"To better understand Mr. Trump’s approach to life, ethics and politics,' we should look to Friedrich Nietzsche, who was repulsed by Christianity.“What is good?” Nietzsche asks in “The Anti-Christ”: “Whatever augments the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man. What is evil?Whatever springs from weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power increases" Whether or not he has read a word of Nietzsche Mr. Trump embodies a Nietzschean morality rather than a Christian one. It is characterized by indifference to objective truth (there are no facts, only interpretations), the repudiation of Christian concern for the poor and the weak, and disdain for the powerless. It celebrates the“Übermensch,” or Superman, who rejects Christian morality in favor of his own. For Nietzsche, strength was intrinsically good and weakness was intrinsically bad. So, too, for Donald Trump."
At www.nytimes.com
