TRUMP AND NARCISSISM

          Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) involves a distorted self -image. It is considered a mental problem requiring psychiatric treatment. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, people with NPD have an excessive sense of self-importance, an intense preoccupation with themselves, and a lack of empathy for others. People often describe someone with NPD as cocky, manipulative, selfish, patronizing, arrogant, domineering, needing admiration, exploitative, and demanding.

          Citizens of the United States have a clear example of the narcissistic personality in the person of their President, Donald Trump. I believe that one example of Trump’s narcissism it his treatment of his wife. Most men entering a building will let their wives go ahead of them. Trump gets out of a car and walks ahead without waiting for his wife.

Former Director of the FBI, James Comey, argues that Trump does not make decisions on the basis of philosophical, religious, or logical considerations, but simply to assuage the deficiencies of his own character and emotional makeup. "His only reference point is internal -- 'what will bring me what I need, what will fill this hole in me -- get me the affirmation I crave' -- that is deeply concerning,"

        Professor Sander Thomaes, a developmental psychologist at Utrecht University, says of Donald Trump: "I often use him during my classes. My research is primarily focused on narcissism. There is no better example than Trump. He is a prototypical narcissist." Thomaes describes some characteristics of a classical narcissist;  grandiose self-image, a very inflated ego, continuous need for attention, a big urge to be admired, and if that admiration is lacking or the narcissist is criticized, which is even worse, he lashes out recklessly.

          How could so many people support such a narcissist? Psychologists say that Trump’s narcissism in actually one factor in his appeal to his supporters. In Psychology Today, Dr. Joseph Burgo writes that: “The rise of Donald Trump thus marks the fusion of populism and narcissism. In times of enormous demographic shift and economic uncertainty, populism exerts a strong appeal for the anxious voter. Populist messages rely on simplistic answers to complex problems and promote an us-versus-them warfare mentality. Like Mr. Trump, populists engaged in battle have traditionally ridiculed their opposition. In his narcissistic endeavor to prove himself a winner at the expense of all those ‘losers’, Trump relies on righteous indignation, blame, and contempt as weapons of war. Many disaffected voters are drawn to him precisely because of those traits and not in spite of them.”

There is, of course, considerable danger in having a narcissistic president. As a narcissist, Trump feels that he can rely entirely on his own judgment even though he is surrounded by highly educated experts on every subject. Trump seems to resent educated aides and cabinet members. He gets rid of them as soon as he can. He believes that he is the best judge of any issue coming before him. He got rid of his intellectual National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, for the obvious reason that McMaster, a PhD former General, was far more educated than his Boss. He got rid of Secretary of Defense, Rex Tillerson, who called him a “Moron.” He has canned other qualified aides for the same reason.

More than 60,000 mental health professionals have signed a petition, which states: “We, the undersigned mental health professionals, believe in our professional judgment that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States. And we respectfully request he be removed from office.” 

Trump’s aides are well aware of his narcissism and other mental problems, but they cannot speak openly about them. But someone close to the White House, George Conway, husband of White House spokesperson and advisor Kellyanne Conway, feels free to tell the truth. He says    "Have we ever seen this degree of brazen, pathological mendacity in American public life? …..Whether or not impeachment is in order, a serious inquiry needs to be made about this man's condition of mind."

Trump is known to have dangerous policies put into documents for him to sign. Several of his former aides claim that they had to remove some of such documents from Trump’s desk before he signed them because of the rashness and danger embodied in them. The aides who were most likely to have done that are all gone now. One wonders what documents they were referring to. Will we have to endure a nuclear war with North Korea because of Trump’s narcissism?

TRUMP AS MOB BOSS

           The Daily Beast reported that in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos former FBI Director James Comey called President Donald Trump “a mob boss” and left everyone present in the room “stunned.” This did not stun me at all. Before he (somehow) became president, Trump was a big-time real estate developer in New York. It is not hard to imagine that Trump had frequent dealings with the Mob in New York—the real organized Mob—and that perhaps was a sort of capo himself.

I was reminded of this when I read an article in The New Yorker Magazine about John Feeley, former Ambassador to Panama, who resigned because he could no longer support the policies of Donald Trump. The article described Feeley’s first visit to the Oval Office to advise the president about matters in Panama. As Feeley took a seat, Trump asked “So tell me, what do we get from Panama? What’s in it for us?” Feeley described the many benefits we get from Panama, and when he finished, Trump chuckled and said, “Who knew?” Trump then turned the conversation into questions he had about a hotel he owned in Panama. To me this sounds like the behavior of a Mob Boss.

