Anybody who has looked at Trump’s background and read anything written by people who know him will find it easy to understand why he is able to call soldiers, both living and dead, “losers”. The ghost writer of Trump’s autobiography, Tony Schwartz, had an unprecedented insight into his character and concluded that he was pathologically addicted to winning, and winning at any price. This “zero sum game” outlook simplistically judges everything on the basis of winners and losers. There is no “win-win” situation. For Trump, a deal is one where he succeeds, and others fail. Thus, it is a win not to join the army if you don’t want to. He didn’t want to, and thanks to daddy’s money, he won. For Trump, public service and duty are concepts which he cannot understand so people who do public service and have a sense of duty are simply failures. To fight a battle and win is success, to fight and loose, or be captured as in the case of John McCain, is failure. Winning at any price means that the truth is irrelevant. If lying means winning , then lying is acceptable.
Similarly in the case of his tax returns, he doesn’t want them known by the public so suppression, by any means, is the correct course of action, another success.
So extreme is Trumps dedication to this philosophy that Tony Schwartz felt that the autobiography should be re-named The Psychopath rather than the actual title, The Art of the Deal. With that understanding, calling those who died in battle “losers” makes absolute sense.
Of course, those who really know him are clear about his character. His sister Mary, a former Federal judge, stated that he is a liar and an unprincipled phoney. She also stated that the test required to enter the University of Pennsylvania was not taken by Trump but by another, for money. But again, in this universe, this is success. He got in.
His business failures, six bankruptcies, are glossed over though, as Trump did not suffer personal bankruptcy, they can be considered successes. As he himself said, “I do play with the bankruptcy laws—they’re very good for me.”
Perhaps the only surprising thing is that Americans, though not the majority, voted for him. With no sense of service other than to self, and with little knowledge of the nation in which most of its citizens live, he became the President of the United States. That is real success.
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