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Case in point:
I was mostly not a fan of Merkel during her 16 years. Before the refugee thing, she did not have any policies she believed in apart from "I should be the chancellor". Spineless, always following the prevailing winds. The people want to get rid of nuclear because Fukoshima? Let's get rid of nuclear.
(Her stance on the refugees was different from that. Apart from the first order effects of letting in a lot of brown people, the fact that she did this while being the head of the CDU also permanently empowered the far-right AfD, a long term effect I personally find far more concerning.)
Of course all politicians have a strong ego, but I do not think hers was pathological. I can not imagine Merkel watching the Tagesschau, noticing that she was not mentioned once, and deciding to do something about it. She knew what she had achieved: starting out as the pastor's daughter (not exactly high society, especially not in East Germany), studying physics, then joining the CDU after the '89 revolution. Starting out as Kohl's Quotenfrau and Quoten-Ossi (affirmative action woman and East-German), she climbed to the top of the CDU (a backstabbing hive of scum and villainy if there ever was one, and certainly not one believing in female empowerment), and managed to keep on top of them (and in power) for an impressive amount of time.
My feeling is that she was quite happy with her achievements, not that she was obsessively comparing herself to her predecessors and found herself wanting because Kohl had one more unification under his belt or Schroeder had more invitations to Moscow or whatever.
To be a bit more blunt, while she was much and viciously ridiculed for being a non-feminine woman, with Merkel I do not get the feeling that she was in politics to compensate for some perceived inadequacy.
I mean, if I was Trump and comparing myself to Obama, I would have plenty to feel inadequate about. Unlike Trump, Obama was not exactly born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Where Trump has a BS from UPenn, Obama has a doctorate from Harvard Law. Obama followed a standard cursus honorum from state legislature to US senate to presidency. Trump basically won the presidency through his willingness to engage in the Birther conspiracy and through being correctly perceived by his proletarian supporters as the candidate who would piss off the establishment the most. It does not matter who your voters are for getting elected president, as each vote counts the same (at least within a district, otherwise it's terribly messy), but for the amount of respect you earn from the upper-middle class for your victory it matters a lot.
Of all the honors Obama received, the Nobel is the one he deserved least, and one of the weakest Nobels awarded. He basically got a Nobel simply for not being George W Bush. Well, Trump always had an additional 15 years of not being GWB on Obama, so it surely stands to reason that he should get a Nobel too, no?
Sadly, Trump severely lacks awareness of how the mind of the Nobel committee works. The way he got into politics is the first point against him. His general style is the second. From his tweets to him renaming the DoD to DoW, he is not even fulfilling European expectations for how a meh US president should behave, never mind the expectations for one deserving the Nobel. At this point, he would have to persuade the Middle East to live in harmony and friendship, negotiate with Russia and China for a treaty which reduces nuclear weapon stockpiles by 90% and be hailed as 'The Peacebringer' by archangels (or equivalent) representing at least three world religions before he had a shot at getting his own instead of a hand-me-down like Goebbels or Infantino's sad participation trophy.
Yeah, and I don't think that's how Trump operates either. Ages ago, when everybody and their dog was opening startups, before Trump got into politics, I watched a video from some techno-entrepreneur I can't even recall. He was talking about the different motivations for starting a company. Money was the obvious one, he brought up one or two more that I can't remember, but the one that stick in my head was "legacy". He gave Trump as the example for that one, as he was willing to forgo profit, just to put his family name on top of buildings. For me this continues to be the best explanation for his behavior. It's probably the whole reason he ran for president, because now his name will have to recorded in history books.
Getting rid of nuclear, and letting in refugees, and dismissing all concerns with a one-liner, shows the same kind of obsession with how history will remember you, in my opinion.
That's a lot stronger condemnation of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the entire social class responsible for it's stewardship, than it is of Trump.
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