Trump’s Personality Pattern and Its Implications for Leadership
A paper published one month before the 2016 presidential election described the “political personality” of Donald Trump. Aubrey Immelman had previously developed similar papers on Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, George W. Bush and many other national and foreign leaders. I thought it would be interesting to see how well the paper on Trump fared three-plus years into his presidency.
Immelman prepared the paper using publicly available materials to develop a personality profile using the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria. Theodore Millon (1928-2014) was a renowned American psychologist who studied personality.
Briefly, Millon identifies 10 scales. A personality pattern consists of multiple scales.… Read the rest
“Small Governmentism” and Evangelical Support for Trump
Ie extent and duration of white evangelical Protestant (WEP) support for Trump continues to mystify many. An earlier post summarized John Fea’s (who himself is a WEP) explanation for this support. Marcia Pally provides a somewhat different explanation. She starts her paper by noting dimensions of WEP support for Trump as found in a PRRI survey. Among WEPs, 81% of males and 71% of females voted for Trump in the presidential election as did 68% of those with a college education and 78% of those without a college degree. Since his election, WEP support for Trump has never dropped below 65%.… Read the rest
Empathy, the Coronavirus, and Political Polarization
The recent controversy over when or whether to restart the economy considering the coronavirus epidemic prompted me to examine the role of empathy in political polarization. Trump apparently prompted by arguments made by some business and investor interests publicly articulated his view that social or physical distancing, with some exceptions, should end by Easter to restart the American economy. Public health officials and related scientists suggest that such a move could endanger the health of many Americans, making the epidemic much worse.
These differing viewpoints often reflect the political polarization in our country. Republicans, with some exceptions, tend to support the restart view, especially as developed via the Fox news network.… Read the rest
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