Comey, who was Director of the FBI from 2013 until his dismissal by Trump in May 2017, and was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from January 2002 to December 2003, and subsequently the United States Deputy Attorney General from December 2003 to August 2005, would not use the words “Mob Boss” lightly. I’m sure that as a leading law enforcement officer he would be very familiar with the behavior of mob bosses. They are not like the character on the Godfather in Pizza commercials. They are a sinister bunch of thugs who have historically controlled unions and construction companies in the New York real estate development industry. It is hard to imagine that Trump could have run his real estate business without dealing with and placating the mob.

PolitiFact reports that La Cosa Nostra had a virtual monopoly on concrete in New York at the time Trump was adding his name to its skyline in the 1980s. And the Mafia’s control over building supplies and labor unions meant that the crime families had a hand in most construction projects in Manhattan. Trump and other major developers “had to adapt to that situation or build elsewhere,” said James B. Jacobs, a mafia expert. “That was the fact of life, that was the way it was,” he told PolitiFact. “The contractors and developers weren’t pure victims. You could bribe the mob-controlled union leaders and get relief from the more arduous conflicts. But we had no information that Trump was any different.”  

According to Fortune, Trump was first tied to the mafia in the 1980s, when a $7.8 million subcontract for Trump Plaza was awarded to S&A Concrete. That company was partially owned by Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, the boss of the Genovese crime family. Trump himself acknowledged as much in a December 2015 interview with the Wall Street Journal, admitting that S&A Concrete was “supposedly associated with the mob.” “Virtually every building that was built was built with these companies,” he said, adding, “These guys were excellent contractors. They were phenomenal. They could do three floors a week in concrete. Nobody else in the world could do three floors a week. I mean they were unbelievable. Trump Tower, other buildings.” When Salerno was indicted in 1986, the charges specifically mentioned Trump Plaza. 
Trump World Tower, supported by the Quadrozzi Concrete Company, is also related to La Cosa Nostra. The head of the company, John Quadrozzi Sr., was tied to the Lucchese crime family and indicted for making illegal payoffs to the mob in 1992.

Trump’s alleged mob dealings were not confined to New York. According to reports from the Huffington Post and the Philadelphia Inquirer Trump made a deal in Atlantic City with Kenneth Shapiro, an associate of mob boss Nicky Scarfo, and mob-connected labor boss Daniel Sullivan. Trump was aware of this, calling Shapiro "a third-rate, local real estate Mafia" and Sullivan "the guy who killed Jimmy Hoffa." Nonetheless, in 1981, Trump leased a portion of the land for Trump Plaza and Casino from a company the two men controlled, according a report by New Jersey gaming regulators.

There are many other facts about Trump’s dealings with the Mafia. Just look at the report online by PolitiFact. As the above article in The New Yorker shows, Trump’s behavior is not like that of a distinguished Head of State. It is the behavior of a mob boss.
I believe that this explains many things about Donald Trump. Several people have accused Trump of being amoral or immoral. They note that he doesn't seem to have compassion or decency. That's the kind of character you would expect from a Mafia type. They have been willing to execute people who disagree with them. In order to reach the top they must show no emotion about whacking somebody. Trump has that king of character.

There many other accusations one could make about Trump. He wants to get the Nobel Prize for his dealings with North Korea. But the Nobel Prize Committee should note not only his immorality, ruthlessness, bigotry, egotism, mendacity, hypocrisy, cruelty, and megalomania, but also his sleazy dealings with the underworld.

WHY DO THEY LOVE TRUMP

            Why do they love him? Let me count the ways. They love him to the depth, and breadth, and height the mind can reach because he has promised to return the White Race to preeminence in America. Of all the reasons why Trump supporters love their guy, this is the biggest. When he proclaimed that the Latin-American immigrants were rapists and criminals, right-wing Republicans perked-up their ears and thought “I love this guy.” When he said that some of the Neo-Nazis, KKK, and White Supremacists in Charlottesville were “Very fine people” they loved it. When he lambasted Black football players for kneeling during the National Anthem, they cheered.  Hillary Clinton called many of the Trump supporters “Deplorables.” I call them bigots.

            These people have heard or read that eventually white people will become a minority in America. This really scares them. They are frightened that people of color will become a majority and that they will take places with whites. Trump has not-so-subtly argued that he will prevent that.

