There is one question it would be wonderful for someone to ask Donald Trump at the Republican debate on Sept. 16:
What is wrong with you?
Seriously. Many of us want to know. It doesn't matter whether it is asked by one of the journalists or a fellow candidate or a heckler in the audience. It just needs to be asked.
Because really, what's wrong with the guy? Tell us in his own words. Ask him the question. Directly. What would he say? No doubt, "Nothing's wrong with me. I'm almost perfect." Or, "I'm rich, have a beautiful wife, fabulous children, a great life. What's wrong with you?" But it would be interesting to ask.
What's going on inside the mind of someone who insults on the most personal level anyone who questions anything about him. What's wrong with someone who, when questioned by Chris Cuomo on CNN, responds by saying the ratings of Cuomo's show aren't good, who calls Ben Carson an "okay" physician, who smugly says of John McCain, "I like people who weren't captured"?
What motivates a person to call everything about him the best, and to deem everyone who disagrees with him the worst. Carly Fiorina was one of the worst CEOs ever. Hillary Clinton was the worst Secretary of State. He is the best deal maker, has the best organization, went to the best, hardest to get into, school in the country (not true on either count, by the way).
He is the smartest, he tells us every time he can, in large part, he believes, because he is so rich. (Wealth equals intelligence -- a highly suspect construct, but one obviously central to his self-image.)
Well, he ranked 140th in a recent Forbes list of wealthy Americans, which also estimated his wealth at less than half of what Donald says it is (don't get me wrong, he's rich), so there are, by his calculus, 139 smarter people in the country (in truth, of course, there are millions smarter than he), and to use his logic, 139 people likely better qualified to be President -- several of whom are women, foreign-born or possess other characteristics Donald finds odious.
Think about having this guy as an employee, or even a boss. He would have been run out of the business ages ago. Could anyone stomach him? Boasting, berating, stating as facts things that are clearly not factual? The only way for such repugnant behavior to survive is to run an inherited empire. Lucky for Donald.
Does anyone think that with his personality Donald would be so wealthy and powerful had Fred Trump not handed wealth and power to his son? Could this ego, this barrage of insults, this lack of self-awareness have risen up the ranks in corporate America where it would have competed with other, far smarter and more politically shrewd egos?
What do the people who work for him think? Clearly, they are afraid to say, but can even those he pays well see the guy as anything other than insufferable?
It would be easy to go along with the conventional wisdom that his popularity is based on his "refreshing" political incorrectness, that he is saying what many are thinking, and those of us bewildered by his rise are much more bewildered by those who hang on his every word.
But there may be more to his following than just saying what others think and won't say. It is that mesmerizing quality of bullies and braggarts that when they bully and brag enough, people start to believe that they are as wonderful as they say and those who disagree are as awful as they say. Not sure how that works, but it does.
It is depressing to see the revisionist, squirming punditry that has gone on since Donald announced he was running. Those who saw him as a joke and a sideshow are now saying, well, he's tapped into something, he should be taken seriously.
No. He shouldn't be taken seriously. Even if he wins the nomination (possible), and the Presidency (given how Hillary is doing, also possible) he shouldn't be taken seriously. Those would indeed be serious events. But taking Donald seriously?
Donald describes himself as an entertainer, and while we have had entertainers as governors, senators and even presidents, they have usually not been delusional as well as well as entertaining.
Donald likes to say he is a counter puncher who gets ugly only when responding to attacks from others. Like everything Donald says, it's not true. He's a sucker puncher who initiates attacks, a low blow artist, who divides the world into those who agree that he is great and everyone else who will be flattened.
Like all egomaniacs and bullies, he only understands the same treatment from others.
We know what's wrong with Donald. But it would be such an enlightening moment if someone were to ask that very politically incorrect, and therefore very Donald Trumpian question: What is wrong with you?
We would love to hear his answer.
Earlier on Huff/Post50: