Let Me Explain What You Need To Think, So You'll Think I Get It

Lyndon Johnson was a vain, petty, self absorbed narcissist.

But he had one critical quality non-existent in the DNA of the Donald.

Historian and author Doris Kearns Goodwin, who has written Pulitzer Prize winning works on such national notables as the Roosevelts, Lincoln, the Kennedys and Johnson, himself, sat with Bill Maher recently and among other insightful contributions to the conversation, made this dead center bullseye observation....

….this man has no humility which is an important part of every president; he has no empathy; he has no resilience; he says the reason he's so humble is because the Pope is very humble just like Donald Trump.
I mean, you can't think that way. You can't be a person that says the most important thing is never to lose, that you always have to win. Every president that I've studied has gone through adversity and they came out stronger at the other end.

Ernest Hemingway said, 'Everyone's broken by life but sometimes people are stronger in the broken places.'

He says he's never experienced loss and that's why he has the very, very best temperament of anyone whose run..... this is not a leader. This is not a man whose experienced any kind of empathy for other people.

One of the loudest screams amongst the screaming irony of which Goodwin reminds us is that Trump was elected and, in large measure, continues to be supported, endorsed, even celebrated by people who were razzled, dazzled, charmed, conned and/or otherwise convinced that he was "one of them" that he understood "their problems, their hopes, their dreams". That he was the only human being on the planet, let alone the ballot, who could make it all happen for them.

What he was faking and fakes....empathy.

What he was practicing and practices....pandering.

Empathy...is defined as "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another."

Pandering...is defined as "to gratify or indulge an immoral or distasteful desire, need or habit or to indulge a person with such a desire"

I'd add to that that the "desire or need" need not necessarily be immoral or distasteful. Sometimes, for example, in recent times, the desire or need has only to be desperate. Motivated by fear and uncertainty. Too easily gratified and indulged by someone with an ability to create the illusion of empathy with one of the oldest tricks in the book when it comes to convincing someone of something.

Telling them exactly what they want to hear.

Terrific healthcare, the very best healthcare, for everyone.

Bringing jobs back for all the coal miners.

Give a 35% tax cut to middle class families.

Propose a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all of Congress.

Build...a....wall.

The problem with empathy, when it comes from someone who is biologically incapable of empathy, is that all it can end up being.....is pandering.

Old saying, known well to those who live in either mountainous/woodsy areas or swampy parts of the nation.

Be careful that you don't pick up a snake.......to kill that stick you just looked down and saw.

Empathy.

Pandering.

One of them is a stick.

One of them is not.