            Some years ago when I was talking with a group of young Republicans, they asked me why I was a Democrat. I told them that I had been brought-up as a Republican but that I was converted to the Democratic party by John Kennedy. I said that Kennedy was the first president to forcefully oppose racial segregation in America. They looked blankly at me and said “So?” To them that was hardly a reason to switch from Republican to Democrat. They did not feel anything for the terrible prejudice faced by African Americans in the 1960s. Those were the days of Jim Crow, lynchings, burnings, hangings, and separation of the races, particularly in schools and throughout the South. They were unconcerned about the suffering of Blacks from official and unofficial bigotry in both the North and the South.

            While subsequent presidents have opposed racial discrimination, the first African American president brought the issue to the forefront, and apparently that outraged the Republicans who continue to despise Blacks. They had never imagined that a Black man could become president. They considered African Americans a inferior race and assumed that one could never assume the presidency. They found themselves voting for Donald Trump, a New York real estate developer who made it clear that he did not support the rights of minorities.

            The second great reason for the love Trump supporters have for their president is partially connected to the first. The great outpouring of care and concern for the rights of African Americans during the past seventy years has been by political liberals. Although liberals have been found in both parties, after the presidency of John Kennedy they began to drift toward the Democratic Party. Likewise, the conservatives drifted into the Republican Party.

Liberals tend to be better educated and more affluent than Republicans. A look at post-electoral maps indicate that less prosperous parts of America, such as Southern states and farm states, were the places most strongly for Donald Trump. He won North-Eastern states like Wisconsin and Ohio because the less-educated blue-collar voters, who were previously Democrat voters, strongly supported Trump. Those voters liked it that Trump seemed to be sticking a thumb into the eyes of the “Elites.” They appreciated that Trump attacked political correctness. Those people resented the elites because they perceived that the elites looked down on the less educated and less privileged working class Americans. They perceived that Hillary Clinton was an elite.

A third reason why Trump has so many supporters is that a very large group of people consider abortion the most important issue in America. There is, of course, an overlap with the people described above, but anti-abortionists are probably the most avid Trump supporters because he has signaled his opposition to abortion and his intent to appoint anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court.

Many liberals contend that the war against aborting is really a war against the rights of women. Demographics indicate that the strongest group against former president Obama was white men. Likewise, white women were among his strongest supporters. Many liberals feel that the effort to stop abortion is part of the effort to get women barefoot and back in the kitchen. Many men and some women resent the highly educated career-oriented women.

The evangelical crowd overlaps with the anti-abortionists and could be considered the fourth large group of devoted Trump supporters. They are also anti-abortion, but their concerns go beyond abortion. They strongly oppose modern feminism, and can quote for the Bible Paul’s instructions for wives to be subservient to their husbands. Evangelicals believe that all of the problems in America are being caused by the absence of religion. They believe America was founded as a Christian nation and that other religions should not have the same rights as Christians under the First Amendment. They want to be able to practice Christianity in public places. They have been sharply restricted by the courts in their public profession of faith. They want prayer in the schools, but the Supreme Court has declared such prayers unconstitutional. Trump has spoken-up for their concerns and they look to him to support their desire to cram Christianity down the throats of all Americans.

These Trump supporters do not care whether Trump has the skill or ability to be a good president. They do not care if he is in cahoots with Vladimir Putin, or if he was taken-in by Kim Jong Un. They do not care if he lies repeatedly, or if he demonstrates ignorance of important facts. They do not care that he is a bully. They do not care that he is egotistical, paranoid, megalomaniacal, and mean spirited. They do not care that he had illicit affairs with a porn star and a former Playboy Bunny, lied about them, and had the women paid-off. They do not care that Trump has fired most of his original cabinet and staff members and taken on right-wing extremists in their place. They care about the issues described above.

TRUMP THE WEAKLING

            Throughout his “Let’s make America Great Again” campaign for the presidency, Trump repeatedly implied that President Obama had been weak in international affairs. The recent announcement by Trump at the Helsinki Summit that Russia and Putin did not interfere in the U.S. 2016 election was a craven act of pandering and appeasement far worse than anything done by Chamberlain at Munich. It is hard to say what drove Trump to this act of cowardice, but perhaps Putin has blackmail video evidence of Trump’s cavorting with bed-wetting prostitutes in Moscow.

