It should come as no surprise that Donald Trump, the reality television star turned president turned convicted felon, has lifted much of his personal philosophy from a self-help book written in 1952. Penned by conservative thought leader Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking first entered Trump’s lexicon when his father, Fred, read the 256-page New York Times bestseller and became a Peale devotee. Today, writer Rachel Dodes delves into the origins and influence of Trump’s relationship to Peale—which began when he was an impressionable young man attending Manhattan’s Marble Collegiate Church, where Peale was the pastor—and explores how it has informed his continued denial of reality. “He preached that positive thoughts can cancel out negative ones; that attitudes are more important than facts; and that self-confidence is a gift from God himself,” writes Dodes. But certainly that kind of unbridled confidence, which for Trump has devolved into delusion, is a dangerous thing for a president like him to have.
Elsewhere, Savannah Walsh breaks down the Summer House scandal that has everyone talking. Plus, self-proclaimed practical joker Monica Lewinsky shares some tricks of the trade for April Fools’ Day. |
DANIELA TIJERINA,
ASSOCIATE EDITOR |
The president’s unbridled confidence is a product of the self-help author Norman Vincent Peale’s decades-long influence on him. It’s only gotten worse. |
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Kimiko Bossi, senior director of Finarte, explains how auction houses combat illicit trafficking after the disappearance of a Renoir, a Cézanne, and a Matisse from the Magnani-Rocca Foundation. |
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After dozens of cats were gruesomely killed in Croydon, a South London borough, committed animal activists begged the police to get involved. With the murders spreading across the country, it was a mad dash for Scotland Yard to catch the culprit. |
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