Said Trump, responding to the report in Vanity Fair that his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had said he has an "alcoholic’s personality," quoted in "Trump brushes off Wiles' 'alcoholic’s personality' nick as allies torch Vanity Fair piece/Cabinet members and Trump himself have dismissed the unflattering quotes, claiming they were taken out of context" (Fox News).
I wonder why he said "possessive" — twice — before changing to "addictive." I think the word he was looking for was "obsessive."
I like that he's supporting her, and it's probably in his interest to support her and provide explanation that makes her remark into something almost positive, rather than part of a dark and devastating bombshell that Vanity Fair must have thought it had put together.
What is the "alcoholic's personality" anyway? Is that just folk belief or is it supported by respectable research? Perhaps it doesn't matter as much as what Susie Wiles was attempting to describe seeing in Trump. She had an alcoholic father, and presumably something makes her see Trump as that father figure, and Trump initially included her in his inner circle because of her famous father. That's a very specific and personal story that stands apart from whatever this concept of "alcoholic's personality" is taken to mean by the general public that harbors folk beliefs and little familiarity with the scholarly literature.
Posts
69 comments:
Stonewall Jackson, when asked why he didn’t drink alcohol, reportedly said that he tried it but gave it up because he liked it too much.
There is an alcoholic personality. I've known many people who have alcoholic personalities, who could benefit from a 12-step program, but they aren't going to do it without the compulsion of a ruinous drug habit.
It's not a compliment.
I knew the Vanity Fair hit piece was going nowhere when I read this headline on CNN:
Susie Wiles offered unflattering assessments of her colleagues to Vanity Fair. In return, they showered her with praise
Another swing and miss.
>What is the "alcoholic's personality" anyway?<
It's a major part of the "alcoholism is a disease" mythology.
"I've known many people who have alcoholic personalities, who could benefit from a 12-step program...."
These are people who are not drinking but just have an "alcoholic personality"? If yes, explain. What are you seeing? If no, it's not relevant to the discussion of Trump.
Obviously, Trump thinks it's a thing, or he's pretending or conflating it with the simpler idea that he has seen the terrible risk personally and he is playing it super safe to get a better result than what happened to his beloved brother.
An obsessive thought is a thought that trumps every other thought. Yeah. Obsessive Trump sounds about right.
Trump extends loyalty and expects it in return. It’s something good leaders do out in the real world.
Again, here's Trump willing to explain when someone asks. Compare and contrast with the last POTUS who could not and would not ever explain anything. You may not like Trump's answer, but he gives one.
What I didn't like was the lack of access aided and abetted by the DNC lapdog press, whio continue to wave away those four years as if they tried, but they did not. They were complicit in asking the questions they were told to ask (we've seen the notecards) without follow-up and agreeing to only have select reporters (those with photos on Joe's cards) be able to ask questions during those choreographed fake pressers.
Never forget. Never forgive the media for their malfeasance. They still pretend they weren't in on the con.
Is this a good time to mention that Trump's older brother, Frederic, died from alcoholism at age 42 and that MIGHT affect his answer?
This is easy to analyze.
Vanity fair did 11 interviews and wants to write an anti-Trump article, so they took the worst excerpts from the interviews, distorted them as best they could without lying outright, and ignored anything favorable to Trump.
So, if this is the worst they could find, and this is trivial, there is nothing damaging to Trump in the interviews, everything else in the interviews was more favorable to Trump.
Simple math. Look at the most negative observation, and everything else has to be more positive. You only need to look at the most negative observation to know this given Vanity Fair's bias.
Wiles's response was, therefore, spot on. She focused on all the things Vanity Fair ignored, which were far more positive.
This Kendrick Lamar jam was hella popular at post parties about a decade ago, the lyrics providing some insight.
Now, I done grew up 'round some people livin' their life in bottles
Granddaddy had the golden flask
Backstroke every day in Chicago
Some people like the way it feels
Some people wanna kill their sorrows
Some people wanna fit in with the popular, that was my problem...
