Trump and the Apocalypse

From the beginning, the biggest problem with Donald Trump has been his deranged psychological state.

As numerous psychologists will tell you, Trump is a textbook malignant narcissist.

As noted repeatedly, but not enough, Trump’s existence is devoted to Trump, period.

Trump suffers (and he clearly DOES suffer) from “narcissistic personality disorder” or NPD.

Here are the manifestations of NPD. Judge for yourself whether they apply to Donald Trump:

• a grandiose sense of self-importance
• a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love
• a belief in one’s specialness or uniqueness such that one can only be understood by associating with others of unique high status
• excessive self-admiration – arrogance and utter lack of humility.
• a sense of entitlement
• an exploitative personality
• a lack of empathy and unwillingness to  recognize or identify with the feelings
 and needs of others.

Since he arrived in the White House,  Trump as become even more obsessed with self. As he becomes threatened by his own frantic undoing and hubris, he grows ever more defensive, deceptive, unstable and angry. Growing paranoia is likely in the mix.

 His response is to lash out at not only his perceived “enemies," but those around him, those who don’t bow and scrape before him.

And so we anticipate more firings to come.

If it weren’t for his fragile mental health, we might survive the demise of a merely incompetent Donald Trump.  But with a deranged president faced with defeat and public humiliation, we are threatened with his power to take us all down in a fit of madness.

And by “us” I mean humanity.

Think no further than a mad man (in both senses of the word) who has a doomsday nuclear arsenal at his disposal.

We can only hope that sane minds in the nation’s capital are thinking along these same lines. 

How could they NOT be?

Trump, in a lesser, but still dangerous, scenario of madness and anger, could brandish presidential threats to protect his all-consuming ego by holding hostage the rule of law.

We have yet to learn whether last year his arrogance played a direct role in undermining our elections.

Some weeks back I wrote eight Republican senators who have been identified as possibly willing to put the nation (and humanity) before their partisan interests. I asked that they initiate the removal of Trump from office on the grounds of his mental instability.

Only John McCain responded. His short letter was largely political boiler-plate that, predictably, avoided the question of Trump’s mental health.

Since then, the president’s behavior has become all the more ominous.

It is not alarmist to say that a mentally unstable Donald Trump is a threat to humankind. It’s time for Republicans and Democrats, for those closest to the president, for his family, for all of us, to insist on and force his resignation or impeachment.

Trump's delusions are non-partisan grounds for impeaching him.

Today I concluded that the only way we can avoid catastrophe here and abroad is to impeach Donald Trump on the grounds that he is unfit for the office of the presidency.

This is not a partisan issue. Forget Trump's conflicts of interests etc.

And forget your own worthy causes, even the ones Trump supports.

Trump's unfitness is caused by mental illness, plain and simple. He is, in a word, delusional (to say nothing of being a pathological narcissist, sexual predator and liar).

His delusions have spread to his enabling closest advisers, whose moral immune systems have been suppressed by their own lust for power.

I wish I could say this were a metaphor, but it is literally true, Alas, there are no Trumpian “alternative” truths. Ask any mental health professional.

Regardless of where we stand on the issues, we have a patriotic duty to be laser focused on impeaching a President dangerously unfit for office by virtue of his mental illness.

Mental Health Assessment of Donald Trump

I have just received the following self-leaked mental health assessment for one Donald John Trump, candidate for the presidency of the United States of America.

Mental Health Assessment:

Patient/Client: Donald John Trump

General description: Caucasian, exceedingly wealthy American male of privilege and executive status.

Mr. Trump is at the extreme range of personality traits frequently associated with this cohort.

Assessment of behavior: Like many others in this group, Mr. Trump is self-centered, isolated and detached from reality. He is prone to be insensitive to and manipulative of others.

He has sexist tendencies and acts out his sexual insecurities with “macho,” “conquest” behavior that is disrespectful of women and threatening to men, women and children.

As a physically imposing man, he can be intimidating. He is habitually impulsive and demeaning in word and gesture. As a public figure he encourages violent behavior among his followers.

Because of his insecurity, he seeks nearly constant affirmation and deference from those around him. His ambition is entirely self-serving and self-centered.

Mr. Trump fits the textbook descriptions of a pathological narcissist. He has demonstrated sociopathic traits.

In part because of his television acting career and fiction-based celebrity status, he has confused  artifice with reality. This and the above-mentioned character traits, explain his compulsive contradictory statements and disregard for truth in general.

