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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Con is profoundly compromised, acting just as you would imagine a person with a disordered
would.https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/donald-trump-not-well/597640/
During the 2016 campaign, I received a phone call from an influential political journalist and author, who was soliciting my thoughts on Donald Trump. Trumps rise in the Republican Party was still something of a shock, and he wanted to know the things I felt he should keep in mind as he went about the task of covering Trump
I dont oppose Mr. Trump because I think hes going to lose to Hillary Clinton, I told Ben from Purcellville, Virginia. I think he will, but as I said, he may well win. My opposition to him is based on something completely different, which is, first, I think he is temperamentally unfit to be president. I think hes erratic, I think hes unprincipled, I think hes unstable, and I think that he has a personality disorder; I think hes obsessive. And at the end of the day, having served in the White House for seven years in three administrations and worked for three presidents, one closely, and read a lot of history, I think the main requirement for president of the United States
is temperament, and disposition
whether you have wisdom and judgment and prudence.
That statement has been validated.
Donald Trumps disordered personalityhis unhealthy patterns of thinking, functioning, and behavinghas become the defining characteristic of his presidency. It manifests itself in multiple ways: his extreme narcissism; his addiction to lying about things large and small, including his finances and bullying and silencing those who could expose them; his detachment from reality, including denying things he said even when there is video evidence to the contrary; his affinity for conspiracy theories; his demand for total loyalty from others while showing none to others; and his self-aggrandizement and petty cheating.
It manifests itself in Trumps impulsiveness and vindictiveness; his craving for adulation; his misogyny, predatory sexual behavior, and sexualization of his daughters; his open admiration for brutal dictators; his remorselessness; and his lack of empathy and sympathy, including attacking a family whose son died while fighting for this country, mocking a reporter with a disability, and ridiculing a former POW. (When asked about Trumps feelings for his fellow human beings, Trumps mentor, the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, reportedly said, He pisses ice water.)
The most recent example is the presidents bizarre fixation on falsely insisting that he was correct to warn that Alabama faced a major risk from Hurricane Dorian, to the point that he doctored a hurricane map with a black Sharpie to include the state as being in the path of the storm.
Hes deteriorating in plain sight, one Republican strategist who is in frequent contact with the White House told Business Insider on Friday. Asked why the president was obsessed with Alabama instead of the states that would actually be affected by the storm, the strategist said, You should ask a psychiatrist about that; Im not sure Im qualified to comment.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)If he were not white, and the son of a wealthy, connected family, he would have been in prison long ago.
He's been getting away with criminality for way too long. No one as flawed and compromised as this one would have escaped prison, let alone been given his own TV program.
Great article. Thanks for the find, malaise.
gordianot
(15,226 posts)His remaining enablers should never be allowed to forget or deny what they allowed to happen.
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)Regardless of how unhinged psychologically Trump is, he's also a useful tool for their agenda. They are willing partners in his insanity. We really should be calling the Republican party for which it is: the Fascist Party. That's who they are, and destroying Democracy is their aim.