emotion showing on Warren's face is the pride she feels for looking so "sympathetic." One of the hallmarks of sociopathy is a fake emotionality.

I find it impossible to imagine Warren feeling embarrassed, or ashamed, or guilty because of her lies. If she were capable of those emotions, she wouldn't continue to lie the way she does. And that is the essence of sociopathy. 

Verdict: a well-disguised sociopath.

The statesman

Joe Biden has gotten some bad publicity the past couple days for his peculiarly Bidenesque response to the question of how he would handle the problem of violence against women.

From the NY Post:

"No man has a right to raise a hand to a woman in anger, other than self-defense and that rarely ever occurs," he said. So we have to just change the culture. Period."

Then he maybe took it too far, adding, "And keep punching at it and punching at it and punching at it," making matching punching motions with his fist. 

This got me to thinking, how would I handle that problem?

After some extensive soul searching, I finally hit upon the perfect solution. I would change the culture by slapping it around a little, then ripping off its clothes and raping it.

(Honestly, there's something almost endearing about Biden's awkwardness.)

The people who hate Trump the most

One strong correlation that's become increasingly apparent over the past few years is that the most rabid Trump-haters tend to be those who are in fact most like him, character-wise: narcissistic personalities.

I'm not talking about those who simply dislike Trump. A lot of people, even his political supporters, fall into that category.

I'm talking about the people who cannot talk about him without almost frothing at the mouth.

Psychologists always say that what people hate most is what they dislike about themselves. It's why stupid people always castigate others for being dumb, why habitual liars always suspect others of dishonesty, and why those who lecture others about global warming are usually the biggest environmental sinners themselves.

In that sense, Trump is a Rorschach test.

Eric Schneiderman used to be one of the most prominent Trump haters. As New York State Attorney General, instead of ferreting out corruption in Albany, he focused his energy on attacking Trump. He brought suit against Trump University, sued to force the release of Trump's tax returns, and, along with several other attorneys general, sued to prevent Trump's Muslim immigration ban.

When the initial allegations against Harvey Weinstein first broke, Schneiderman, a vocal supporter of the #MeToo movement, said, “We have never seen anything as despicable as what we’ve seen right here.”

Schneiderman, of course, was forced to resign after it emerged that he had physically abused at least four former girlfriends, slapping several of them hard across the face, and calling one of them his "little brown slave." 

The interesting question is, how self-righteous Schneiderman felt about his virulent hatred of Trump (and Weinstein). Did he see himself as a knight in shining armor fighting the good fight against the twin scourges of racism and sexism? Did he see himself as one of the good people, trying to fend off the evil that Trump represented?

Narcissistic personalities are capable of that kind of hypocrisy.

When Harvey Weinstein initially defended himself by saying he was "just an old dinosaur" who had come of age during the "free love era," he also suggested that his critics focus on fighting "the real enemy, Donald Trump." 

Did he see himself, perhaps, as Brad Pitt fighting the Nazis in Inglourious Basterds? As Frodo trying to save the world from the evil Sauron? As Nelson Mandela fighting for justice and equality in Long Walk to Freedom?

Weinstein, as I explained here, is a sociopath. And all sociopaths are, by definition, also narcissistic personalties.

Think of some of the politicians who are the most virulently anti-Trump: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and Jerrold Nadler. 

Think of some of the biggest Trump-haters in the media and in show business: Michael Moore, Jim Carrey, Madonna, Lena Dunham, Joy Behar, Alyssa Milano, George Clooney, Chelsea Handler, Miley Cyrus, Debra Messing, and Alec Baldwin.

Judge for yourself whether each of these people are narcissistic personalities.

Think of the most rabid Trump-haters you know. Are they not narcissistic personalities themselves?

Not recognizing people of other races

I recently had an argument with a former classmate about people who have a hard time telling members of other races apart. (Specifically, the subject was whites who don't recognize Asians.) This woman is white but grew up in Japan, and was offended that whites might not recognize individual Japanese.

She seemed to feel that those who had a hard time telling members of other races apart were somehow morally wanting.

