#reasons — Public Fediverse posts

As a consequence of these various #personality, #temperament, and #intellectual #deficits, Trump is, for a world leader, amazingly easy to #manipulate.

If you #butter him up, and suggest doing something will make him look good - well, there's a good chance he'll listen intently. He likes to listen to people telling him he's wonderful, and giving him easy ways to appear more wonderful. Much better than listening to people asking him to choose between tough or ugly choices on complicated subjects.

He's also got that tendency where he believes whatever the last person he spoke to told him. This is why people - remember those oligarchs who were literally in front-row seats at his inauguration? - want to be close to him, figuratively and literally. If you keep his #ear, you can keep him behind your needs, your ideas, your wants.

So, given all this, why the hell did he declare #economic #war on #Canada (and Mexico, and China, but I'm #Canadian) when it was:

(a) obviously a bad idea for the US and the world #economy; there will be pain, and it will hurt him - price of eggs and all that
(b) not something that was going to personally #profit him in any big way
(c) not in the interests of his #billionaire oligarchs
(d) not a primary plank in his campaign - at least not in this scorched-earth approach he's taken

Why?

2/x

#reasons #manipulation #goldfish #compliment #flattery