"Hey, they have all these great issues: Crime! Immigration! Inflation! Wokeism!... All they have to do is have their candidate in each district adjust those issues to suit his or her constituency.... Even if GOP candidates don't make Trump an issue in the midterms, and the Democratic candidates don’t make Trump an issue in the midterms, Trump will make Trump an issue in the midterms.... If Trump wants 2022 to be a referendum on Trump -- well, the race is going to be nationalized about something and the Trump-obsessed MSM will be all too happy to oblige him, knowing it will hurt the GOP. Even if Trump initially seems to be fading -- if, say, he fails to turn out the crowds at the summer rallies he's planning -- the established press won't be able to ignore him. They'll write and broadcast their 'Ha, ha, Trump's lost it' pieces, which will predictably rile up his voters and keep him in the news. This will happen no matter what Kevin McCarthy and his brain trust want. We've seen this scenario before -- in the Georgia runoffs, where Trump's solipsim [sic] managed to elect a pajama boy to the Senate and open the door to Democratic control of Congress."
Everyone always talks about Trump's narcissism. Would it be more accurate to talk about Trump's solipsism?
The first OED definition for "solipsism": "Excessive regard for oneself and one's own interests, to the exclusion of others; preoccupation with oneself; extreme selfishness, self-centredness, or self-absorption; (also) an instance of this."
The first OED definition for "narcissism": "Excessive self-love or vanity; self-admiration, self-centredness."
Both words have a second definition that relates to a specialized field of knowledge.
"Narcissism" is a term in psychology. It means: "The condition of gaining emotional or erotic gratification from self-contemplation, sometimes regarded as a stage in the normal psychological development of children which may be reverted to in adulthood during mental illness."
"Solipsism" is a term in philosophy. It means: "The theory or belief that one's own self or consciousness is all that exists (more fully metaphysical solipsism) or all that can be known (more fully epistemological solipsism)."
I can see why most Trump critics go for "narcissism" over "solipsism." They want to characterize him as emotionally disordered.
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7 comments:
William writes:
The philosophical definition of solipsism may be only the second one listed in the OED, but I believe it's the original one. The etymology seems to support this (from Latin sol and ipse, "sole" and "self"), and it's the only one listed in my unabridged OED, which dates it to the late nineteenth century. And I think it would be natural for the meaning to generalize over time. The narrower meaning is the one I've mostly encountered, but then I read philosophy for pleasure, so my linguistic sample may be atypical. (Though I first encountered it in the writings of the science fiction writer Robert Heinlein; it's mentioned several times, for example, in his most famous work, Stranger in a Strange Land.)
I remember reading Bertrand Russell's mention of a woman who had told him that she was a solipsist and couldn't understand why no one else agreed with her. What was really odd, he said, was that she was a professional logician.
FYI the OED finds an older first appearance in print of the first definition.
The second definition appears first (in the online OED) in 1874, but the first definition goes back to:
1836 J. W. Semple tr. I. Kant Critique Pract. Reason in tr. I. Kant Metaphysic of Ethics 118 The Aggregate of the Appetites..make up and compose what is called Selfishness or Solipsism [L. solipsismus].
1838 J. W. Semple tr. I. Kant Relig. within Boundary Pure Reason iv. 215 The Utilitarian,..without renouncing his solipsism, merely extends his selfish calculations beyond the circumscribed boundary of present time.
Obviously, that's in the field of philosophy, but it's not the philosophical definition that's in definition #2
Mitch writes:
Mickey Kaus and all other analyzers of trends, including the estimable Powerline crew, suffer from two things which blind them:
First, for six years, they’ve been trying to analyze first Candidate Trump and then President Trump by using the frame of reference they’ve been using all their lives. Like if they just analyze hard enough, they would be able to fit Trump’s square peg into their array of round holes.
Second, they have so many credentials and such reputation, they’ve also acquired the hubris to think they can analyze what’s in the hearts of millions of Americans and then generalize their reactions to the reintroduction of Trump into the political atmosphere. This hubris, combined with the first issue, makes them actually think that rank and file conservatives will roll their eyes and wish for Donald Trump to go away when he returns.
Do they not remember that 74 million people voted for him to be President just six months ago? Are they thinking that all 74 million share their opinion that January 6th was some kind of unparalleled calamity like 9/11?
They don’t know us. They can’t know us.
Any political analysis in an environment forever changed by Donald Trump boils down to one thing: wishful thinking.
Amadeus 48 writes:
Trump must be dealt with carefully by the GOP. There are no GOP majorities without substantial numbers of Trump supporters, so the GOP should avoid stepping on Trump’s toes.
Many on the right would agree with many of Trump’s policies. Many on the right would say they do not know what happened in 2020, and they would like to see further investigations. But many on the right believe that Team Trump handled the 2020 election campaign badly (no planned countermeasures to deal with the Dems’ vote harvesting playbook that was rolled out in 2018) and that Trump’s post-election was a disaster. One can appreciate Trump’s policies and achievements without thinking that he is the right candidate for 2024.
I have always thought that Trump was a quick learner. I hope he learned from 2020 he has to look at the election landscape realistically. I hope he learned from watching Liz Cheney self-immolate that vendettas (hers) come with a very high cost. I hope Ronald Reagan bequeathed him that sign that says, “There is no limit to the amount you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.” But on the past record, these are long shots.
SGT Ted writes:
The DNC-Media complex is still try to use Trump as a stand-in for the entire GOP so they can continue to paint the GOP as "extremist", never mind that Trumps actual policies were well within the mainstream of the GOP.
What Trump did was bring credibility back to the GOP after it had lost the trust of a lot of their voters during the Obama administration by selling out on immigration and global corporate interests over favoring US citizens. Trumps "America First" focus worked precisely because of this very betrayal.
Alex writes:
The GOP establishment has long played a game of throwing just enough scraps to the base that they are mollified and don't sit out elections, and then running on "we're not as crazy as the left" every time the Dems over extend and push through progressive policies. This allows the GOP to run squishy corporatist candidates and give very little in actual red meat to their supporters. Part of the reason that they hated Trump and Trumpism is that he was a repudiation of those tactics. He actually attempted to govern as a conservative and advance the policies which he'd advocated during his campaign. The problem for the establishment now is that while Trump lost, there was no blue wave to serve as a repudiation of Trump and Trumpism. Instead there's a sketchy election which many Republicans believe was marred by fraud, and Trump still has influence over the party. The establishment would like to go back to the old ways, but Trump and his supporters aren't going to allow it without a fight.
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