This Venezuela deal is just the latest example: The president has marinated his brain in an insane fantasy that he is an effective leader. It would all be funny if we didn’t have to live through it.
And when you have almost half of America believing that shared delusion…
I’m not seeing a dramatic change from his first term, frankly. (Not in him personally. The huge cadre of evil un-American trolls in his administration is indeed a big difference.)
His beliefs are lightly held, strategic choices of self-motivation and self-mythology. He announces a thing, or professes belief in a thing, as a first step toward manifesting that thing. He always has. It fails most of the time, but he has no other way of relating to the world around him. If that’s delusion, he’s been deluded his whole adult life.
I’m not seeing a dramatic change from his first term, frankly. (Not in him personally. The huge cadre of evil un-American trolls in his administration is indeed a big difference.)
His beliefs are lightly held, strategic choices of self-motivation and self-mythology. He announces a thing, or professes belief in a thing, as a first step toward manifesting that thing. He always has. It fails most of the time, but he has no other way of relating to the world around him. If that’s delusion, he’s been deluded his whole adult life.