Somewhere in the New Yorker, the issue where 16 writers wrote about the tragedy of the 2016 election, someone pointed out that Trump is a "performance artist." This seems so true to me. And if you look at him through that lens, everything starts to make more sense.
Everything he does is guided by his need for attention. What he says, what he does, is only performance, an acting out. He does it in real time, no filter. People find this compelling, interesting. Many people can't wait to see and hear what the man will do next. It is all performance art as sickness.
What he says has no meaning, no purpose, no staying power - except as an acting out, a cry for attention. So truth or lie has no meaning. Words are only tools for attention. So yes, lots of provocative, stupid, ignorant, repulsive, retrograde, bigoted, racist, misogynist bile comes out of the man's mouth, but these words are only vehicles for attention.
It's all just "look at me!" So yes, sort of compelling, kind of like watching a car crash is sort of compelling, horrifying too. Still, you wouldn't want this type of person as a father, husband, boss, or President. It's a strange quirk in our system/culture, that such a clearly wounded, sick, narcissistic person could find any position of power in society.
Trump has a Twitter account, (I am not going to link to it, find it yourself, if you dare!) with 16 million followers. This is where you can follow along with the thought-stream of the man. It's a strange place to be. Scary strange. Fact or fiction is not even a thing there. Whatever bubbles up from his lizard brain makes it into 140 character tweets.
Yesterday Trump got on an unhinged rant about the recount of Wisconsin and (hopefully) of Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump is obviously unhappy that he is the All-Time Biggest Popular Vote Loser in American History. So he's lying about it!
Now I find this pretty damn interesting. Trump is saying that millions of people voted illegally! If that's true (he's making it up), shouldn't we recount and audit all the election results? And he is implying that all the illegal votes were votes for Clinton. That's freaking crazy. I mean crack-cocaine-crazed-crazy. Doesn't a mature Democracy require that we all agree on a free and fair election? Isn't this really bad performance artist completely undermining his own win in the Electoral College? Is he saying that the 2016 Election is a Fraud?!
The man is undermining Democracy with every breath he takes. You wonder if the people will rise up soon. Could America be heading to it's own Tahir Square Moment? Scary thought...