Wednesday, November 20, 2019

UNDER PRESSURE, TRUMP BREAKS OUT THE NORMAN VINCENT PEALE




Trump embeds this in the usual insults -- of the press, of Adam Schiff, of Nancy Pelosi ...



But it really feels as if Trump is breaking out the Power of Positive Thinking again.
Donald Trump is a self-help apostle. He always has tried to create his own reality by saying what he wants to be true. Where many see failure, Trump sees only success, and expresses it out loud, again and again....

This is ... Norman Vincent Peale’s “power of positive thinking,” the utterly American belief in self above all else and the conviction that thoughts can be causative, that basic assertion can lead to actual achievement....

“Stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding,” Peale urged his millions of followers. “Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade.”

... The Power of Positive Thinking, his defining work and wild bestseller ... came out in 1952. It offered chapters such as “Believe in Yourself,” “Expect the Best and Get It” and “I Don’t Believe in Defeat.” “Whenever a negative thought concerning your personal powers comes to mind, deliberately voice a positive thought,” he wrote. “Actually,” Peale once said, “it is an affront to God when you have a low opinion of yourself.”
Both Trump and his father were Peale fans.

I don't know if he's reverting to this because he's anxious or because Fox News has him convinced that he's winning, but to me it's not very persuasive. However, I'm not the target market. With his base, Trump gets a lot of mileage out of acting aggrieved, so in the clip above he blends grievance and forced positivity. To me it's an awkward mix, but his fans regard him as both all-powerful and relentlessly besieged, so it'll probably keep the faithful on his side for the foreseeable future.

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UPDATE: There he goes again.

Posted by Steve M. at 6:34 PM

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