Let’s be candid: anyone running for President of the United States by definition has an enormous ego. Believing that you can discharge the enormous responsibilities of that office requires that you think pretty highly of yourself.
And let’s also acknowledge that past Presidents have had mental and emotional problems–think Nixon’s paranoia, Reagan’s Alzheimers, Clinton’s sexual issues….
But.
What Americans are facing now, in the third year of Trump’s Presidency, is absolutely unprecedented. Previously, damaged occupants of the Oval Office at least had offsetting talents. They also knew the Constitution constrained the executive branch, and when they tried to circumvent those constraints, they acted strategically. Trump is far and away the most ignorant and intellectually limited person to hold the office, and even worse, too ignorant to know he’s ignorant–a walking, talking example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Ignorance and stupidity aside, there is ample evidence of severe mental illness, as Sarah Burris explains in an article for Raw Story.
Dr. Lance Dodes warned that things were going to get worse under President Donald Trump in 2017. That’s precisely what happened….
“Donald Trump, because he has a fundamental need to be all-powerful and all loved, can’t stand challenges,” Dr. Dodes said. “And the nature of democracy is that it challenges people. We have more than one opinion. So the more — it was predictable once he got into a position where people would challenge him, there are two parties, he would become more unhinged.
Wednesday’s press availability on the White House South Lawn showed exactly that, he explained.
“As you watched him respond to people, the more they challenged him, the more he ranted,” Dr. Dodes continued. “He stopped responding to the questions, and instead, he started to talk about how people were agents of fake news. He said that they would go out of business soon. They would die…This is the same kind of thing that he did when he was a candidate when he suggested someone protesting at his campaign rally be taken out and beaten up.”
According to the psychiatrist, Trump simply cannot handle situations where people disagree with him. And of course, there has never been a Presidency–or any political campaign–without disagreement. Elections are intended to be a forum for disputes, with voters choosing which side of the dispute “wins.”
“The more he is challenged, the more he can’t stand anything that disagrees with him, and the more you challenge him, the more unhinged he becomes, the more paranoid, and the more violent, potentially,” he said.
In the interview, Dr. Dodes was asked about Trump’s look heavenward and his statement that he was “the chosen one. ” Dodes explained it was just another example of Trump’s excessive grandiosity. As he noted, many people in public life have a grandiose sense of self, but Trump’s is on a far bigger scale.
“There is a fundamental way in which he’s empty. There’s something fundamentally different about him from normal people. It’s a psychotic-like state. The more you press him, the more you see how disorganized and empty he is. The more he flies into a disorganized rage. So yeah, and by the way, in terms of being God, he also made several what you might call Freudian slips during the interview today. He kept mixing up who he was and who the country was. He said, ‘I have the best economy.’ I, not the country. ‘I defeated the caliphate.’ It’s not just a slip of the tongue; he really doesn’t get it. He thinks of himself as a dictator, and it’s all him and no one else really matters.”
Dodes is far from the only mental health professional to warn about Trump’s delusions. (For that matter, you needn’t be a psychiatrist to recognize that he occupies an alternate reality.) The question is: how much damage will he inflict before he is ejected from the Oval Office?
This Presidency has one redeeming element (if we survive it)–it has illuminated several major problems America faces: the lack of a realistic mechanism to remove a dangerously unfit President (the 25th Amendment doesn’t operate in a highly partisan environment); the widespread civic ignorance that enables such a person to maintain the support of a base of unhappy and angry citizens; and the civic apathy that got us to this point.
In 2020, we need to elect someone sane. Then we have a lot of cleanup work to do.
Over the years, we I have heard people yearn for an OUTSIDER. Someone who comes NOT from government, to RUN Government. Well, THIS is what we get when we use the oval office as a training camp – or an adult day care center.
We need people who KNOW how our government works — and cares about that. The nominating process for both parties is broken. The process gets taken over with trivia and invective. The real problems get lost in all the BS and posturing. This is too important. We MUST do better.
Patmcc; kudos! The GOP privatized/outsourced the presidency who in turn, privatized/outsourced the administration by appointing (mostly “acting” at this point) heads of departments with no knowledge or experience in the work we are paying them to do. Think brain surgeon as Secretary of HUD as an example; no connection between the chosen field of the appointee and the job they were given…as the presidency was given to Trump. Trump sees no problem with these situations; after all it was and is “The Voices In His Head…” which encourages him to continue on this path of destruction. But…he will walk away from the White House, whether in January 2021 or January 2025, with his increased fortune intact plus his lifetime retirement benefits as former president. He sees no reason to altar his chosen course and we should all see there is no reason for him to altar his course…IF we recognize it is the sitting Republicans at all levels who are keeping him in his position of power and why WE need to start voting them out in 2019 November elections. People; we are not allowed to vote him out till 2020, keep that in mind.
