Trump is definitely not a narcissist. He’s very confident and has a very healthy ego. From his successes. Socially and in business. Trump is not a perfect guy but he is 100% more genuine than Ted Cruz. Cruz has to obfuscate and deny all the time. He lies on camera about things that are provably false in one quick google search.
You are so smart and so knowledgable. But maybe you don’t have good “spitzengefuhl” for a person’s psyche. You find your problems with Donald Trump’s character and not Ted Cruz’s, even as both of theirs have been on display both these past months and especially in Trump’s case from way back.
I took Cruz’s character for granted at the beginning of the campaign season. I believed he was a deeply devout practicing Christian and a servant of our Constitution. Now it is evident I was very wrong about that. He is acting like a lawyer. Twisting and turning evidence to avoid bumping up against laws, parsing to make himself look better, and the aforementioned lying outright. At minimum he spent a lot of alone time late at night with that Amanda woman, which does not fit the character he tries to portray. No one working with him has any affection for him. He does not tithe and appears not to give much to any community. He has an Asperger’s like cluelessness of how he appears to others.
Trump’s character has been that of a brash businessman, a confident hale fellow well met, a ladies’ man, and a straight forward honest manner. While he does attempt to put himself in the best light, he has a limit after which he assumes people can handle him the way he is. He has the kind of NY attitude I grew up with on the West Coast among Jewish friends and family. He is known for doing quiet acts of generosity. His character appears harsher and ruder but he is actually kinder and more sincere, just after watching them both all season.
Cruz doesn’t have a genuine bone in his body. He hides all of his dirtier sides, like his eligibility (he may be eligible but he was only Canadian on paper until he was 16), the Goldman Sachs stuff, and any inconvenient political history. Trump is mostly forthright about these things.
Cruz wears the mantle of conservative and Christian, but without more than lip service to either cloak. Trump doesn’t. He is what you see is what you get.
I agree that Cruz seems not to have a clue as to how he appears to people. If he did, he would certainly have worked on his false delivery way back in Alan Derschwitz’s classes. He's been caught in myriad lies - just this week he's said that Trump has no way to earn the 1237 delegates. An obvious lie to cover up that he wants a disrupted convention to soothe his hurt vanity! I, too, thoughtlessly accepted what Freepers were saying about his exemplary character back last summer. So this has been an education.
Trump, on the other hand, is exactly how you portray him. Jewish New York - which defined mid-century New York - is clear upon him. The accent, the cadences, the expressions, the personality have been heavily influenced by the hard-working, jokey, tough-as-nails Jews who once dominated this city in politics and business. If he didn't look so goyish, I can only imagine that he was greeted many times with the words I've heard all my life: “You Jewish?”
And monkeys may fly out of his butt.