            Trumps capitulation to Putin in Moscow gave rise to stunned response from both Democrats and Republicans. They are aware that the entire U.S. intelligence administration has found that the Russians did, in fact, hack-into and interfere with the 2016 election. Even conservative George Will asserted that Trump colluded with Putin during the 2016 election. Trump is contradicting every department of intelligence in the U.S. Government. For some personal reason, Trump is betraying his own intelligence departments and coming to the support of a Russian dictator who wants only the destruction of American democracy.

            When Neville Chamberlin gave-in to Hitler in Munich, he used as an excuse that surrendering the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to the German Wehrmacht was a way to maintain “Peace in our time.” Trump used the same kind of language to justify his spineless submission to Putin. In effect, he said that he would rather maintain the peace by having good relations with Russia than rely on the intelligence departments of his own government.    

It is hard to decipher the motive for Trump’s gutless proclamation. Surely it was not to preserve the peace. Chamberlain was at least trying to avoid war at a time when England was unprepared. Right now, the United States is militarily strong and certainly stronger than Russia. No, the reason for Trump’s treasonable behavior is probably either that Putin has good blackmail material on him, or that Trump has important financial relations with Putin and the Russian Oligarchs, or that Trump is obsessed with avoiding the claim that he won the election with Russia’s help.

            You would think that millions of Trump’s supporters would be chastened by this revelation of his weakness, but they did not vote for him on account of foreign affairs. They voted for Trump as a form of class conflict. They wanted him to attack the  educated elites who run the media, the universities, the professions, and other institutions which employ educated people. The very name given to the CIA, NSA, FBI, and other such governmental entities, “Intelligence,” forces the average uneducated blue collar voters to deal with something they do not have. Those same supporters also wanted him to confront African Americans, immigrants, and other minorities, a demand he has met to their satisfaction. If you include the anti-abortionist voters who care mainly about Trump’s appointment of Supreme Court justices, Trump supporters will continue to vote for him no matter what he does with Putin.

            One hopes that for some of the people who supported Trump simply because he was the Republican candidate, this act will make them realize that he is a fraud and that he will not make America great again. He will diminish the reputation of America so that nations around the world will neither rely on us nor fear us.

TRUMP THE CLOWN

 After the election of Donald Trump as President I felt as if I had fallen asleep and awakened into a dystopian America where Trump, The Clown, was in charge of a bizarre circus called the Government. It seemed like a bad dream. I have a feeling that millions of other people have experienced the same sensation.

            When Trump announced that he was running for President I, along with millions of other people, thought it was some kind of hoax. Trump had distinguished himself as a “Birther” by declaring that President Obama was not born in the United States and was not eligible to be President. Trump showed no embarrassment when Obama released his birth certificate and proved that he was born in Hawaii and that Trump was an idiot. At that point the conservative columnist, George Will, described Trump as a “Bloviating Ignoramus.” That expression is one of the best I have ever read.

I had always considered Trump to be a loud-mouthed, publicity-seeking, jerk, and could not imagine him as a serious candidate for the White House. I guess I pretty much thought that Jeb Bush of Florida would be the Republican candidate (That shows how much I knew). When a Trump supporter asked me what I thought about Trump I sneered that Trump was a “Joke.” My acquaintance was shocked.

I think that millions of intelligent Americans still can’t believe that this ignorant, crude, bullying, jackass actually won enough votes to be elected. We were relying on polls that showed a majority of votes for Hillary Clinton. We didn’t comprehend the mysteries of the Electoral College. We didn’t understand the class-resentment that motivated so many uneducated blue-collar people to vote for Trump. Some of the people I know who are Trump supporters actually graduated from college. But if you were to inspect their homes you would be hard-put to find a book. Many people graduate from college and that is the end of all efforts at learning. Many colleges and universities grind-out alumni who are virtually illiterate.

As a brilliant writer and artist I know (My brother) said: “What we are experiencing is an anti-intellectual uprising by ignorant people who wildly resent the fact that they are not taken seriously (hence Trump's ‘elite’ references in his speeches).  They may be educated but they have no curiosity or interest in learning anything new. You might recall Josef Goebbels' speech at the 1933 burning of books in which he said that the age of Jewish intellectualism was at an end (substitute coastal elites for Jewish).  They love Trump because he does not read or pursue intellectual ideas and so he gives them permission to be stupid.” 

There is something clownish about Trump. He looks like a clown with his orange hair implants and his red face. When he speaks it seems like the speech of a high-school class clown. He does not use the manner of speech we are used to hearing from dignified international statesmen like Barack Obama. He likes to send daily messages on Twitter, but he does not employ correct vocabulary, syntax, or grammar. It appears that he is virtually illiterate. When he speaks, it is hard to tell whether he is serious or not. Some speeches wander all over the place as if he was mentally impaired. A number of his most outlandish statements have had to be recalled by the White House on the assurance that he was only joking. One observer described Trump’s behavior at the G-7 Summit as clowning around.