If there's such a thing as an "alcoholic personality", then a "military personality" is its genetic twin.
Someone very close to me is a "recovering" alcoholic. He never went to a 12-step program, which I wish he had because he has never apologized for anything, ever. But he's sober and hasn't touched alcohol in 26 years. BUT...he then became a heavy Diet Pepsi drinker. Then eventually he changed to sparkling water. So in my personal experience, the addictive personality is one that has to be "addicted" to something even once becoming sober.
PS. He came from a family that had a history of alcoholism on both sides...but not his parents. His parents had close relatives who were alcoholics.
Whenever one of Trump's people messes up, he must consider whether there is anyone better. If not, then support them until the media attention subsides.
Susie Wiles seems to be very good. Trump takes her comments in good faith, and gives a thoughtful response.
Althouse said...
I wonder why he said "possessive" — twice — before changing to "addictive." I think the word he was looking for was "obsessive."
I believe Wiles has explained that she had experience living with an "assertive" man in her father, who was also an alcoholic, so she had experience dealing with that kind of assertive personality in Trump.
I’m an alcoholic. I’m not sure what Trump means. I’ve met many others like me and we are a varied as any other group with a common bond that us and alcohol don’t go well together.
Btw. More nuance Trump please 🙏🏽
Yah Ann has a good take on Trump here and Gerda on the whole affair. VF did the best they could to write a hit piece with what they had. I’d bet it angers VF and their audience that they didn’t make Trump furious. Au contraire….
Many people stop drinking alcohol so they don't act like assholes and hurt people who don't deserve It. Trump is just a sadistuc asshole. He has no need for alcohol.
Remember the old Churchill quote that "at least I will be sober in the morning."
DD Driver - No - Joe Biden and his fucked up family are sadistic fuck-heads.
D.D. Driver said...
Many people stop drinking alcohol so they don't act like assholes and hurt people who don't deserve It. Trump is just a sadistuc asshole. He has no need for alcohol.
Remember the old Churchill quote that "at least I will be sober in the morning."
For someone who has been shot and had the most powerful government in the world try to throw him in jail for bullshit reason Trump is approaching Christ level benevolent.
You are just a fucking idiot posting this garbage.
"is it supported by respectable research?"
You mean, has some shit-for-brains asshole with a grant from the NIH written about it?
Esteban said...
I’m an alcoholic. I’m not sure what Trump means. I’ve met many others like me and we are a varied as any other group with a common bond that us and alcohol don’t go well together.
75% of my family tree was alcoholic. I know what he means.
Trump knows he has demons inside him and he knows alcohol will let them free. I made a similar decision about alcohol early in life.
I am considering it about blogger message boards too.
"Is this a good time to mention that Trump's older brother, Frederic, died from alcoholism at age 42 and that MIGHT affect his answer?"
BINGO!
Peachy said...
DD Driver - No - Joe Biden and his fucked up family are sadistic fuck-heads.
Yeah, but that's not nearly as bad as being a 'sadistuc asshole'. I mean sadistuc is very rare these days!
I think the point of the VF interview is that Susie is sending dog whistles to the next administration, letting them know *she* was not down with the "score settling" and *she* was not cool with the way the deportations were handled, and *she* was not okay with the way Bondi handled Epstein. She is getting herself ready for the next round of banana republic prosecution.
Susie will be the key witness at the Noem, Hegseth, and Patel trials. She ismaking deals. She seems to admire Trump but I detect no loyalty to the clowns in his orbit.
DD Driver - No - Joe Biden and his fucked up family are sadistic fuck-heads.
Did you know: BOTH things can be true!!! Just because Biden is a piece of shit does NOT mean Trump is automatically a good lerson! 🤦
Personally, I think Joe is a greedy, immoral dirtbag, but not sadistic in the way that DJT is.
