Gallons of digital ink -and not a little of the real kind- have been spilled on the page describing President Trump’s apparent inability to pay attention. Cited as evidence are his short attention span, his distractibility, his incuriousness, his tendency to regurgitate not the essence of what he had just been briefed, but the very opposite.
Clearly, when he is forced to read prepared speech from the teleprompter, he lapses into a near monotone drone that comes off as an auto-reader. By way of contrast, the instant he goes off script, his speech and gesticulations become animated and supercharged. The only obvious conclusion is that what he reads pass through his eyes to his mouth with little comprehension.
Yet he obviously extracts bits from what he is told and what he reads, evidenced by his nearly instantaneous plucking of phrases and imperfect interpretations of concepts -along with total recall for conspiracy theories, unsubstantiated garbage, and any pure fiction that he feels will serve his purposes. And therein lies the key to understanding his superpower.
When reasonable people read or listen to important new information, they try to focus on understanding the concepts, remembering key points, and putting information into context. In short, they try to develop a full understanding so they can respond appropriately. Typically, they will ask for clarifications or elaboration of details.
Not Trump. He not only doesn’t want details or elaboration, he specifically wants only the most superficial summary. His idea of reading a newspaper is to read only the headlines. Maybe the subhead. And his takeaway from those headlines is almost always as if he had read only every third word and scrambled those.
While it may be very much the case that Donald Trump does not care to absorb the concepts presented to him, he does catch their gist -if only to ascertain what he likes or doesn’t like in what he has seen or heard. Beyond the gist, however, he is not interested in the details or even the consequences to the nation if his response is the wrong one. Solving a problem facing the nation is of no interest to him. As the subject matter experts drone on describing scenarios or presenting alternatives, Trump’s con artist mind already has moved on. The only thing within the depth of field of Donald Trump’s astigmatic and myopic mental vision is, “How can I use this for me?” It matters not at all the urgency or criticality of appropriate response. When it appears his mind is wandering to finding new ways he can increase federal spending at Mar-a-Lago (and surely that is sometimes the case), The Donald most often is thinking of ways to sort and rearrange words and phrases in a way that will misrepresent what he just learned in a manner that turns to his advantage and feeds his base. That his version won’t stand up to scrutiny is irrelevant. It will sound good.
Truth is no friend to Donald J. Trump. The thousands of catalogued lies he has told underscore that truth. Like any con artist, lies are his stock in trade. But not transparent lies. Again, like the con artist he is, Trump perceives the elements of that the marks (his followers) value, then he fabricates a Potemkin village of lies structured to feed the fears and fantasies of his base, or to befuddle credibility and public understanding of criticism directed toward him or his policies. Usually these two objectives coincide. His lies offer the same thing all con artists offer their marks: a short cut. An easy way. Something for nothing, or for cheap. A short cut. “I’ve discovered the secret they don’t want you to know.” “If you’ll help me I’ll help you and we’ll both be rich.”“I’ve figured out you’re being victimized and only I can stop them.”“They’re trying to hurt me and I need your help to stop them.”“You can trust me.”“I share your faith.”
Even in the face of irrefutable evidence, even when they have been robbed blind, victims of the best con artists will deny they were ever conned. They are so taken in that their faith in the confidence man or woman is unshakeable. When a con artist has a big enough ego and a large enough appetite to move into politics, the stage is set for autocracy. The most successful dictators have done this. Mussolini. Hitler. Hugo Chávez. Fidel Castro.
One claim President Trump has repeated that actually is true is that he is a builder. He builds grandiose, elaborate lies. Lies that sound better than the truth.
In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
-George Orwell
