I learned from your post, tku.
But let’s start from the first supposition. Do you actually believe that Ted “has managed to convince himself that his moral convictions and motivations originate from God, not from Self.”
Seven years of an Ivy League education can be very detrimental to the Christian beliefs of a young man. Most emerge as atheists or agnostics.
Since Ted’s campaign behavior has not been aligned with Christian teachings, I suspect that he has polished an opportunistic religious act to woo conservatives. He has memorized ‘christian speak’ and ‘conservative speak’ and rolled them into one effective speech after another.
The problem is that his eye movement and gesturing are out of sync with honest speech. Which means he often doesn’t really agree with what he has just said.
I was giving him the benefit of the doubt since none of us can actually crawl inside his mind. What you’re describing would be a pathological step beyond the narcissism I speculated about. Your description, if true, would pretty much translate into someone who has no conscience — a sociopath who just isn’t capable of feeling empathy for others.
Put another way, it would mean a purposeful and constant faking of his entire spiritual belief system just to fulfill his career ambitions. But beyond that, if that were the case, we would be able to point to all areas of his life, not just his career ambitions. A sociopath fakes his behaviors and feelings quite nicely — they can actually be quite good at it — but to pass from the realm of simple selfishness and narcissism to sociopathy... I just don’t see it.
I just don’t see any evidence in other areas of his life to speculate too deeply on that one. Now, if he ever has the equivalency of the infamous Clinton Body Count following him around, that’s different. :-/
One more thing... What you are describing touches on what I was talking about with this type of religious-based narcissism and why it is dangerous. Typically, intelligent people are able to use rationalization and intellectualization pretty effectively to justify their actions. If you add a religious-based sense of self-importance, it’s even worse.
The more a person starts believing the whole “I’m God’s face” malarkey ( something that people around him feed and support btw), then the easier it is to start thinking, “Well, the end justifies the means. God is ok with tweaking the delegate rules and stuff because all these Trump people are so stupid and can’t see how I’m the “Anointed One.”
Once a person like that gets into power, it’s hard for them to keep control of their “God-given Superiority,” especially when they’re surrounded by ‘idiot commoners’ like you and me. ;-)
If u read my reply at 257, it sounds pretty much in line with what you may be saying. The distinction I’m making since then, in response to your comment, is pretty much a matter of degree. It comes from my own habit of thinking in terms of how we all fall somewhere on the mental health continuum. (None of us is considered completely “normal” because we all have different circumstances that impacted the person we became as adults).
Crawling back in my hidey hole now... Lol.