# Post x_408618799941033984 - Post ID: `x_408618799941033984` - Platform: X (Twitter) - Posted: 2013-12-05T15:28:08.000Z (UTC) - Deleted: no - Repost: no - Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/x_408618799941033984 - Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/x_408618799941033984/analysis - Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/x_408618799941033984.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording) ## Post text > Off shore windfarms being abandoned in droves throughout world—too expensive to build & operate—don’t work. (cont) http://t.co/YAm3DsC3lN ## Engagement - Likes: 28 - Reposts: 54 - Replies: 0 - Views: unknown - Metrics collected: 2026-01-31T23:43:13.276Z (UTC) # Analysis _Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-02-27T18:22:17.168Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._ ## Summary This post is primarily significant as a case study in motivated reasoning at the intersection of private financial interest and public disinformation. On December 5, 2013, Trump's legal challenge against the Aberdeen Bay offshore wind farm was actively before the Court of Session—a fight directly tied to the commercial value of his Menie Estate golf resort. The post's central claim ("abandoned in droves throughout world") was empirically inverted: 2013 was a record year for global offshore wind, posting 20% capacity growth in the first half of the year alone across 15 countries. The claim's directional inversion of documented reality suggests motivated cognition rather than ordinary ignorance. The rhetorical apparatus—hyperbole, three-part dismissal, vague social proof, deferred authority via link—constructs the appearance of principled economic critique while concealing its origin in personal financial exposure worth tens of millions of pounds. The day's coordinated posting cluster (four separate wind/climate tweets attacking Vattenfall and Alex Salmond by name) confirms this as a deliberate narrative campaign. The grandiose framing compensates psychologically for an adverse legal trajectory Trump would lose at every level through the UK Supreme Court in 2015. Authorship is likely aide-assisted but Trump-directed. No cognitive aberrations relative to 2013 baseline; no danger indicators present. The post's academic value lies in documenting the early, relatively low-stakes deployment of a rhetorical pattern—disguising self-interest as public truth-telling—that would later operate at national and global scale. # Psychological Analysis: Trump Tweet, December 5, 2013 **Post ID:** x_408618799941033984 | **Platform:** Twitter | **Age at posting:** 67 --- ## Situational Context: Active Litigation as Primary Frame This post cannot be interpreted in isolation from its material context. As of December 5, 2013, Trump's legal challenge against the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (Aberdeen Bay, Vattenfall) was actively before the Court of Session in Edinburgh—the hearing had commenced in November 2013. Trump had acquired 1,400 acres at Menie Estate, Aberdeenshire, in 2006 for a £1.2 billion golf resort development; Vattenfall's planned 11-turbine array, sited approximately 3.5 km offshore and visible from the resort, posed a direct commercial threat to the property's aesthetic appeal and marketable value. The legal challenge—filed May 2013, rejected February 2014, lost on appeal June 2015, and unanimously rejected by the UK Supreme Court December 2015—would ultimately cost the Trump Organization $290,000 in Scottish government legal fees. The post appears amid a same-day cluster of tweets directly naming Vattenfall, attacking First Minister Alex Salmond personally, and making sweeping claims against climate change policy. This coordination reveals a **two-track campaign**: legal combat in court, narrative warfare in public. The post under analysis represents the generalized "proof of concept" prong—establishing that offshore wind fails everywhere, thus retrospectively validating his opposition as prophetic realism rather than self-interested NIMBY litigation. --- ## Authorship Attribution **Local time:** 15:28 UTC = **10:28 AM EST** (Trump's likely location: New York or possibly Florida), firmly within business hours. The "(cont)" link format indicates use of a tweet-extending service (TweetLonger or similar), a workflow pattern more consistent with aide-managed publishing pipelines than Trump's characteristic impulsive late-night posting. The structure is slightly more polished than his unfiltered stream-of-consciousness style—declarative assertions without typos, no ALL CAPS, no emotional punctuation. However, the content aligns precisely with his active personal legal fight; the companion tweets on the same day targeting Vattenfall and Salmond *by name* suggest Trump was directing, if not originating, this messaging. The em-dash construction and short punchy cadence