“In 2020, we need to elect someone sane. Then we have a lot of cleanup work to do.”
The more you know, the more you know you don’t know. Our POTUS doesn’t know squat.
Just like the prez, the GOP in Michigan has filed a lawsuit after the voter referendum to dismantle their gerrymandered districts was passed. They are whining that it is unfair that members of the new redistricting commission will be chosen at random from applicants and it is unfair that there will be 5 members who claim no political party while the Ds and Rs only get to have 4 members each. Never mind that this is what the voters want.
They are behaving like spoiled children who were used to getting everything they wanted and now that it will be a fair system chosen by the VOTERS this makes them angry. They know that they will lose their power if the voters have any choice in the matter and that is completely unacceptable to them. They demand that they still be allowed to cheat so that they can stay in power.
The GOP legislators in this country resemble trump and his dictator mentality and they will use every dirty trick they can think of to take choice away from voters/citizens.
What I find interesting is the Evangelicals, who for years have been blaming hurricanes on liberals and homosexuals suddenly have nothing to say about the wrath of God when their “chosen one” is in charge and we have 4 category 5 hurricanes in 2 1/2 years. Oh! I forgot, there never was a category 5 before Dorian. Oops!
President Agent Orange has a Narcissistic personality disorder.
Mayo Clinic lists the following traits:
Have an exaggerated sense of self-importance
Have a sense of entitlement and require constant, excessive admiration
Expect to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
Exaggerate achievements and talents
Monopolize conversations and belittle or look down on people they perceive as inferior
Expect special favors and unquestioning compliance with their expectations
Take advantage of others to get what they want
Have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
React with rage or contempt and try to belittle the other person to make themselves appear superior
Behave in an arrogant or haughty manner, coming across as conceited, boastful and pretentious
Have difficulty regulating emotions and behavior
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All of these traits have been displayed out in the open at different times. I would suspect most Authoritarian Males would display these traits openly also. One way or another they believe they are the “Chosen One”.
The followers of President Agent Orange and Pastor Pence do not have any problems with these flaws. The followers of President Agent Orange and Pastor Pence have a blind obedience and willful ignorance, the facade is all they see and hear. The pretentious posturing of President Agent Orange is magnified by the servile Pastor Pence.
Imagine if a Democrat was President and behaved as Trump does. The Republicans would already have the noose tied and articles of impeachment stacked to the ceiling. But here we are with Republicans still in charge of the Senate which is lead by the most egregious “legislator” in our history. Republicans are so addicted to their power that the country can go to Hell before they’ll do something to oust a madman president; in this case, Donald Trump.
Republican Congress people are literally shaking in their boots about one of those rages from Trump against THEM for disagreeing. Worse, their pathetic constituents are all-in for Trump madman or not. Why? Because he is them and they are him. They are so deep into their own, personal denial that maybe THEY are at fault for their own un-happiness and lack of ideals achievement. Trump gives them the excuse to blame somebody else. Republicans at every level do this daily. Fox News, and their ilk, give these poor people the platform, and Trump gives them the enablement they need.
Sadly, the Democrats are plodding along at a snail’s pace in at least documenting the high crimes and misdemeanors that pile up daily from the lunatic president. Why? Let Trump attack them. Let him keep getting unhinged for all to see. The downside of that is that this evil bastard will start another illegal war in a pathetic attempt to keep him in office. BEWARE! This guy will literally have to be dragged out of the Oval Office kicking and screaming. He will declare the 2020 election rigged and fraudulent.
And what are WE going to do about it?
Private Bonespur is just plain dangerous. A war, in his mind to improve his standing with his base, is not out of the question sometime in the spring of 2020. That’s how mentally ill he is.
I would offer he has one other redeeming value…….from now on, no matter who is President, we will be able to say, “Well, s/he is bad, but not as bad as Trump”. Trump has set a new low bar that will never be lower.
Add to this list the incoherent ramblings on Twitter about hurricane Dorian. Not only did he not seem to have a grasp of what a Category 5 hurricane is – or that there has been others before this one– he accused his own weather service of issuing a phony weather report.
