“Genius” and the Cult-Con
Recently, former Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired Marine
general, said that he had warned Narcissist President Donald Trump prior to his
departure that his
replacement should not be a “yes-man”.
"I said, whatever you do, don't hire a 'yes man,'
someone who won’t tell you the truth. Don’t do that. Because if you do, I
believe you will be impeached," he supposedly told Narcissist
Trump.
To his credit, Narcissist Trump hasn’t “hired” a “yes man”
as Chief of Staff yet. He apparently
doesn’t like hiring people, especially those that could later agree to invoke
Article 25 of the Constitution and remove him.
He’s simply piled the job on to someone else, in this case the guy in
charge of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, who is also now
the acting Chief of Staff. So Narcissist
Trump doesn’t have a Chief of Staff right now, “yes man” or otherwise. He has a yes man doing the job of Chief of
Staff but not officially serving as Chief of Staff. You know, like successful business leaders do!
Still, you know that Narcissist Trump doesn’t like criticism
of any kind. So he flat-out denied ever
hearing that from Kelly, putting on his typical little boy bluster. And then his toadies and enablers disgracefully
attacked yet another retired soldier for daring to say anything unkind to their
“Dear Leader”, of whom the sun rises and sets by his permission.
And then came a real surprise... it seems Narcissist Trump really
does have a press secretary! Who would
have thought such a person existed after the departure of “Mean Girl” Sarah
Huckabee Sanders?
So Stephanie
Grisham steps up and not only flat-out denies Kelly’s comment, but accuses
him of being, quote: “totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great
President”.
I’m sure a lot of you were smacking your heads for a second
time... the first being the realization that Stephanie Grisham is a real person
and not one of Narcissist Trump’s pen names, and then on her proclamation that
Narcissist Trump is a “genius”, never mind “great”.
It’s not the first time that we’ve heard it... it’s just the
first that many of us heard it coming from someone other than Narcissist Trump.
If you watch the CNBC series “American Greed” enough times,
you begin to see a familiar pattern when it comes to con-artists. It’s a pattern of behavior that is shared
by cult leaders. They make grandiose
claims of greatness, they exploit others, they demand absolute loyalty and
fidelity, they’re pompous and self-serving, and they view themselves as being
superior over everyone else. They lure
people in with claims of having “a secret” that would give them whatever they
want, be it power, money, or the fast-track to the hereafter. And they drain their victims dry on those
promises, laughing all the way to the bank.
One of the key traits shared by both con-artists and
cult-leaders is their grandiose sense of superiority. They have to be smarter than everyone else to
give their victims an over-inflated sense of authority.
For cult leaders, it’s having divine authority. They claim to be “chosen by God”, which
trumps any kind of mortal doubt, or they claim to have found some hidden
meaning in some sacred texts, which gives them access to a “secret” that those
in power either haven’t seen or else they want to keep to themselves. Jim Jones, David Koresh, Warren Jeffs,
Charles Manson, Marshall Applewhite... they all had some claim of “divine
authority” that can never be challenged or questioned.
For the con-artist, it’s the claim of being a “genius” and
that they would supposedly “know more” than anyone else. For them, there’s a little bit of stagecraft
needed to convince others of their authority.
That’s why they *have* to wear the business suits and drive the
expensive cars and show off all the trappings of success. They use the illusion of wealth to sell the myth
that if you devote yourself and your income to his or her scheme, that you will
be just as wealthy as them. Again, watch
enough episodes of “American Greed” and you will see that repeatedly. And this commentator has seen this scam play
out in real life, not just on television.
In Narcissist Trump, we actually have both. He employs both the traits of a cult leader
and a con artist. He has both the
religious people and the fools who still think he’s a successful businessman,
not to mention the conspiracy nut cases and the usual gang of “might makes
right” fascists, totally enthralled by him.
So, yeah, of course he would claim to be a “genius”. Not only a “genius”, but a “very stable
genius” with “complete and unmatched wisdom”.
He has to. He needs to continue
the illusion of his superiority over the rest of us, and for his lackeys and bootlickers
and toadies and myrmidons and his followers and enablers to repeat it and reinforce
it. It’s the only way to keep the con
going.
Let’s get brutally honest here... we do not have a “genius” in
the White House right now. We have a narcissistic
cult figure and con artist in charge and backed up by a legion of supporters
and worshipers. Having a group of
followers that you can convince to eagerly give you or let you do anything you
want does not make you a “genius” by any stretch of the imagination. That just makes you a manipulative a-hole, regardless
of what title you put next to your name.
History is not kind to either cult leaders or con artists. We talk about Koresh and Jeffs and Manson,
but there were other cult leaders that controlled governments. Without even mentioning “you-know-who” in
Germany, there’s Benito Mussolini and Saddam Hussein and Moammar Qadhafi who
also had a cult-like following. They
believed they were great. They made the
same promises of greatness. They
believed they were smart. Certainly they
believed they were smarter than their followers. But in the end, they fell and they took their
followers with them. Like their
religious counterparts, the political cult leaders left nothing but chaos and
misery and death in the wake of their falls.
A real genius wouldn’t let that happen either to themselves or to their
followers.
As for con artists, well, if you do watch “American Greed”,
you would know that most of them don’t get away for very long. In the end, they always leave with nothing
but misery and ruin in their wake as well.
A real genius also wouldn’t allow that to happen. A real genius wouldn’t play tricks on
others. They wouldn’t have to.
It’s just too bad there are no real geniuses here. Just manipulators and suckers.
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