Trump's Big CON: Trump Has No Morality (or Principles)

 UPDATE II:  Why has The Donald been so successful, despite his lack of morality or principles?

His core supporters don't care, so he doesn't need them.

"Trump campaigned on the Palin model. In fact, he improved upon it. His identity was his trademark, rendering the constant shifts in policy goals and promises almost meaningless. His base saw in Trump what they wanted to see. Some saw a fighter who would stand up for them, others saw a vaunted truth-teller, and a few, truth be told, likely saw a potential white-nationalist hero. And he gave it to them: the image, the veneer, the blank slate upon which their deeply held dreams — for themselves as much as their country — could be written. His fans weren’t dissuaded by his past support for Democrats (including his 2016 opponent), or his lies, or his personal liberalism, or his crudeness, or his long history of mistreating small-business owners of the kind he claimed to champion, because his fans weren’t voting for Trump. They were voting for what Trump meant to them personally. . .

His popularity is cultural, not political, resilient to the notions of truth and fiction and to Trump’s own failures."

Read the Washington Post, Trump is Sarah Palin but better at it.

UPDATE:  "Seven months in, it’s clear that lying is not the disease afflicting us, just the most obvious symptom. The infection’s name is “getting away with it.”

The phrase 'getting away with it' didn’t even exist as an expression until the middle of the 19th century. It came into general use over the following few decades, coincident with the Darwinian phrase 'survival of the fittest' and Nietzsche’s 'God is dead.' In the 2012 book 'Missing Out,' in a chapter entitled 'On Getting Away With It,' psychiatrist Adam Phillips suggested we had, just in the last century, gone from regarding 'getting away with it' as immoral — perhaps a forbidden pleasure we might secretly admire, sometimes indulge, but could never approve — to its elevation to a highest-value goal.

In the chapter’s conclusion he writes, 'But what if getting away with it was a new moral principle or project? . . In this new morality — which sounds like a moral game, or a parody of the idea of morality — moral excellence would reside in being able to successfully exempt yourself from rules you have consented to. . . The Good Person would be replaced by the Impressive Person; and what would impress would be the breaking of rules without punishment. . . Where once there were the principled, now there would be the opportunists; the clever would displace the pious.' He all but foretold the election of President Trump. . .

When Trump gets away with flouting a rule, even as he pretends to consent to it, when he gets away with a lie, even as he pretends to consent to the commandment not to lie, he readily congratulates himself: by his own values — values our society broadly understands, and sometimes almost shares (sometimes in jest, sometimes in horror, sometimes with a delicious sense of trespass) — “getting away with it” is good, in and of itself. . .

The country is in a tough spot. But knowing what you’re up against is half the battle, and we know that Trump’s 'getting away with it' is a parody of morality."

Read the Washington Post, When ‘getting away with it’ is all Trump cares about.

"After a campaign gestated in birtherism, Trump was slow to condemn the likes of white supremacist David Duke, routinely spoke in coded racial language to energize a segment of people angry about the changing face of the country and condoned violence against those who disagreed with him, Trump, over the last four days, has proven that he is that same person as president.

And that person is the opposite of a leader. And that person is dangerous to this country's well-being.

Trump's comments at a press availability at Trump Tower on Tuesday not only revealed, again, his remarkable blindness to the racial history and realities of this country, but also showed his willingness to stake out morally indefensible positions as the result of personal pique.

Three days after insisting that the blame for the Charlottesville protests spurred by neo-Nazis and white supremacists lay 'on many sides,' and just a day removed from a more fulsome condemnation of those groups, Trump returned to his original position -- that this was a situation where both sides were wrong and the only people who disagreed with that were the fake news media. . .

That outcome is more than a failure of political leadership by Trump. It is a failure of moral leadership.

It is impossible -- given the last two years of Trump -- to conclude he is simply fumbling his way around on issues of race, gender and ethnic heritage. The mountain of evidence gathered suggests just the opposite: That he is purposely saying and doing things to make murky moral questions that should be crystal clear. And why is he doing it? For political gain.

That is the opposite of what being president of the United States should be. Hell, it's the opposite of what being a citizen of this country should be.

What Trump is doing is dangerous -- for our politics and for our moral fiber. To condone white supremacists by insisting there are two sides to every coin is to take us back decades in our understanding of each other. It is to undo decades worth of progress toward a freer and better country for all people.

To do so purposely to score political points or stick it in the eye of your supposed media enemies is, frankly, despicable."

Read CNN, Donald Trump's failure in Charlottesville wasn't political -- it was moral.

Trump's problem is that he has no persoanl morality.

He is guided only by personal, monetary and political gain.

Read also:

Trump's Big CON: When Loyalty Is Valued Above Principle and Honesty,

Trump's Big CON: What Might Have Been If He Only Had Ideas or Principles (Or Even Common Sense)

Trump's Big CON: What Might Have Been If He Only Had Ideas or Principles (Or Even Common Sense), CONt.