He stated, “I’m not sure I’ve heard of a Category 5 hurricane”. At the same time he was golfing, and was babbling about “his” economy, Fox News, Obama, etc.
He also claimed the hurricane could hit Alabama. When the Weather Service corrected him, he sought to discredit his own Weather Service by calling it “fake news”. Now, keep in mind this is while a massive storm is off-shore and accurate information is kinda critical – as is having a reputable National Weather Service. If people think that the Weather Service is “fake news” then they don’t evacuate when told to – and then they die.
We have someone so mentally disorganized in charge that he can’t form coherent sentences – and doesn’t seem to remember what a Category 5 hurricane is. Neither does he seem to be “curious” enough to consult with experts who might enlighten him as to the potential dangers.
We have someone leading the country who’s ego is so fragile that he needs to be the story instead of a Category 5 hurricane off the Eastern shore. He is so mentally unfit that he would rather put people’s lives at risk than acknowledge he “misspoke”.
This is a man increasingly not in touch with reality – and mentally unfit to be dog-catcher.
Regardless of what the diagnosis is, Trump learned these behaviors, most likely from his parents.
I can hear the lesson now as little Donny is with his father as they collect rent.
Father: “That studying for the history test doesn’t means squat. You don’t need to know that crap.”
Donny: “But Dad, what about passing?”
Father: “The only thing you need to know is how to play the game. Understand? Play the game. And I’ll show you how. It isn’t about knowing stuff. It’s knowing how to play people How to use people. Let some other guy learn the shit. Then you use him. Hear?”
Donny: “But how will I get into college?”
Father: “Hell, I’ll just buy you a seat. No one earns their way like they pretend. You have to learn how to take. Be a winner.”
Donny: “But Dad…”
Father: “You want to be a winner or a loser? Donny, you want to be a winner or a loser? That’s all there is. Winners and losers.”
Donny has been playing the game ever since.
“What Americans are facing now, in the third year of Trump’s Presidency, is absolutely unprecedented. ”
If there was one single thought that I wish ALL voting aged Americans would get into their heads it is the import of this single statement. Everything about this man, his actions, and the actions of his Administration fall so far outside the established norms of Presidential conduct that it is amazing that anyone is still asleep to this fact. Of course, his supporters continue to enjoy being hoodwinked or entertained by this very sick man but the rest of us have no excuse. We should be screaming bloody murder at our elected representatives, on both sides, given their timidity and self-absorbed focus on their re-election prospects in failing to face down this unprecedented disaster. Yet, we really don’t.
Ultimately we are the masters of our government at each and every level of it, yet we basically look on putting our hopes, I guess, in the candidates spewed forth by the opposition party, which though its own lack of backbone is also enabling this very dangerous farce. When will we awaken to what we should be doing – holding these people to the fire and demanding action? The risks we are all running with this fool at the helm are incalculable.
It’s quite fascinating to see how easily people are duped. Or at least that’s what we would like to think. If you take a broader look at it, and actually talk to these individuals about their allegiance to Donald Trump, you find, that they too, not all, but a majority, have a mental illness. You see such a conglomeration of ignoramuses at his rallies, certain ethnic supporters roil against their own ethnicity, the simpleminded who somehow feel they are intellectual giants, the physically ill who somehow feel cutting off healthcare will be better for them themselves. Those who complain about anyone else but them, having their hand out to get a hand up!
And then of course you have the wealthy, corporations, and the sycophants that advocate for their causes, (swamp) which usually are in direct opposition to the health and well-being of the average citizen. Even though this conglomeration of dubious members is in the minority, the broken political system allows them to rule the roost because, our founding fathers were too ignorant, LOL, to see the future (especially social media) ahla Nostradamus. The GOP views the future as maybe Rasputin (the Russian resident lunatic, lecture, and royal counsel) would, LOL. As far back as I can remember, the GOP roiled about socialism and chaos in government and yet they promote socialism for corporations and they rule by chaos. They also like to see themselves as fiduciary stalwarts, guarding America’s treasure, except they spend like a drunken thief for their friends, and steal from the poorest of the poor. So they have revealed themselves, the curtain has pulled back in the land of Oz. It’s a shame we all fiddled as this conglomeration of lunacy prepared to burn down Rome. Will we learn from this? Have we ever learned? It doesn’t seem like it.
John McDonnell, is a Member of Parliament (MP) in the Labour Party in the UK. He had this to say about Boris Johnson: He describes the government as a “unique combination of rightwing extremism and bumbling incompetence”.
