What is it that compels our Predident to devote so much time and effort to acting such a fool? Most modern adults are run by dysfunctional mental machinery built up over the course of their lives. It’s usually a system of ideas and behavior that insulates and reinforces the ego against conflicting input. This is just Trump’s flavor, extreme though it is. There are so many inputs asserting that he’s an atrocious corrupt man-child that his defensive behavior has a lot to react to. He’s also trying to fuel the similar patterns of those aligned with him. Who would have believed it possible? Well he had precedents is getting away with incompetence in Ronald Reagan, Quayle, and Bush Junior. Social and political scientists who have studied anti-intellectualism, corporate media manipulation, recent politics, and certain cultural groups in the US probably had some idea it was possible.