David Brooks: Donald Trump’s Sad, Lonely Life

[babylonsister]

Pardon me if I can't muster up a lot of sympathy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/opinion/donald-trumps-sad-lonely-life.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0


Donald Trump’s Sad, Lonely Life
David Brooks OCT. 11, 2016

Donald Trump on his private plane. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times


snip//

Hillary Clinton, not exactly a paragon of intimacy, behaved in the normal manner on Sunday night. But Donald Trump did not. Trump treated his questioners as unrelatable automatons and delivered his answers to the void, even when he had the chance to seem sympathetic to an appealing young Islamic woman.

That underlines the essential loneliness of Donald Trump.

Politics is an effort to make human connection, but Trump seems incapable of that. He is essentially adviser-less, friendless. His campaign team is made up of cold mercenaries at best and Roger Ailes at worst. His party treats him as a stench it can’t yet remove.

He was a germophobe through most of his life and cut off contact with others, and now I just picture him alone in the middle of the night, tweeting out hatred.

Trump breaks his own world record for being appalling on a weekly basis, but as the campaign sinks to new low after new low, I find myself experiencing feelings of deep sadness and pity.

Imagine if you had to go through a single day without sharing kind little moments with strangers and friends.

Imagine if you had to endure a single week in a hate-filled world, crowded with enemies of your own making, the object of disgust and derision.

You would be a twisted, tortured shrivel, too, and maybe you’d lash out and try to take cruel revenge on the universe. For Trump this is his whole life.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/opinion/donald-trumps-sad-lonely-life.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. And yet, turds of a feather flock together.

[enough]

2. All true, so the question is, why do so many people follow him? (nt)

[Siwsan]

3. "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and to lose his soul?"

Matthew 16:26 (or there abouts) I'm not much for quoting the Bible, but this little gem absolutely sprang out of the recesses of my memory bank.

[babylonsister]

7. I wonder if he ever had a soul?

What kind of upbringing must someone have to turn out the way he did? And I do wonder if he knows how reviled he is? Most normal people would care.

[Siwsan]

8. His older brother died an alcoholic but his older sister is a Circuit Court Judge

Another sister is a retired bank executive. His younger brother kind of disappeared from the 'social scene' when he dumped his wife of 25 years for his secretary.

I'd call it a mixed bag bag but I'm guessing that he is the most like his father.

[Daemonaquila]

4. *eyeroll*

He broke his life. He bought it.

You know who's worth some pity? The Taj workers and the thousands of others he has put out of a job. The small business owners who are up nights worrying and putting their lives back together because of him. The women he has abused.

Fuck him. Oh, and do check out photo after photo. He's quite happy. Or what passes for it. Millions of bucks buy a lot of cars, golf games, and portraits of himself. No sympathy.

[livetohike]

5. Poor miserable Trump. Proof that money can't buy you love.

Hard to muster sympathy for him and I am an empathetic person. It's going to be ugly when he loses (for him).

[Old and In the Way]

6. Richard Corey

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

[Brother Buzz]

10. Paul Simon added a little texture and essentially painted an image of Trump's base

"Richard Cory"

They say that Richard Cory owns one half of this whole town,
With political connections to spread his wealth around.
Born into society, a banker's only child,
He had everything a man could want: power, grace, and style.

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I'm living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.

The papers print his picture almost everywhere he goes:
Richard Cory at the opera, Richard Cory at a show.
And the rumor of his parties and the orgies on his yacht!
Oh, he surely must be happy with everything he's got.

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I'm living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.

He freely gave to charity, he had the common touch,
And they were grateful for his patronage and thanked him very much,
So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read:
"Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head."

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I'm living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.

[JHB]

9. Does it end with...

...and because I have spent my career paving the path for this small, sad man to be in the position he is in today, effective immediately I am resigning from the Times, donating all my possessions to charity (a real one), and removing myself entirely public life to finally do something productive."

[babylonsister]

11. Hahaha!

Quite an imagination you have there!

[Paladin]

12. Boo-hoo's and sympathy for Trump? Really?

David Brooks reminds me of Trump in one important respect: You think he's hit bottom and can't possibly go any lower, and he invariably proves you wrong.