Speaking as a half-Asian, I understand why some whites, especially those who've had limited contact with Asians, can't tell them apart. Whites come in a wider variety of obvious physical differences, like hair color, facial shape, nose structure, height, build, etc. Asians exhibit less variety in all those traits, so if you're not used to them, it would only be natural to have difficulty telling them apart. 

My mother found it extremely annoying when a local white woman once mistook her for the woman at the dry cleaning shop (decades ago). I certainly understand why my mother was insulted, but I don't really blame the white woman. 

A young black woman once told me she had a hard time telling the old white guys at her law firm apart, since they all dressed similarly and sort of looked the same, with their white hair and wrinkles. I can't blame her for that either. 

Nor do I blame whites for mistaking one black for another. I've seen this happen on a number of occasions, and it's always embarrassing, especially given the current social climate. But again, it's understandable. 

Blaming people for this is basically the same as blaming people for being dumb. 

And as the LGBTQ crowd always reminds us, it's unfair to blame people for something they can't help. 

Lesley Sharp, Joan Hickson

Scott & Bailey is a British police drama available on Amazon Prime. I told a friend the show was originated by a woman, written by two women, and produced by a woman. It stars two women as detectives, and their boss, the head detective, is also a woman.

He replied, ugh, it sounds terrible.

It's actually quite good; I watched several seasons. But that's not the point of this post. The point is, if you're going to have a lady detective, it's more important to have her look intelligent than to look pretty. This may not be true from a marketing standpoint, but it is from a realism standpoint.

Lesley Sharp, who plays the titular Detective Constable Janet Scott of the series, looks smart:

For all I know, Sharp is a moron. But her face reflects appraisal, skepticism, and maybe a little disappointment. (Precisely the qualities -- and emotions -- that one would hope for in a detective.)

She looks a little like a younger version of Joan Hickson, who played Miss Marple:

Joan Hickson usually wore a similar expression, and had the same intelligence in her eyes. (The correlation between skepticism and IQ has to be pretty high.) And both women act with the same calm demeanor that one associates with intelligence.

Both women have the same large-eyed, owlish gaze.

That got me to thinking, why are owls associated with intelligence? Are they that smart? But when I looked it up, it turns out that the reason is basically because Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, was usually depicted with an owl nearby, and that association has stuck.

Owls, unlike crows and parrots and pigeons, cannot be trained to do anything. (Keas, various species of parrots, and crows are generally considered the most intelligent birds.) But owls have large, observant eyes and intent expressions, so it's easy to see why the assumption is made:

This isn't to say they're not awesome birds of prey, particularly the great horned owl (pictured above).

But whether or not they are, owls look smart -- like Lesley Sharp and Joan Hickson.

I've no idea whether or not Sharp and Hickson actually are/were smart. But I find them far more palatable in their roles as lady sleuths than I would have some sexy babe.

Saying the wrong thing: a brief autobiography

The difference between the higher- and lower-IQed is that the higher are generally capable of seeing patterns more clearly, and grasping more complicated concepts.

It's not that they don't do as many stupid things.

I'm a case in point. I was told when young that I had a high IQ, but over the course of my lifetime, that doesn't seem to have cut down the number of dumb things I've said in the least. (In all honesty, it may have increased the number.)

I probably say more awkward and social inappropriate things than an 85 IQer. (This is not false modesty.) These faux pas fall into three major categories.

The first stems from a lifelong desire not to be boring. (I can't bear the company of the boring, and am well aware that others can find me so.)  But if I try too hard to be amusing, or say the unexpected,  I often lose sight of social propriety. (Which, frankly, I've probably done with this blog.)

The second category has to do with wanting to prove my masculinity, or my nerve. Even worse, in order to keep up that somewhat hollow macho front, I'll sometimes feel compelled to do something foolish. I don't even need someone else to manipulate me by challenging my masculinity, I do it to myself.

The final reason is just my blunt nature. I wouldn't ask someone if a certain pair of pants made me look fat unless I wanted an honest answer -- so I assume others do, too. Most people, of course, know better.

Little white lies: at 65, I'm still gettin' the hang of 'em.

Those three reasons probably account for maybe 75% of all the dumb things I say. The other roughly 25% are simply mistakes, usually just sloppy errors.