are consistent with his 2013 patterns. **Assessment:** Aide-assisted execution, likely with Trump's strong directional input. The more emotionally charged Vattenfall/Salmond tweets have higher Trump-authenticity markers; this more generalized framing reads as either aide-drafted from Trump's talking points, or Trump's own content processed through a publishing tool. Confidence: medium. --- ## Level 1: Dispositional Traits (Big Five) - **Extraversion (high, assertiveness facet):** Declarative certainty with no hedging—"abandoned in droves," "don't work"—projects commanding authority on a complex technical topic. - **Agreeableness (very low):** Zero acknowledgment of contrary evidence, no nuance, wholesale dismissal of an industry that in 2013 was posting record growth figures. Trust and tender-mindedness facets absent. - **Conscientiousness (moderate, goal-directed only):** The post serves a clear strategic purpose—building the public narrative for his legal position—but there is no deliberative fact-checking. Goal-pursuit without epistemic care. - **Openness (very low):** Binary framing throughout: offshore wind universally fails everywhere, no exceptions, no complexity admitted. - **Neuroticism (moderate, inferred):** The intensity of the day's coordinated anti-wind posting cluster—four tweets targeting the same issue in different registers—suggests underlying anxiety about the adverse legal trajectory. --- ## Level 2: Characteristic Adaptations **Agency motives dominate (power, autonomy, control):** The post functions to preserve Trump's commercial control over his resort's visual environment by delegitimizing the technology threatening it at the level of global public opinion. There is no communion content whatsoever—no concern for affected communities, workers, or environmental trade-offs. **The most clinically notable feature** is the **structural disguise of private financial motivation as public truth-telling.** The schema reads: *"I possess business acumen that ideologues lack. Expensive failures obvious to any competent businessman are being funded by credulous public money. I am performing a civic service by exposing them."* This schema enables self-interested behavior to be internally experienced and externally presented as epistemically superior practical wisdom—a pattern that will recur across Trump's later public communications at much larger scale. --- ## Level 3: Narrative Identity - **Protagonist role:** The pragmatic truth-teller exposing costly policy failures that ideologically captured advocates refuse to acknowledge - **Identity claims:** Implicit expertise in capital allocation and real-world project viability; the "builder" who knows what works versus what is "phony" - **Contamination sequence (implicit):** Good money being destroyed by technology "that doesn't work," enabled by politicians like Salmond who "forced phony extension" of failed projects - **Contrasting other:** Offshore wind proponents, Vattenfall, the Scottish government, Alex Salmond—cast as ideologically captured, financially naive, or corrupt ("phony") - **Redemption narrative (aspirational):** If global abandonment can be established as empirical fact, Trump's legal opposition is retrospectively reframed as prophetic realism --- ## Level 4: Clinical Indicators **Trigger:** Combined narcissistic injury and financial threat. The Court of Session hearing had commenced in November 2013 under adverse conditions; Trump had already lost earlier procedural battles. The day's coordinated anti-wind messaging represents escalating narrative compensation as judicial validation receded. **Narcissistic state: Grandiose.** The claim of global abandonment "in droves throughout [the] world" is grossly disproportionate to documented industry reality and functions as an *expansion* of self-justification as real-world legal prospects contracted. **Defense mechanisms:** 1. *Rationalization (neurotic):* Pseudo-economic argument ("too expensive") constructed to make financially self-interested opposition appear as dispassionate fiscal analysis 2. *Distortion (pathological):* 2013 was a record year for global offshore wind capacity (+20% H1 alone, 15 countries, 6,500 MW installed); this is presented as universal abandonment 3. *Splitting (immature):* The technology is characterized as universally failed ("don't work") with no acknowledgment of the gigawatts operating successfully across Northern Europe **Motivated reasoning at scale:** The core claim is not merely mistaken—it is directionally *inverted* from contemporaneous evidence. This level of inversion is characteristic of motivated cognition, not ordinary ignorance. The claim was selected for its utility to Trump's legal/narrative position, not its correspondence to reality. --- ## Rhetorical Analysis - **Hyperbole:** "in droves throughout world"—implies universal consensus pattern contradicted by documented expansion - **Three-part dismissal:** "too expensive to build / too expensive to operate / don't work"—false comprehensiveness creates the rhetorical appearance of thorough analysis - **Vague social proof:** "throughout world" invokes global consensus without citing any specific case - **Authority by reference:** The "(cont)" link implies external sourcing and evidential support while making verification difficult for casual followers - **Strategic ambiguity:** Framing private financial interest as general economic principle insulates the argument from conflict-of-interest criticism --- ## Fact Verification | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |-------|---------|----------| | "Offshore windfarms being abandoned in droves throughout world" | **False** | 2013 was a record year for global offshore wind. H1 2013 saw approximately 20% capacity growth. Fifteen countries hosted 6,500 MW of installed capacity. The UK alone exceeded 3,400 MW. Germany, Belgium, and Denmark were all reporting growth. No credible source documents widespread abandonment in this period; the industry was expanding, not contracting. | | "Too expensive to build and operate" | **Half True** | Offshore wind LCOE in Europe was genuinely elevated in 2013 (approximately €114–190/MWh in Germany versus €70–85 for fossil fuels). However, 'too expensive' elides the distinction between costly and unviable, ignores carbon externality costs unpriced in fossil fuel comparisons, omits the industry's documented declining cost curve, and conflates economic challenge with technical failure. | | "Don't work" | **False** | Offshore wind farms were generating substantial, documented electricity across the UK, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and other European markets in 2013 with well-understood operational performance records. The technology functioned as designed. This claim misrepresents technical viability to mean economic preferability. | Overall Veracity: 17% ## Danger Assessment No danger indicators present. This is a commercial/policy dispute conducted through rhetorical misrepresentation, not incitement. ## Authorship Analysis **Uncertain** (score: 40%) ### Indicators - 10:28 AM EST posting time — business hours, mild aide indicator - (cont) link format suggests TweetLonger or aide-managed publishing workflow - No typos, no ALL CAPS, no emotional punctuation — slightly more polished than authentic Trump style - Content directly aligned with active personal legal battle — strong Trump directional input - Em-dash construction and declarative cadence consistent with Trump's 2013 Twitter patterns ## Psychological Profile ### State **Grandiose State** **Trigger:** Narcissistic Injury — Defeat (Active Court of Session hearing (November 2013) on Trump's challenge to Aberdeen Bay offshore wind farm planning consent; adverse legal trajectory following May 2013 filing) Sentiment: -0.55 ### Clinical **Malignant Narcissism:** - Narcissistic: 50% - Antisocial: 35% - Paranoid: 20% - Sadism: 10% **Defense Mechanisms:** - rationalization (neurotic) - distortion (pathological) - splitting (immature) **Cognitive Complexity:** - Complexity: 33% **Parasocial Techniques:** - Appeal to populist anti-establishment sentiment: renewable energy framed as elite waste of public money - Shared grievance construction: taxpayer funds squandered on technology 'that doesn't work' - Epistemic flattery: followers positioned as savvy truth-seekers alongside Trump against credulous ideologues ## Danger Assessment **NONE** ### Gaslighting - Industry misrepresented as universally failing when 2013 was a documented record expansion year globally - Technology described as 'don't work' despite large-scale operational generation across Northern Europe - Attacks on the credibility of a sector's basic viability without citing evidence, expecting followers to accept claim on authority alone ## Fact Checks (3) _The model's verdicts from 2026-02-27._ > Offshore windfarms being abandoned in droves throughout world **FALSE** 2013 was a record year for global offshore wind. H1 2013 saw approximately 20% capacity growth. Fifteen countries hosted 6,500 MW of installed capacity. The UK alone exceeded 3,400 MW. Germany, Belgium, and Denmark were all reporting growth. No credible source documents widespread abandonment in this period; the industry was expanding, not contracting. Sources: https://grist.org/article/2013-to-be-record-year-for-offshore-wind/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_wind_power > Too expensive to build and operate **HALF TRUE** Offshore wind LCOE in Europe was genuinely elevated in 2013 (approximately €114–190/MWh in Germany versus €70–85 for fossil fuels). However, 'too expensive' elides the distinction between costly and unviable, ignores carbon externality costs unpriced in fossil fuel comparisons, omits the industry's documented declining cost curve, and conflates economic challenge with technical failure. Sources: https://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/development-and-investment-costs-of-offshore-wind-power.html > Don't work **FALSE** Offshore wind farms were generating substantial, documented electricity across the UK, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and other European markets in 2013 with well-understood operational performance records. The technology functioned as designed. This claim misrepresents technical viability to mean economic preferability. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_wind_power; https://grist.org/article/2013-to-be-record-year-for-offshore-wind/ Overall Veracity: 17% ## Tags - motivated_reasoning (95%) - conflict_of_interest_undisclosed (95%) - climate_denial (85%) - wind_energy_opposition (90%) - aberdeen_windfarm_litigation (90%) - rationalization (85%) - reality_distortion (80%) - financial_self_interest_as_public_argument (95%) - aide_assisted_probable (60%) ## That day _From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._ **Grief as Currency: Trump Prosecutes Aberdeen Wind War Under Climate Cover, Then Harvests Mandela's Death for Status** December 5, 2013 divides into two operationally distinct but psychologically continuous phases. From 8:54 AM to roughly 2:19 PM Eastern Standard Time (Trump was in New York, departing mid-afternoon for Palos Verdes, California), the day is dominated by a coordinated four-post assault on the Aberdeen Bay offshore wind project — naming Vattenfall and Alex Salmond directly, embedding factually inverted claims about global wind economics within an ideological climate-denial frame. Two near-duplicate global warming posts provide the scaffolding; a Buffett whataboutism post handles financial-criticism deflection. Every claim in this cluster is either false or materially misleading, and every claim is traceable to a direct financial conflict of interest: active Court of Session litigation over turbines threatening Trump's Menie Estate golf resort views. The evening pivot to California — announced at 2:19 PM EST, followed by Mandela tributes posted at approximately 2:17–2:38 PM PST — marks a complete register shift without any psychological discontinuity. The three Mandela posts deploy the standard narcissistic mechanism of idealized-object association: Trump inserts himself as co-protagonist before Mandela's legacy receives a sentence's worth of attention, and the asserted "wonderful relationship" misrepresents one meeting and one commercial airline transaction as personal intimacy. Both the morning campaign and the evening tributes serve identical supply-acquisition goals; the audience and instrument differ, the underlying architecture does not. No danger indicators are present, no rage spiral develops, and no sleep deprivation concerns apply — all posts fall within normal waking hours across both time zones. The day's most clinically notable features are the organized perseveration on Aberdeen (consistent with a documented multi-year campaign across letters, litigation, and social media) and the frequency of factually inverted claims, which reach approximately five clear falsities and three misleading assertions across twelve posts. Complexity is stable relative to the 2013 baseline. The narrative arc is mixed: a grievance campaign that transforms, without resolution, into opportunistic solemnity. Full digest for 2013-12-05: https://trump.fm/date/2013-12-05/analysis ## Citation - APA: Trump, D. J. (2013, December 5). Off shore windfarms being abandoned in droves... [Social media post]. X (Twitter). trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/x_408618799941033984 - MLA: Trump, Donald J. "Off shore windfarms being abandoned in droves throughout..." X (Twitter), 5 Dec. 2013. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/x_408618799941033984. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026. - Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "Off shore windfarms being abandoned in droves throughout...," X (Twitter), December 5, 2013, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/x_408618799941033984. ## For agents - Site overview: https://trump.fm/llms.txt - API specification: https://trump.fm/openapi.json - MCP server: https://trump.fm/mcp (search and fetch tools, no auth) - This post as JSON: https://trump.fm/api/posts/x_408618799941033984 - Analysis as JSON: https://trump.fm/api/analysis/x_408618799941033984 - All citation formats: https://trump.fm/api/cite/x_408618799941033984 - Same day: https://trump.fm/date/2013-12-05 - The record alone, without the analysis: https://trump.fm/post/x_408618799941033984.md?analysis=false _Markdown view of a trump.fm page. Post, analysis, date, feed, contradictions, search and about pages answer in markdown at their URL with `.md` appended (`/index.md` for the home page), or when sent `Accept: text/markdown`._