I grew up around alcoholics. My father was an alcoholic, my grandfather was, my uncles and godfather were. At least two died of cirrhosis. Havong known these people extremely well I can't tell you what an "alcoholic personality" is.
I'll tell you, I've had moonshine once in my life. It was offered on the promise that it was the product of a 4th generation Kentucky moonshiner, mason jar and all, from a friend that had just come back from a road trip. Now, I'm not a hard liquor drinker, hardly at all. But one sip, lordy, I never took a second. It was just that good, delightful. I handed it back knowing that I'd been gifted with the sight of my doom, and turned it away.
Now, having seen all the criticism that Susan Wiley let the enemy inside the fence with these interviews, I see a purpose. Trump is testing the remaining strength of the Legacy Media. I see a weakened enemy, and I bet he does too. I think the damage such an article would have inflicted on the first term would have been much greater. Now Trump is showing that his administration hangs together and will face them down. Do arguments that this was a bad strategic blunder withstand scrutiny? You decide.
Trump is accurate in his restatement of his position on his lack of consumption and why. He has discussed it many times. Tough noogies for those trying to make something negative about it…
Ann Althouse said...
Obviously, Trump thinks it's a thing, or he's pretending or conflating it with the simpler idea that he has seen the terrible risk personally and he is playing it super safe to get a better result than what happened to his beloved brother.
Everyone is on a spectrum with respect to executive function. The ability to focus on a task to completion is highly correlated to success.
But if your task you are focused on is obtaining alcohol and getting drunk there are obvious problems.
People think they are rational beings. We aren’t. We are a giant chemical reaction with some electron transfer as intermediary effect.
The line between extremely successful billionaire property developer and abusive drunk is not that wide in some ways. Usually the main difference is the talent and luck to achieve success.
Martin Sheen made the papers when he said that his fellow POTUS George W. Bush was a "white-knuckle" or "dry drunk." There were indeed many problems with Bush. IMHO, they can be explained without reference to his earlier drinking problems. There was some weakness or lack in Bush that he used alcohol to cope with in his youth and that weakness affected his ability to handle the top job. If he'd gone through a 12-step program would that have changed anything? IMO "addictive personality" works better as a description than "dry drunk."
Presidents and leaders aren't on the same wavelength as other people. Narcissism and other psychological problems are common. It takes a good deal of egotism or to push oneself forward and stay in the game whatever happens. If the narcissism isn't innate, it's only encouraged by the conditions of political life.
I think Wince nailed it. Wiles is just seeing similarities between her father and Trump which in her mind is an 'Alcoholic Personality'.
I read the archived article this morning via RCP. I don't think anyone would be insulted by the quotes. You think Russ Vought considers being a right wing zealot an insult?
Althouse is correct- Trump was trying to use the word "obsessive" and got it confused with "possessive". You have to know the history of Trump's brother to understand how he views alcohol. I think Trump is correct- if he started drinking it might have quickly got out of control. I feel the same way about Joe Biden who was also teetotler.
like that he's supporting her, and it's probably in his interest to support her and provide explanation that makes her remark into something almost positive
This makes it sound like Wiles made the observation, and that Trump has decided to have her back. In actuality, Trump has said this about himself, and yesterday confirmed that her comment "mirrored" things that he had previously said.
As I noted yesterday, Susie Wiles’ comments are insightful and true, and also a nothingburger. Trump now says as much here.
One author described the alcoholic personality as being intensely focused at all times on what one was doing, so as to avoid focusing on alcohol.
My late father was a teetotler until fairly late in life when he began to enjoy the occassional glass of red wine in the evening. He never said so but I have always assumed his choice was also driven by the death of a close relative from alcoholism- his father and my grandfather who died in his early 40s after a drinking binge a few weeks following my parents' wedding for which he had gotten sober for the first time in years.
Rocco said...