I usually know I've said something stupid the moment it's out of my mouth. Still, that's a second or two too late.

You'd think I'd learn from my errors. But somehow, I don't. (And how dumb is that?)

I suppose the biggest conclusion to be drawn here is that you should never, ever say anything in an effort to prove you're not boring, or are macho. And, tact is always a plus.

I don't think I'm alone. I've seen many smart people make unforced errors, if not quite as frequently as me. (I hope for their sake that they don't spend their lives the way I do, reliving their worst moments.)

There's not a day I don't do that. And that may may be the stupidest thing of all.

Looking at this post the next day, I see it's worse than introspective: it's navel gazing about my navel gazing.

The CEO

The extent to which Trump views himself as the CEO of America became even clearer recently, when he offered to buy Greenland from the Danes.

That's what CEOs do, make acquisitions.

They negotiate, as Trump is doing with the Chinese.

And they try to get their partners in joint ventures to pay a larger share of the expenses, as Trump is doing with the other members of NATO. (CEOs hate being taken advantage of.)

So far, at least, Trump has avoided the needless expense of another war.

CEOs have a tendency to frequently look at how their stock is doing, since this is usually a fair barometer of their own performance. In Trump's case, his "stocks" are the Dow, the NASDAQ, and the S&P 500.

And CEOs hire and fire people at will. (Trump doesn't seem to be one of those CEOs who feel obliged to give their departing minions flattering letters of recommendation.)

When you think about it, all of this is only natural. Trump has spent his life as a CEO, so sees our country as America, Inc.

Obama, whose previous experience involved doling out money from the Annenberg Foundation, saw our country as a big foundation, with largesse to be distributed among his favored groups. He had also worked as a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, and at times, seemed to regard his Presidency as one big "teachable moment."

If we had elected, say, Bill Belichick as President, he'd have seen the country as a larger version of the New England Patriots. He'd have assembled his ideal team for the Cabinet and tried to come up with winning plays. America might have had to suffer through a Deflategate or two, but sometimes that's the price you pay to get a winning coach.

If we had elected Steven Spielberg, he'd have been a bit of a micro-manager, wanting to direct every last detail. Whether you'd have liked the resulting production would probably depend on whether you approve of the sometimes not-so-subtle messages in his actual movies. (Alternatively, we could have elected Clint Eastwood.)

Maybe we should have people from different professions rotating through the White House. Not only would it be more entertaining, but the diversity of viewpoints (real diversity) would be refreshing.

In the meantime, it's refreshing to have a guy who's negotiating on our behalf. Trump's arrogant CEO-like personality doesn't sit right even with a lot of his supporters, but at least he's on America's side. (Name another country whose prospective leaders campaign by promising to do the best they can for foreigners rather than the nation's citizens.)

Hillary's feelings about Elizabeth Warren

Musing about Rachel Dolezal's thoughts regarding Warren recently reminded me of the one person whose thoughts must be even more poisonous.

A little peek into Hillary's brain:

"It was bad enough when Obama beat me in '08 by parlaying his racial background into the Presidency. But Elizabeth Warren? That would be too much to take."

"I was supposed to be the first woman President! Much as I despise Trump, it'd be even worse if that bitch gets to sit in the Oval Office. If I have to abide this phony dime store Indian taking my place I'll fucking explode."

"How can I undermine her? I think I'll mention the Indian thing every chance I get, you know, just obliquely. Maybe I'll say something like, she'll be great for the downtrodden, for blacks and Native Americans. You know, just sort of inject a subtle reminder. Or I could say, well, at least she didn't benefit from white privilege the way most of the other candidates did. Maybe I'll drop the fact that she was a Republican until she was 47."

"Her husband's a complete nobody. Has anybody ever heard of Bruce Mann? I had to put up with Bill, and let me tell you, most women wouldn't be able to deal with that crap."

"Listen to her talk about her family recipe for Pow Wow Chow, like she's some little housewife who enjoys nothing more than staying at home to bake cookies. What a complete fraud! I made it clear right from the start I was a new kind of woman, not some little Loretta Lynn stand-by-your man type."

