Analysis: "@pjpaton: Wind Mills are highly dangerous - They tend to sh...

13y ago Apr 14, 2013 at 11:54 AM

"@pjpaton: Wind Mills are highly dangerous - They tend to sheer off blades and catch fire in gales and storms @realDonaldTrump" True!

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AI Analysis

Machine-generated analysis of the post above on 2026-03-22. Not written by the author of the post.

Danger Level

None

Narcissistic State

Grandiose

Authorship

Self-Written

Intensity

18%

Low-intensity maintenance post operationally serving Trump's active campaign against the Aberdeenshire wind farm adjacent to his Scottish golf course. Rather than asserting the safety claim directly, he retweets an agreeable third-party statement and appends a single-word endorsement — a characteristic "laundering" maneuver that captures full social benefit while deflecting factual accountability. The surrounding posts reveal a sustained personal early-morning Twitter session of compliment-retweeting and self-promotion. The dominant defense mechanism is rationalization: a self-interested business/aesthetic position is reframed as public safety concern. The factual claims in the endorsed tweet (turbines "tend to" shed blades and catch fire in storms) are exaggerated; modern turbines employ automatic shutdown systems in high winds, and catastrophic failures, while documented, are not routine storm behavior. No acute narcissistic injury or rage is present; this is supply-seeking and grievance-maintenance consistent with baseline 2013 Trump. No danger indicators.

Authorship Analysis

Self-Written

Indicators:

Posted at 7:54 AM EDT (New York local time) — early morning, within authentic window
Single-word affirmation ('True!') is characteristic Trump shorthand
Retweet-with-comment format was his habitual style in 2013
No polished grammar required; minimal aide involvement needed
Surrounded by other early-morning retweet-compliment posts suggesting a personal scrolling session

Psychological Profile

▶ State

Grandiose State

Trigger: Supply Seeking (Anti-wind energy grievance combined with self-interest (Scotland golf course dispute))

Sentiment

-0.30

▶ Clinical

Malignant Narcissism:

Narcissistic

20%

Antisocial

10%

Paranoid

Sadism

Defense Mechanisms:

rationalizationprojection

Cognitive Complexity:

Complexity

15%

Parasocial Techniques:

Retweet-as-endorsement: borrows authority of another voice while maintaining distance from full authorshipSimple affirmation ('True!') invites followers to agree with minimal cognitive friction

Fact Checks (3)

"Wind mills tend to sheer off blades in gales and storms"

Mostly False

Wind turbines have automatic feathering and shutdown systems that activate at high wind speeds (~25 m/s). Blade structural failures occur but are infrequent and not characteristic storm behavior. The word 'tend to' implies regularity unsupported by incident data.

"Wind mills catch fire in gales and storms"

Half True

Turbine fires occur globally (~11-17 annually as of early 2010s estimates) and wind can be a contributing factor, but fire is not a characteristic storm response — turbines typically shut down in gales. The causal framing overstates the storm-fire connection.

"Wind mills are highly dangerous (endorsed as True)"

Mostly False

Comparative occupational safety data consistently show wind energy has lower fatality rates per unit of energy produced than fossil fuel industries. 'Highly dangerous' is not supported by cross-industry safety benchmarks.

Receipts

No contradictions with other posts detected yet.

Psychological Analysis: April 14, 2013 — Wind Turbine Endorsement

Authorship Attribution

Score: 0.78 (lean authentic) | Confidence: Medium

Posted at approximately 7:54 AM EDT in New York — within Trump's established early-morning media consumption window. The post requires zero craftsmanship; a one-word appended endorsement to an agreeable tweet is consistent with impulsive personal scrolling. The surrounding posts (multiple compliment retweets, Celebrity Apprentice plug) suggest an unbroken personal session rather than scheduled aide content.

Contextual Frame: Self-Interest Masquerading as Safety Concern

The critical interpretive context is Trump's ongoing legal and public dispute with the Scottish government over an offshore wind farm proposed near his Aberdeenshire golf course (Menie Estate). Since 2012 he had been lobbying vigorously against the development, attending Scottish Parliament hearings and repeatedly asserting that wind turbines ruin landscapes and tourism. This post is best understood as an extension of that self-interested campaign, repackaged as objective safety information via third-party amplification.

Level 1: Dispositional Traits (Big Five)

Low Agreeableness: Implicit dismissal of renewable energy advocates without engagement
Low Openness: Rigid, self-confirming information processing — seeks tweets that validate existing position
High Extraversion (assertion facet): Public amplification of a minority safety claim as if settled truth
Moderate Neuroticism: No acute elevation here; this is baseline maintenance content

Level 2: Characteristic Adaptations

Dominant motive: Power/Agency — controlling the informational environment around a dispute that threatens his business assets. The post is instrumentally motivated: build public skepticism of wind energy to support the Scottish legal and lobbying campaign.

Schema revealed: The world is divided into things that benefit Trump (golf courses, quiet landscapes) and threats to be defeated (wind farms, regulators, unfavorable journalism). External validation is actively curated and amplified to reinforce this schema.

Level 3: Narrative Identity

Protagonist role: Prescient truth-teller. By retweeting and endorsing with "True!" Trump positions himself as someone whose prior warnings are now being confirmed by independent voices. The narrative subtext is: I said this already, here is proof.

Identity claim: Man of practical common sense who sees through the green energy consensus.

Contrasting other (implicit): Renewable energy advocates, Scottish government regulators, environmentalists — cast as naive or dishonest about turbine risks.

Defense Mechanisms

Rationalization (neurotic): A financial/aesthetic NIMBY interest is reframed as public safety advocacy
Projection (immature): Credibility is borrowed from the original tweeter, allowing Trump to endorse a dubious claim while deflecting factual accountability

Rhetorical Analysis

The move is economical and deniable. Trump does not assert the danger claim — he endorses it. If challenged, the original tweeter bears factual responsibility; Trump receives all the social benefit among receptive followers. This "laundering" pattern recurs throughout his early Twitter period. The fear vocabulary in the retweeted content ("highly dangerous," "sheer off blades," "catch fire") is affectively potent but factually exaggerated, priming followers against renewable energy through emotional rather than evidential logic.

Fact Verification

Claim	Verdict	Evidence
"Wind mills tend to sheer off blades in gales and storms"	Mostly False	Wind turbines have automatic feathering and shutdown systems that activate at high wind speeds (~25 m/s). Blade structural failures occur but are infrequent and not characteristic storm behavior. The word 'tend to' implies regularity unsupported by incident data.
"Wind mills catch fire in gales and storms"	Half True	Turbine fires occur globally (~11-17 annually as of early 2010s estimates) and wind can be a contributing factor, but fire is not a characteristic storm response — turbines typically shut down in gales. The causal framing overstates the storm-fire connection.
"Wind mills are highly dangerous (endorsed as True)"	Mostly False	Comparative occupational safety data consistently show wind energy has lower fatality rates per unit of energy produced than fossil fuel industries. 'Highly dangerous' is not supported by cross-industry safety benchmarks.

Overall Veracity: 30%

Cognitive Status

No markers of concern. Post is brief by design; the minimalism is stylistic, not symptomatic. Consistent with 2013 baseline.

Danger Assessment

Level: None. No violent imagery, dehumanizing language, or mobilization signals.

Summary Note

This post is not clinically significant in isolation but is behaviorally revealing: it exemplifies Trump's use of social media as a business-interest lobbying tool disguised as citizen commentary, executed via the structural convenience of third-party amplification.