Conclusion: Mr. Trump has a dysfunctional, delusional personality. He is not mentally or socially fit for military service of any kind. In possession of presidential power, including the power to wage conventional and nuclear war, he would pose an extreme security risk not just to the nation but to the world.

Trump's Narcissism and the Suspension of Disbelief

If you search “Trump” and “narcissist” on the web you get dozens of hits linking the two words. Many posts are from therapists.

(Vanity Fair recently posted an overview story on the subject.)

But a therapist I know says dismissively, “Every politician is a narcissist.” It comes with the turf, she maintains.

The difference is that Donald Trump is a pathological narcissist. He lies, he bullies, he is self-absorbed, he has little or no empathy…and he flaunts all of that in public. None of that “comes with the political turf,” at least not publicly.

Clearly Trump is not fit for polite or political company, let alone the oval office.

But significant numbers of people don’t see it that way.

He has the backing of roughly 30 percent of polled Republicans. One poll has him winning 41 percent of the vote in a match-up with either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.  Thankfully, Democrats “win” over Trump in the poll. (Interestingly, Sanders draws more votes that Clinton against nearly every other Republican hopeful…but that’s another story)

So what’s the deal?  Why doesn’t Trump’s extreme public narcissism sink his candidacy? Indeed why does it seem to have contributed to his being the Republican front-runner.

The list of reasons is long, but right up near the top I’d put our media-manipulated culture.

Much of the public “understands reality” from what it gleans from TV and radio. A media fantasy world becomes “reality.” "The News" is a distorting mirror of politics (and crime, and success, and war, and health....)

Celebrities (and Trump has made himself one) are unquestioningly worshipped. For the media, they attract audiences and that attraction translates into advertising dollars.

What Trump and other celebrities say is taken as a priori truth, often because of their perceived “success.” Fans relish celebrity errors…and forgive them: “My celebrity, right of wrong.”

Deception becomes the stuff of plot lines, humor and scripts. When Trump demeans others he seems serious. But then he answers criticism by insisting he was “joking” or “acting” or “misunderstood.”

The public is willingly being gamed, largely to be entertained. (The absurdly popular Rush Limbaugh exhibits much of the same narcissistic public profile. He too is entertaining, particularly if you harbor prejudice and tolerate lies. Like Trump, he is self-obsessed, dangerous and panders to and feeds hatreds.)

When we enter the world of entertainment and fantasy we sometimes knowingly, but more often unknowingly, “suspend disbelief.” In other words, we let down our guard. We make ourselves vulnerable. And that’s what a sizable portion of the American public has done with Donald Trump…to everyone's peril.

The world of politics and governance is no fantasy and no game. It should be no place for celebrity worship and game-playing. Frankly, governing is not much fun, but it is important, vitally important.

Think global warming, war and peace, terrorism, poverty, inequity and injustice.

Now think of Donald J. Trump and his pathological, posturing, psychological state.

A losing Trump will declare victory and quit

Putting aside how high the stakes of the Republican presidential nomination race are, I find that trying to read the mind and psyche (to say nothing of the popularity) of one Donald Trump is an intriguing puzzle.

In recent days I’ve concluded that Trump will drop out of the contest…and soon.

Consider his recent pleading with Iowa voters to return him to the top of the Republican Caucus polls in the Hawkeye state.

Trump reportedly feeds polls, but his portion of the numbers is dwindling. He’s beginning to starve for political popularity.

In his plea to Iowa Republicans, he, in full egotistical fervor, doesn’t continence that he, The Donald, may himself be doing something wrong, No, he blames Republicans who now prefer the mild-mannered Ben Carson to the petulant, mercurial Trump.

Accusations do not win votes.

Blaming “the other” not withstanding, Trump must sense that he could be — gasp!— a LOSER. That must be a nightmare scenario. Trump’s oft-repeated label for those he deplores is “loser.”

So imagine the shock of the narcissistic Trump’s looking in the mirror of polled public opinion and suddenly seeing a loser.

His answer has to be to blame the mirror, both it (the polls) and what it reflects (purportedly voter sentiment).

Which gets us to why Trump will certainly drop out. Rather that be stuck with the loser label, he will want to do what leaders of losing causes frequently do: declare victory and quit.

Somewhere he’ll find a new mirror with a new image that distorts his self-absorption to his liking.