"I had to dodge sniper fire in Bosnia; when did she ever do anything like that? I turned a thousand dollars into a hundred thousand in the cattle futures trading market. When has she ever done anything like that?"

"Can you believe the way she drank that beer from the bottle in her kitchen when she announced she was running, like she's just some regular gal? What a complete charlatan! I could drink that prissy little prig under the table any day."

The worst part will be if she's elected, when I have to pretend to be thrilled about it. As if I'm happy to finally see a woman as President even if it's not me. I don't think I'll be able to swallow my bile. It's going to take all my will power not to just shoot her. It should have been me!!"

Fredo's tantrum

This post is a couple days late, especially since most people who follow current events are totally consumed with the Epstein situation. But if you can remember back a couple days....

You undoubtedly heard about Chris Cuomo's reaction to having been called Fredo. It sounded like 'roid rage; turns out, it looks like 'roid rage as well:

The above picture is from Reddit, and was posted by someone who had similar suspicions about him juicing five months ago.

During his outburst, Cuomo claimed that "Fredo" was an insult against all Italian-Americans, and likened it to the n-word. That's ridiculous: anyone who's ever seen The Godfather knows it's merely a reference to a weak, dumb brother.

Chris may be neither as smart nor as sly as his Machiavellian brother, Governor Andrew, which is why being called Fredo struck such a nerve. But with those store-bought muscles, at least he's stronger.

Rachel Dolezal's thoughts

It's early in the game, but it looks increasingly as if Joe Biden is going to gaffe himself into irrelevancy. And no one seems to be excited about him to begin with anyway. Which means the candidate currently running second in the polls, Elizabeth Warren, may actually get the nomination.

You have to wonder what Rachel Dolezal thinks about this. She must be shaking her head, wondering where she went wrong.

A few guesses as to Dolezal's thoughts:

"What kind of double standard is this? I practically got crucified and they may actually nominate that lame ass bitch for President!"

"She didn't even have to go through the kind of childhood I did after my parents adopted those four black children. It wasn't easy having to compete for my parents' love!"

"And I don't think there was even any love there to begin with! After all, they're the assholes who turned me in! That self-righteous little prig Elizabeth Warren didn't have any of her relatives rat her out!"

"That bogus Pow Wow Chow recipe, which that phony said had been handed down through the generations in her family, turned out to be completely plagiarized! That sure casts doubt on that bullshit about that great-great-grandsquaw of hers! I know I can make okra and cornbread and collard greens way better than that bitch could ever make Pow Wow Chow!"

"And then she has the nerve to talk about where her high cheekbones came from! That shrew doesn't even have high cheekbones, she has fat cheeks like a goddamn squirrel!"

"I tried so much harder: I dyed and curled my hair, darkened my skin, and was always careful to apply the lipstick generously. I even married a brother to keep it real! That goodie two shoes didn't do shit, she even went the other way, from brunette to blonde, and still expected people to believe her lily white ass. Why did I have to go to all that effort for nothing? It's not fair!!"

"Why aren't I running for President? Someone please let the Democratic Party know I'm available. I'm tired of working as a hairdresser!"

"Hmm.....Maybe she'll pick me as her Vice Presidential candidate. We'd certainly make a good pair!"

More epitaphs

Back in April '10, I posted a few suggestions for what should be on my gravestone. I recently had a few more thoughts:

"Help! Get me out of here!"

"No urinating allowed."

"Honestly, of all the things I thought I might become, a corpse was not among them."

"Like you, I once thought I'd never die."

"Attractive women have my permission to dig me up and have sex with me. I promise not to tell!"

Filial Respect Part XIII

Somehow the subject turned to half-breeds the other night, and I said, "That's why I'm so strong. I have hybrid vigor."

My son replied, "That's just more liberal bullshit. Anyway, with you it's more like someone took a random pile of Ford parts and Toyota parts and tried to mash them together and make it look like a car. It doesn't look right, and it also doesn't work."

How I fell in love with Patti Lupone....

.....by listening to Madonna.

I was at the local library's book sale the other weekend, and (hurriedly, since the sale was about to close) picked up a bunch of CD's to listen to in the car. Among them was the soundtrack to Evita. I used to enjoy my Evita cassette; but try finding a cassette player these days.

