From News Corpse:
Trump’s ego won’t allow him to face the reality that his presidency is coming apart at the seams. In what appears to be an effort to persuade himself, as well as his glassy-eyed cult followers, that he is uncommonly popular, Trump repeatedly posts that he has an approval rating of 95% among Republicans. While he has tweeted this at least 29 times this year, he has never once provided a source for that wildly implausible number. Recent polling from the real world shows that his Republican support is at a career low of 74 percent. Nevertheless, Trump tweeted this bizarre commentary Monday morning:
Let’s set aside the awkwardly comical phrasing in this tweet wherein he appears to say that his own claim of party unity “is a great fraud.” Trump is clinging desperately to a delusion of wide scale GOP adoration. Even if it were true, it would represent a tiny sliver of the electorate which is only about 29% Republican, compared to 31% Democratic and 38% independent. There is no rational argument that he is well-liked by any constituency beyond his worshipful Deplorables. So he resorts to some tiresome sloganeering about the “fake” this and the “do nothing” that.
A whole lot of Trump’s personality and behavior comes into focus and explicable if you understand just how much he buys into Norman Vincent Peale ‘s “Power Of Positive Thinking” (PoPT) and the ability to create one’s environment by simple assertion of the positive and denial of the negative. It is something of a theme as “The Secret” and “prosperity Gospel” operate on similar principles of belief changing results. Hitler worked in a similar vein when he asserted it was a matter of ‘will’. At least he implied a certain amount of work and preparation might be necessary so his version was at least a bit more honest, as was his racism.
Of course Trump sort of does Norman Vincent Peale one better because he realized the PoPT could be applied to enemies by consistently referring to them in negative terms. It is the PoPT in reverse. His behavior is always outstanding and perfect while his enemies are losers and failing.
Of course, if we overlook the vague descriptors , fabulism, and negative appellations and focus only on actual evidence the PoPT, and negative variants, fall apart as means of influence.
I remember the popularity of Mr. Peale’s book. There was some resistance among theological scholars.
I remember one comment:
“I find Paul appealing, and Peale appalling.”