The New Yorker magazine portrayed Trump as a “Dangerous Clown” on its October 30, 2017, issue. The New York Daily News cover on Independence Day showed Trump wearing clown makeup and a broken crown. In The Week, Noah Millman wrote a piece describing Trump as a “Sad Clown.” One wonders whether the movie “IT,” with its scary monstrous clown, was meant to refer to Trump.

All of this would not be so bad if it were not for the fact that he is the president of the most powerful nation on Earth. I doubt that his supporters carefully considered the likely results of having such a clown as President.

           Now I've described Trump as a Clown, a Nazi, and a Mob Boss. The question is, which is he? The 

answer is that there is a little bit, maybe more than a little bit of each about him.

HEIL TRUMP

            Donald Trump is no Hitler and his supporters are not Nazis. But there are some frightening aspects of the Trump phenomenon that evoke similarities to the rise of Hitler. Trump is an unstable egotist who obviously wants to amass as much power as he can. People compare him to Hitler mostly out of opposition to his policies and his personality. But there are real concerns for thinking people who know history.

            Perhaps the most glaring similarity to the policies of Hitler is Trump’s singling-out of a minority group for special opprobrium. While Trump may not envision the wholesale murder of undocumented aliens, he surely mirrors Hitler’s desire to expel millions of people of a particular ethnic group from his nation. Hitler initially called for the Jews’ deportation and resettlement, preferably in someplace like Palestine. Trump seeks to send all undocumented aliens back to Latin America. Trump’s campaign for the presidency really took-off when he first attacked the Latin-American immigrants with the lie that they were mostly criminals and rapists. Trump has described the entry of illegal aliens into the U.S. as an “infestation.” This is how he views Latin Americans, as vermin. With this kind of racism he has attracted the support of large numbers of uneducated and blue collar Americans. Hitler rose to prominence by appealing to the hatred uneducated proletarian workers felt toward the Jews. Both men played the demagogue by catering to the bigotries of lower-class people.

            Another Hitler-like attribute of Trump is his grandiosity. Trump held a meeting of his cabinet at which he went around the table and had members praise him and speak like sycophants of the benefits of working in his administration. Many commentators thought it looked like a meeting of the lieutenants of a despot like Hitler. History records that Hitler’s toadies fawned over him and even established as a national greeting the salute, “Heil Hitler.” Recently, after returning from his meeting with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, Trump said of Kim "He speaks and his people sit-up at attention. I want my people to do the same." Trump wasn't being sarcastic. He meant it. That is a clear sign of grandiosity, pomposity, arrogance, and egotism. It may also be a sign of mental illness.

            Another troubling similarity to Hitler is Trump’s proclivity for lying. Hitler was one of the men who inspired the term “Big Lie.” Hitler lied all the time. Sometimes his lies were world-shaking, like his assurances to Chamberlain that he wanted no more of Czechoslovakia than the Sudetenland. But any reading of history tells you that Hitler was a chronic and habitual liar. Likewise, Trump is a congenital and inveterate liar. As former FBI Director James Comey has pointed out, Trump lies about everything big and small. While it may be understandable that a leader may occasionally need to give misleading facts for national security, there is no need for the high level of mendacity displayed by Donald Trump.

            Hitler liked pageantry. Many of the pictures we see of him are at huge rallies and parades. There is no doubt that the giant assemblies with adoring crowds swelled Hitler’s ego and gave him a feeling of God-like power. Trump saw a parade on Bastille Day in Paris and it appealed to him so much that he announced that he wanted to have one in the United States. He did not select a national holiday for this exhibition. He merely said that he wanted a parade. Obviously the purpose of the parade would not be to honor America. It would be to celebrate the glory of Trump.

            The most recent exhibit of Trump malevolence is the ugly specter of American ICE officials separating children from their illegal alien parents at the border with Mexico. This is the kind of thing done by the Nazis to the Jews upon arrival at Hitler’s concentration camps. Under overwhelming pressure, and purely for political purposes, Trump reversed the practice.

            Trump may not be a Nazi, but he is applauded by Neo-Nazis, the KKK, White Nationalists, and other right-wing extremists. He constitutes a potential threat to our democracy and values.

TRUMP AND INTELLECTUALS

TRUMP AND INTELLECTUALS

What is an intellectual? One dictionary defines the word “intellectual” as follows: “Intellectual is often used to describe intensive reasoning and deep thinking, particularly in relation to subjects that tend to spark deep discussion, such as literature or philosophy.” Intellectuals are usually educated people who, as the above definition says, engage in deep thinking. Universities, institutions, think tanks, and the professions are filled with intellectuals. Occasionally you find intellectuals with no formal higher education. They are self-taught thinkers (autodidacts) who engage in serious reading and deep thinking. There are many intellectuals in the media and the arts. Sometimes, one finds intellectuals in politics, government, and the military. But the current atmosphere in Washington, under Donald Trump, is anti-intellectual. 
Trump has tried to refute the argument that he is ignorant and uneducated by pointing out that he attended a top university and a top graduate school (Wharton School). What he doesn't mention is what a lousy student he was. In his book Fear, Bob Woodward quotes Steve Bannon as saying: "Trump doesn't like intellectuals." Trump was a guy who "never went to class. Never took a note. Never went a lecture. The night before a final, he comes in at midnight from the fraternity house, puts on a pot of coffee, takes your notes, memorizes as much as he can, walks in at 8 in the morning and gets a C. And that's good enough." Trump was the son of a multimillionaire and therefore it was expected that he would attend college. But like millions of college graduates, he learned nothing and remained a seriously uneducated person.

In a recent article in The New Yorker magazine, the author, Patrick Keefe, describes the tenure and firing of former General H.R. McMaster as National Security Advisor to President Trump. The thrust of the article is about the difficulties of an honorable man with deep integrity serving a president who has no integrity. The article makes clear that one of the reasons Trump disliked McMaster, and fired him, was because McMaster is an intellectual with a PhD.

In the beginning of the article about General McMaster, the author describes Trump’s dealings with written matter. He says that when Trump assumed office, N.S.C. staffers initially generated memos for him that resembled those produced for his predecessors: multi-page explications of policy and strategy. But an edict came down, “thin it out.” The staff dutifully trimmed the memos until they were a single page. But then word came back: “This is still too much.”  A senior Trump aide explained to the staffers that the President “is a visual person,” and asked them to express points “pictorially.” By the time (the staffers) left, they had these cards that pictorially explained the information a president has to have. A former staffer also said that Trump receives a thick briefing book every night, but that nobody harbors the illusion that he reads it. Current and former officials said that filling out a card is the best way to raise an issue with him in writing. They said that everything that needs to be conveyed to the president must be boiled down to two or three points, with the syntactical complexity of “See Jane run.” 

This is all very sad, but it is also somewhat frightening. Trump, the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, is a virtual illiterate. That is cause for concern in a complex world where he must deal with highly complicated issues and with heads of government who are far superior to him in intelligence.

As a good indication of how things have changed in Washington, compare the Trump Administration to that of President John F. Kennedy. On April 29, 1962, Kennedy hosted a dinner at the White House for American Nobel Prize winners and other intellectuals. At that dinner he said that this was the greatest gathering of eminent minds held at the White House since Thomas Jefferson sat there alone. Try to imagine Trump holding such a gathering or saying something with the wit and intelligence possessed by President Kennedy.

Kennedy was himself an intellectual. He welcomed intellectuals to the White House. During his presidency he surrounded himself with intellectuals such as Arthur Schlesinger and Ted Sorensen. Today, alas, Donald Trump, who dislikes and avoids intellectuals, has surrounded himself with incompetent hacks like Scott Pruitt. He has managed to get rid of intellectuals such as H.R. McMaster.

I remember the hope, optimism, and enthusiasm with which many of us greeted the presidency of Kennedy. I also remember the despair when he was assassinated. His policies, speeches, and ideals transformed me from a Republican into a Democrat. I’m sure that millions of others did the same. I also believe that the appeal of Donald Trump to the lowest common denominator of uneducated, anti-intellectual people in America will have the opposite effect. Sadly, such people vastly outnumber the intellectuals.

Millions of men voted against Hillary Clinton because they felt that she was condescending, snobbish, and female. She did not appeal to their bigotry against African Americans and Hispanic immigrants. They preferred a man who acted like one of them. If Hillary were president, you can be sure that her administration would be more like that of John Kennedy. Hillary not only reads books, she writes them. Trump supporters realized that Hillary Clinton was one of the dreaded things they hate—an intellectual.