Later, upon closer examination, I found I'd picked up the soundtrack to the movie version, which featured Madonna. Having gotten used to the Lupone version, the CD was frustrating to listen to: Madonna could reach neither the high notes nor the low ones, and she doesn't have the powerful voice called for in this role.

I'd heard in the past that Madonna was actually not a particularly good singer. I'd never listened to her much, so had no opinion on that. But this apples to apples comparison made me appreciate how great Lupone had been.

When I used to listen to Evita, I mostly marveled at the genius of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the cleverness of lyricist Tim Rice. I had just taken Lupone (and Mandy Patinkin) for granted.

No more.

Later that evening I told my son, also an Evita fan, that the movie soundtrack (which also featured Antonio Banderas) was about halfway from that of Lupone and Patinkin to someone just reciting the lyrics.

He said, "You idiot, you always have to get the OBC."

"What's that?"

He said, "The original Broadway cast version. You didn't know that? You sound like some stupid hetero."

Lupone doesn't quite have Shirley Bassey's power and brass, but she can hit the high notes in a way Bassey couldn't, which makes her, in her own way, just as great.

Observe a sociopath in action......

....by watching this interview of Jussie Smollett by Robin Roberts on Good Morning America from a week ago (before the information on his two Nigerian accomplices surfaced). You needn't watch the entire sixteen minutes to get a sense of how sociopaths operate.

Note how heartfelt Smollett's delivery comes across. There's absolutely no sheepishness or furtiveness on his face, and no catch in his voice to betray him.

Note how reasonable and calm he appears.

Note how he characterizes his doubters as "offensive," and "unfair." (There's no better way to put your opponents on defense these days than to claim "offense.")

And listen to Smollett's noble words: "We have the right and responsibility to make something meaningful out of the things that happen to us, good and bad.....I just want members of the LGBTQ community, I just want young black children to know, how strong that they are." (See? He doesn't care about himself, he only wants to do right by the downtrodden!)

Note the tremulous passion in his voice as he says these things.

Note how the tears come to his eyes as he recounts the attack. What a traumatic memory that must be for him! (Sociopaths can summon tears at will, as we have seen here and here.)

Note how gentle he seems. (No wonder Kamala Harris described him that way!)

It's enough to make you want to stand up and chant, "Justice for Jussie!"

That is, if you can suspend your disbelief -- which a number of Presidential candidates were apparently willing and able to do.

One of the giveaways to Smollett's dishonesty is that he repeatedly prefaces his statements with the word "honestly." And at one point, he refers to his doubters as having made "false, inaccurate" statements (one of those words would have sufficed), demonstrating typical sociopathic overuse of adjectives (and sometimes adverbs), as we saw here and here. 

Note how Smollett tells his doubters, "You don't even want to see the truth," though that advice would actually be better directed at his supporters.

And when Roberts asks him what people need to hear the most, Smollett replies, "I think what people need to hear is the truth. It's just the truth."

The gentleman doth protest too loudly.

Keep in mind, this isn't even a particularly intelligent sociopath. (If he were smarter, he would have come up with a more plausible story.) A smart one is more slippery, and gets further with his lies.

And a really clever one can even get elected President.

A modern day lynching

It's now all but certain that the attack on Empire actor Jussie Smollett two weeks ago in Chicago was nothing but another hate hoax. Although practically his entire walk that night was captured by security cameras, there is no footage of him being accosted.

It took place at 2AM, on a night when it was 6 degrees, a temperature which tends to inhibit outdoor criminal activity.

It seems highly unlikely that some hate-mongering white supremacist gay-bashers would actually recognize Jussie Smollett (who claimed they called him "that Empire f----t n----r"), in the middle of the night, when he's presumably bundled up to ward off the extreme cold.

Jussie Smollett himself still refuses to release his phone records from that night to the Chicago police.

The "noose" which was found tied around Smollett's neck was not tied in a hangman's knot, but rather the way a necktie is. (What self-respecting lynch mob would ever use a Windsor or four-in-one knot?)