“Stonewall Jackson, when asked why he didn’t drink alcohol, reportedly said that he tried it but gave it up because he liked it too much.“
This, I think, gets to the heart of alcoholism, workaholism, woke-aholism or any aholism: the addict loves the substance more than anything else in life — more than she loves her husband, more than her children, more than her friends, her country, her god, more than her own life itself. It’s nearly impossible to love an alcoholic and put them first in your life because even if you drink with them, you will never be loved equally in return. Their one and only true love is in a bottle.
I could tell you all about this alcoholic's personality but I would not burden you with that. The personality attributes for alcoholics? Not all alcoholics have all of them, but they have some. Like any stereotype, there is some truth in the development.
I only knew Pat Summerall from commercials he did.
Now I can't think of them without imagining him taking nips from his flask before, during, and after the ad.
“I made a similar decision about alcohol early in life.
I am considering it about blogger message boards too.”
Smart. Find a healthy healthful substitute to focus your possessiveness/obsessiveness on. Let everyone in your life know of the change you’re striving for and with self discipline I believe you will succeed. Good luck and Godspeed.
"What is the "alcoholic's personality" anyway?" She believes that (assumed drunk) alcoholics believe they can accomplish anything. Seems Trump is like that.
Unfortunate for drunk alcoholic is they frequently believe they can make the drive home ok, or that they can whup the baddest guy in the bar.
Trump believes he can do good but difficult stuff like become president of the USA and restore normality to the country.
To a certain generation Reiner still means Carl. But they do know this: Donald Trump is right that Rob and Michele Reiner’s tragic deaths were all about Donald Trump.
40+ years working mental health including substance addiction here. A lot of the list of symptoms of alcoholic personality are things that describe drunks while drinking, such as impulsivity and emotional instability. So that's basically useless. Others include poor self-esteem and perfectionism - neither of which have ever been used in the same sentence as Donald Trump. So in context, the phrase means "something I don't like."
Achilles said…
“…We are a giant chemical reaction with some electron transfer as intermediary effect.”
I’m gonna try that line on my wife and see what happens.
By telling himself he would be an alcoholic if he drank, the power of self suggestion to oneself drastically reduces the willpower requirement not to start drinking. This is a cheat code Lifehacker nugget that can be applied systematically systemically to develop positive habitual ritual behavior in a semi-autopilot mode.
So in context, the phrase means "something I don't like."
In context the phrase means the exact opposite. Donald Trump of all people can read friend or foe.
Tough to have an alcoholic personality if all you drink is Diet Coke. OTOH the Bad Orange Man's alcoholic brother was a cautionary example to him.
“To a certain generation Reiner still means Carl. But they do know this: Donald Trump is right that Rob and Michele Reiner’s tragic deaths were all about Donald Trump.”
kak should be beaten with the jawbone of an ass. His, preferably.
Having hung out with many 12-steppers, what they would mean by 'alcoholic personality' is similar to what they mean by someone being a dry drunk. What they mean by that is that the person is (a) taking the inventory of other people and not their own, (b) feeling like a victim, and (c) blaming whatever is happening to them on others. When a 12-step sponsor says to someone 'you're on a dry drunk, kiddo' what they mean is 'you are exhibiting the beliefs and personality tendencies of someone who is drinking and if you keep it up, you're going to in fact start drinking again, so knock it off.'
"You know who else didn't drink alcohol..."
-Kak, probably
I grew up in Memphis Tenn. if I had not left I would certainly have had sever issues. An alcoholic personality.
I think it's a really unworkable way to describe anyone who never drank. She simply made a bad choice of phrase. It works to get attention, but it doesn't work to describe. Trump is unusual, but not like an alcoholic, which is not unusual at all.
"...what they mean is 'you are exhibiting the beliefs and personality tendencies of someone who is drinking and if you keep it up, you're going to in fact start drinking again,..."
Which is why the phrase doesn't work to describe Trump, unless he starts drinking pretty damn quick.
This is typical of the VF piece--NPR level "analysis."
