“…it’s unsettling to encounter a prospective leader whose persona is so conspicuous and well defined and yet whose core is so obtuse”

Trump might be the single most self-­involved yet least introspective person I have ever met in my life, in or out of politics. I’m guessing he would say this is a good quality in a president. It spares him unglamorous dilemmas. But it’s unsettling to encounter a prospective leader whose persona is so conspicuous and well defined and yet whose core is so obtuse. The Obama political acolyte David Axelrod has likened campaigns to “an M.R.I. for the soul.” If that’s the case, maybe the most fascinating question for Trump is not where this all ends up, but what his expedition reveals about Donald Trump’s soul, if it reveals anything at all. “Some people think this will be good for my brand,” Trump concluded, as deep as he probes. “I think it’s irrelevant for my brand.”

Mark Leibovich, “Donald Trump is Not Going Anywhere”, The New York Times Magazine (4 October 2015), 52.