And when Smollett, after his "ordeal," showed up at a friend's apartment, he still had the "noose" around his neck. (Wouldn't your instinct be to get that thing off you as soon as possible?)

Immediately following the reports of the attack, Presidential candidate Kamala Harris released a statement saying, "@Jussie Smollett is one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I know. I'm praying for his quick recovery. This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or the color of their skin. We must confront this hate."

Presidential candidate Cory Booker, our modern day Spartacus, released a similar statement: "The vicious attack on actor Jussie Smollett was an attempted modern-day lynching. I'm glad he's safe. To those in Congress who don't feel the urgency to pass our Anti-Lynching bill designating lynching as a federal hate crime – I urge you to pay attention."

Both candidates are undoubtedly regretting their hasty words. But both are correct, in a sense. What happened that night in Chicago was in fact a "modern day lynching": the kind that never took place.

Historically, lynchings are a blight on this country. Between 1882 and 1968, roughly 3500 blacks and 1300 whites were killed this way.

Now things are different. I don't have an exact number, but it does seem that a high percentage of the most dramatic instances of white-on-black "hate crimes" so breathlessly reported on by the media in fact turn out to be hoaxes.

The mainstream media, of course, splash the initial reports all over their front pages, but then, as they are debunked, are content to let these stories quietly die.

I've explained before how hate hoaxers have Munchausen's Syndrome, which is nothing more than an offshoot of sociopathy. Except that these days, instead of falsely claiming to be victims of cancer, that time-honored sociopathic scam, they choose to be victims of "hate crimes" instead. Gays will pretend to be victims of gay-bashing, and blacks will pretend to be victims of racially-motivated hate. (Jussie Smollett claimed to be a victim of both.)

The one thing that all of these "victims" have in common is that they're sociopaths. (No one else would even consider such a scam, let alone keeping it going with ongoing lies for as long as they can.)

Given which, Kamala Harris's description of Smollett as one of the "kindest" people she knows seems a severe misjudgment of character.

Such a mistake is forgivable: we all make them, especially with sociopaths. (At the time it just seemed surprising that Harris would know Smollett so well: do their social circles really overlap that much?)

We can hope that a President Harris would learn from her mistake and be a tad more circumspect about the next such "hate crime." Maybe she'll even acknowledge that black-on-white violence is far more prevalent than the reverse, despite what the media would have us believe.

But that seems unlikely.

And perhaps a President Booker might, along with his demand for an anti-lynching law, also consider a law against hate hoaxes, given how they stir up so much hate.

But that, too, seems unlikely.

And perhaps even the kind and gentle Jussie Smollett himself -- our modern-day Emmett Till -- will feel guilt-ridden about his hoax.

But, once a sociopath, always a sociopath.

But it's not just sociopaths. For the most part, no one ever changes.

So probably the stupidest mistake of all was for me to think I could ever sway anyone's thinking in the slightest by explaining the truth about these things.

Gays as signposts

A young man told me the other day that no nightclub is really worth going to unless the clientele is at least 10%, maybe 20%, gay guys.

He explained, "First of all, they attract a lot of young model-types who assume that wherever the gay guys are must be fashionable and trendy." 

"Second, they add a certain air of degeneracy that makes the club feel like Weimar Berlin or something." 

"And third, maybe best of all, they drive away the dumb frat boys and Wall Streeters who always ruin a club. All those guys ever want to do is impress their friends with how smart and cool and tough and good with women they are, and inevitably, they're none of those things."

Everything the young man said rang true.

I was never a nightclub denizen, but listening to the young man made me wish I had been. I was always a little too self-conscious to hang out in a place where every opening line, no matter how well-disguised, inevitably translates as "Wanna fuck?"

Maybe my problem was that I was never much of a drinker. Alcohol has been called a lot of things -- a scourge, an addiction, and a crutch, among others -- and it is all of those things. But in the short term, that crutch can do wonders for the self-confidence and nerve (the definitions of which, now that I think of it, have about a 90% overlap).

And who knows, with a drink or two in me, I might not have been as put off if one of those gay guys had made a pass at me.

If I'd been smart enough to choose the right nightclubs.