In mid-March, after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents (ICE) shackled and herded 238 immigrants onto transport planes and flew them to a notoriously brutal Salvadoran prison. According to Trump, the men were members of Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan gang, but the evidence was sketchy (often based on tattoos alone). Most had committed no serious crimes; one, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was deported by mistake, the Trump administration admitted.
That's it. No mention that all of them were in fact in the country illegally, and had committed crimes. No explanation of the highly technical and very temporary nature of the "mistake" regarding the "Maryland Man."
The big "gotcha:" “I will concede that we’ve got to look harder at our process for deportation,” Wiles told me at the time.
Oooh.
Lazarus: I only knew Pat Summerall from commercials he did.
Now I can't think of them without imagining him taking nips from his flask before, during, and after the ad.
According to the article, he quit drinking 20 years before he died.
What struck me as ingenuous about the Vanity Fair so called "exposé" was the notion that Wiles was being disloyal and attacking her boss. The reaction of many people was dismay. What was her motivation? In fact she was simply being candid about the reality as she sees it. If she said only glowing praises about Trump and the White House team she would have been called a sycophant working for a tyrant. IOW impossible to win. Probably that would have been worse, next to refusing to be interviewed.
I understand the possible confusion between the terms obsessive and possessive. In a way though Trump chose the correct word. He is not actually obsessive in the sense of insisting things be a certain way. In his deal making he often demonstrates a lot flexibility which dumbfounds many, how Trump can make bombastic declarations one minute and then switch in the next. I think his possessive nature is his tendency to hold onto a goal or an idea and never let it go. "Make America Great Again." He doesn't quit, he won't quit. That's not a bad quality in a President. IMO
Except she undermined many of the administrations arguments
@ Earnest Prole - I was referring to Wiles, not Trump.
Trump is simultaneously our most examined and least examined man.
I was referring to Wiles, not Trump.
Yes, I know. My point is that Trump seems fine with Wiles’ statement, and it may even have had its origins in a conversation between Wiles and Trump (in which case you can blame her for telling tales out of school but not for saying anything disparaging).
“ I think his possessive nature is his tendency to hold onto a goal or an idea and never let it go. "Make America Great Again." He doesn't quit, he won't quit. That's not a bad quality in a President. IMO”
100%. Brilliant insight.
Trump is simultaneously our most examined and least examined man.
True. That's a corollary to Salena Zito's famous observation that Trump's detractors take him literally, but not seriously, while his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.
“Trump is accurate in his restatement of his position on his lack of consumption and why. He has discussed it many times. Tough noogies for those trying to make something negative about it…”
No problem with Trump here. I appreciate his self introspection, in a group (politicians) where it is quire rare.
In my fraternity, there would typically be one proto-drunk, and one insanely rich one. For the most part, the protocol or even actual alcoholic were already drinking hard liquor as freshmen or sophomores, while the rest of us drank mostly beer, or smoked pot. And not fu-fu mixed drinks but whisky.
It always caught them in the end. One was a brain surgeon, who died young. Another a bottom feeding attorney, who bought a bar, and lost his family as a result. And talk about compulsive, my first pledge son switched from pot to booze, and found himself drinking a fifth of whiskey a night - as a freshman. There was no sophomore year. Another was more controlled. He was a pilot of high end private jets, and has flown to most of the countries on the planet. Great stories, like when a bunch of Russian oligarchs had a Survivor styled f**k off contest with a bunch of knockout Russian prostitutes, at a remote location, and got to fly the losers back home after being kicked out. Or having to carry suitcases of cash and automatic weapons to get refueled in the “Stan’s” after the breakup of the USSR. Had a brain aneurysm at 60, which lost his pilot’s license, and his reason not to drink. And every one of them had a parent who regularly drank hard liquor, and essentially let them do so in HS, and even MS.
“That's a corollary to Salena Zito's famous observation that Trump's detractors take him literally, but not seriously, while his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”
How true.
Susie is Bushi - time to wave goodbye. She should be replaced.
Unless Trump told her to talk to Democrat-pravda Vanity Fair - she should be let go.
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 2 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.