This description by McDonnell, would certainly describe the regime of President Agent Orange. The British voters, who voted to leave the E. U. via Brexit, it seems did not realize the full degree of the disaster that would unfold in exiting the E.U. Today the UK is in turmoil, the economic damage to the exit in the near future is looming.
The voters for President Agent Orange and the Republicans likewise cannot see, or simply will not admit the full implications of all the damage done by Twitter Tariffs. China is not going to be bullied by a two bit con-man like President Agent Orange.
He’s been trying to prove for years that he’s worthy of inclusion in upper crust (real) old money Manhattan society, but he’s just new money trash from Queens, and that’s all he’ll ever be.
As for that “L’état, c’est moi” bullshit, how’d that all work out for the Bourbons?
It’s easy to forget what we went through in 2016 when we were faced with the realization that the entire country had apparently and collectively gone mad but before we knew the role that Vlad the Bad played in it. We told each other here that this could not possibly work and we waited for President Obama to declare the appropriate emergency and save us from, apparently, us. We saw all of what’s happened since in advance and learned that our government had no rules that covered the situation. We had not a single lifeboat and there was no question of the size of the hole rent in our hull.
Things have since gotten worse and the only thing positive that can be said is that we have had no nuclear wars yet.
Republicans got so drunk with power that they forgot what they were in government for, the expected manifestation of “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
Our boat is still sinking and there is no help in sight.
Will 2020 come soon enough but will that be enough to completely unhinge Agent Orange? His sanity is already hanging by a thread. The fat lady is not even warming up folks.
Well said, John Sorg.
It’s really just a wake up to those of us living in the intellectual bubble. 40% of the population are too stupid or deranged to make rational decisions. This IS representative government. Louis Gohmert IS a valid representative of his district. The question is how we deal with this reality.
Excellent post today, Sheila, but I have only one squabble. Trump did not seek the presidency because he believed he has the right stuff to discharge the awesome responsibilities that come with being the leader of the free world. As you pointed out, there were flawed men before, but despite their personal foibles, they were patriots. Trump is not in this league at all. Trump ran solely to fulfill his desperate need for adulation, attention and power driven by his narcissistic personality disorder. What precipitated his candidacy in 2016 is the same thing that drives his base: racism and misogyny, pure and simple. He had talked about running before, but when he and his base saw that black man up there, young, slender, successful, it drove them crazy. When they saw that smart, articulate, passionate woman, former Secretary of State, with the gall to think she could be POTUS it drove him and his base crazy. It’s bad enough they had to put up with an uppity black man, but now they have an uppity woman going to be POTUS, too? Oh, hell no. Hence the latent White Supremacist movement got activated.
I was in Sahm’s on Sunday, dining with my family, and 2 tables over, there were 2 white men. One wore a shirt that said: “Trump 2020…Fuck your feelings.” There were school-age children in the restaurant at the time. Forget the politics–it’s simply not appropriate to display such raw profanity in the presence of children old enough to read, or adults, either, for that matter. Something like this was unthinkable a short while ago. Trump, however, has brought this sort of “in your face” sentiment to the forefront. They are racists and misogynists standing up for the perceived superiority rights of the white male, and they literally mean it when they say: “fuck your feelings”. They are on a mission, and Trump is to blame. I wouldn’t be shocked if a fist fight had broken out.
Conservative pundits recklessly throw around criticism of Hillary Clinton, saying she was the least-popular, most-disliked Democratic candidate ever, but she WON the popular vote. She would have won the election, too, but for the Russians directing a false social media campaign against her in key districts in a handful of key states. The Russians got the info on where to target their lies from the Trump campaign, which is one of the reasons Manafort is in prison and Flynn will be sent there soon as well.
The root cause of all of this turmoil is Trump and his narcissism. His arrogance causes him to think he can threaten the Chinese with tariffs and they’ll buckle under. Not going to happen. He loves the flattery from Kim Jon Un, who has ramped up N. Korea’s missile program, but he won’t do anything because he needs the love letters. He has to go.
Over it. The actionable question is can we isolate a cause? Assuming this is a relatively new phenomenon there must be a relatively new cause.
My hypothesis is advertising/fake news/propaganda/brainwashing that pays for “entertainment” media that is a bigger strike against humanity than chemical recreational drugs.
Unless we are talking to Deplorables in an alley using street slang, Trump does not have a massive ego; he has a tiny, fragile (as Kurt pointed out) ego. Every weird statement and preposterous act that Trump engages in is a desperate attempt to pump some size into his tiny ego.