Trolls. Not the cute kind.

Sweet Hubby and I were talking about Internet trolls recently.  (I can't remember what topic got us to that.)  He described them as people who don't want to contribute, but simply like to stir things up, watch people go at each other.

Me being me, I immediately started wondering what could have happened to someone to turn them into a troll.  SH said they act that way because it gives them power.  But what kind of power is it?  It avails them nothing.  It doesn't make them richer or better looking.  It doesn't allow them to win any battles, or buy anything, or create anything.  It's the emptiest kind of power, really just a sense of power really, but a power so finite it enables them to do one thing only, to upset other people.  How powerless does a person have to be to need that?

45, of course, is the biggest troll in the world right now, using the Internet, Twitter specifically, to get people riled up, to insult opponents and ethnic groups, to spread lies and rumors and disinformation.  How insecure he must be, to have to declare himself a genius whose hands are big, constantly calling his actions the purest, his ideas the smartest, calling an impeachable offense "a perfect phone call".  If Obama had talked like that, or acted like that, the country would have found it repulsive and turned on him.  If Obama had done any one of the thousands of reproachable offenses of this President, his career would have been over in an instant.  So why can 45 act like this and still be fawned over and adored?  I understand that the Republicans who slavishly empower him do so because his Presidency allows them to enact parts of their agendas, although I suspect there are quite a number of Republicans in Congress who recognize him for exactly what he is and are simply too cowardly to speak up.  My wish for them is that they spend the rest of their lives regretting their behavior during this administration.  But what about regular Joes like me, who listen to his bumbling speeches, watch the famous weather map debacle, see his obvious ignorance, and still follow and cheer and adore this dangerously flawed man?  I don't know that I'll ever understand that.