The following article by Kenneth T. Walsh was posted on the U.S. News and World Report website July 28, 2017:
President Donald Trump’s empathy deficit could be his biggest problem.
Donald Trump’s core supporters admire his disruptive ways, his eagerness to shake up the status quo and his commitment to “the forgotten Americans” who feel left out and demeaned by the nation’s cultural and political elites. On the other side of the spectrum are Trump’s adversaries who see him as a self-absorbed, combative, uninformed Washington outsider who regularly exhibits an erratic, angry temperament and a troubling authoritarian streak.
The reality is that Trump is in some ways all of these things. But above all, Trump’s problem is that he believes his own spin that he is leading a cult of personality consisting of people who will follow him wherever he wants to lead. He operates as if he knows best on virtually everything, even in areas where he has no experience or expertise, such as foreign affairs, military issues, health care reform and dealing with Congress. Perhaps most damaging, Trump has what might be called an empathy deficit, an inability to put himself in other people’s shoes. And he has enormous difficulty dealing with criticism or people who he thinks are standing in his way or who have somehow wronged him. Continue reading “Donald Knows Best”