Two of Donald Trump’s favorite phrases are: “To be honest with you,” and “To tell you the truth.” The man who ran a fraudulent charity, a fraudulent university, a fraudulent business; a sex offender and a 34-count convicted felon, spends much of his time calling his political opponents crooked or corrupt, liars or cheats. And many Americans have fallen, like many Germans in the 1930’s before us, for almost all of it, because of extreme self-confidence and because people, even a nation, can be taught to hate.
Lately, Trump has been calling Democrats “Communists,” counting on American Cold-War mentality and fear – the ultimate irony for a capitalist billionaire who openly admires Communist dictators like Xi and Kim Jong Un.
When I was a young military officer I traveled to the Soviet Union. It was a fascinating, yet, depressing trip. I felt sorry for Soviet citizens having to live without the freedoms we took for granted. Pravda, the official Soviet News organization, was pure state propaganda. “Pravda” in Russian, means truth. Donald Trump’s propaganda network is called “Truth Social.”
In Russia I witnessed police grab protestors off the streets and throw them in paddy wagons for the so-called crime of “hooliganism.” I could have never imagined ICE or any government agency having the authority to do that in the United States. Likewise, the Soviet judicial system was a joke, made up of kangaroo courts, with rubber-stamped pre-determined verdicts by the communist leadership. I was grateful for America’s due process, appeal process, and organizations like the ACLU; as well as the independence of the Supreme Court, a co-equal branch of government, unlike the USSR. America felt immune, purposely and permanently defended against one-man-rule. The example of George Washington, the supreme commander, passing the baton peacefully, was our declaration of a new form of government and our example to the world.
The idea that an American politician could ever come along seeking the power and control of the Soviet State or the Chinese Communist State was unimaginable. The very thing that distinguished America from its enemies was the protection of human rights versus the institutional subjugation of human rights.
This is where mental health comes in – the reason for the constant chaos – and yet the one thing still undisclosed to the American people: the simple, clinically provable fact, that Donald Trump is mentally unfit for command. Someone who could never make it past a recruiter, as a sex offender and convicted felon, we have allowed to command all of our military personnel and weapons systems.
It’s bad enough that the GOP leadership embraced him knowing that he was corrupt, but without understanding Personality Disorder pathology, they cannot grasp an unprecedented reality: he envies dictators, wants absolute power over the press, education, the arts and the military. They have the same tunnel vision, the same naivete, that afflicted Neville Chamberlain – they fail to realize that he also wants to control them, neuter the other two co-equal branches of government. He wants the rubber stamp of the Kremlin.
In conversations with politicians, I am convinced that because narcissism has a common meaning, they mistakenly think that Trump is something that he is not (someone merely full of himself or what we call an egomaniac) versus someone who is mentally ill. We do not discharge egomaniacs from the military, that is not mental illness. We are however obligated to separate personality disorders.
The two most severe psychiatric diagnoses are Antisocial and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (not Schizophrenia as commonly believed) because they lack a conscience, they always have victims, and it is an incurable condition. Trump possesses so many of these traits that he would have been diagnosed as Personality Disorder NOS with Antisocial and Narcissistic traits, and would have been a mandatory psychiatric discharge. Or he would have gone to military prison for fraud, sexual assault, or stealing Top Secret documents.
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Without understanding what a malignant narcissist is, the GOP has rationalized Helsinki, where an American president lied about U.S. intelligence and sided with the enemy. And they have rationalized January 6th as merely an extreme ego flattered by frenzied supporters, rather than the treason of a violent coup attempt. A level of narcissism and lawlessness that would eliminate any recruit from military service is now allowed to lay waste to our democratic institutions. The reason why any American would want to be a dictator, destroy individual rights, and trample on the constitution, remains unrecognized or ignored for personal political expediency.
The difference between a Narcissistic Personality Disorder and a narcissist, to borrow from Mark Twain, is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. Those with antisocial and narcissistic character pathology cannot feel sympathy or empathy, they are pathological liars, and they do not favor right over wrong. They are a threat to good order and discipline. If you give them a weapon and send them to a combat zone, disaster is almost guaranteed – we risk Geneva Conventions violations. It is no coincidence that Trump has stated that the Geneva Conventions tie the hands of the military, that he pardoned a convicted war criminal, and he is currently sending billion-dollar Navy vessels to blow up boats with outboard engines.
This nightmare cannot end, and his assault on democracy will not stop, until Congressional and military leadership come to terms with the same dilemma faced by Mike Pence, and take a stand to defend the Constitution against a Commander in Chief who is mentally unfit for office. If our leadership continues to fail to recognize this inconvenient truth, we the people will need a second revolution to remove the mad king (the AI generated fighter pilot, wearing a crown, gleefully bombing his subjects), before he turns his fantasies into reality.
