If the United States is going to escape the fate of Germany, we must understand something very simple – after 10 years of a grown man engaging in totally inappropriate behavior on a daily basis, we refuse to acknowledge an obvious truth: for the first time in American history, we have a president who is mentally unfit for command. In fact, Donald Trump has such malignant personality features that he would be an obligatory psychiatric discharge from the United States military if he was a new recruit.
I am a retired military officer who had to evaluate and discharge personality disordered people throughout my career. It is a disorder that renders the person incapable of adapting to military or societal norms. This is an instant disqualification because you have someone who cannot work with others as a team, cannot alter their personal beliefs even if they are against our regulations; and they cannot delay gratification or sacrifice their own needs for the sake of others in an environment where selfless service is required even unto death.
The phenomenon of Donald Trump is made possible by three factors:
1. Personality disorder is easily the least known mental illness outside of the military and our prison system.
2. Narcissism has a common lay meaning for people who are merely full-of-themselves, so people, even members of congress, can believe that a narcissist and a narcissistic personality disorder are synonymous. This is a dangerous mistake.
3. Personality disordered people are what we call ego-syntonic (they feel normal to themselves, not symptomatic), so they do not go to mental health voluntarily. They are almost always referred to mental health after doing something inappropriate. Almost all sex offenders, for example, are personality disordered, but rarely have a mental health record. The sexual assault, the crime, is the symptom, not anxiety or depression, or any other mental health symptoms. Needless to say, we do not allow a rapist or pedophile to continue to wear the uniform of the United States of America; but we are allowing a sex offender to sit in our White House.
Anyone can read the criteria for antisocial and narcissistic personality disorder in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders) and see that Donald Trump meets almost all antisocial and narcissistic criteria. Had he ever joined the military he would have received a diagnosis of Personality Disorder NOS (with antisocial and narcissistic traits), or he would have gone to military prison for his many offenses. We have betrayed our military by giving them a leader who is a convicted felon, an adjudicated sex offender, when every member of the military would face court martial/jail time had any of them committed the same crimes.
The DSM list of symptoms for antisocial and narcissistic PD is long, but I can give a short cut for these two most serious mental health conditions. They are the most pathological, because they lack a conscience and they always have victims. We cannot send them to a war zone or risk Geneva Conventions violations (like the extrajudicial killings we witnessed in the Caribbean, or the illegal, lethal force used on the streets of Minneapolis). An easy way to understand this pathology is that they are pathological liars, they do not feel sympathy or empathy, and they do not choose right over wrong.
Pathological lying: Trump lies more than any politician in recorded history. He literally cannot give any speech without making up “alternative facts,” frequently in the form of fabricated statistics to support whatever agenda he pursues. This is such a basic disqualifier that there is not a job in America that you could keep if you cannot tell the truth. His lies not only impact people’s health and well-being (Covid, immigrant detention, etc.), but they threaten our national security. In Helsinki he said that he did not see why cyberwarfare would be Russia; but his justice department indicted 12 Russian Army intelligence officers for those exact crimes. And on August 2, 2017, he signed into law economic sanctions on Russia as punishment for what he said was a hoax. This is the severity of this mental illness. On January 6th, 2021, he incited a mob to violence and an attempted coup of our government, but told the criminals who wounded 140 police officers that he loved them. He later pardoned every one of them. He said that Joe Biden did not win the election but he flew to Mar a Lago, let Biden occupy the White House for four years and has never stopped saying that he won that election. That is malignant narcissism. We do not allow this erratic and divisive behavior in any member of the military, because it is irrefutable proof of an unsound mind.
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The greatest threat is his collusion with Russia. Collusion means to coordinate with the intent to deceive. Six of the president’s closest friends and advisors were convicted of obstructing the investigation into Russian election interference; and Trump was impeached for trying to bribe President Zelensky by withholding weapons from him in the war against Russia. He continues to betray Ukraine by the same refusal of weapons needed to defeat Putin. He has repeatedly praised Putin, originally calling him a genius for his illegal invasion, later called President Zelensky a dictator, and recently put up an autographed picture of Putin in the White House. This isn’t slightly abnormal — praising our enemies is unprecedented for a Commander in Chief or any member of the military. He has repeatedly lobbied for Russia to be reinstated into the G8 and recently invited Putin to join his planned Board of Peace (a man wanted by the UN-backed International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity). This level of abnormality is evidence of specific mental pathology. And it is unacceptable that Congress refuses to react appropriately. Imagine FDR berating Winston Churchill and telling him he doesn’t have the cards to defeat Adolf Hitler, and then inviting Hitler to be part of an American led Board of Peace. This is severe pathological thinking and behavior that would not be tolerated in any member of the military, but is tolerated by our GOP leadership.
They cannot feel sympathy or empathy: With Trump there are almost too many victims to list (Covid patients, Syrians, Ukrainians, immigrant children, etc.); but his reaction to recent murders of Rob Reiner and his wife, and the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were so abnormal that every normal person should have questioned the morality and competency of the president. Unfortunately, his sadism is so consistent that for many Americans it has become a new normal. This is what happened in Nazi Germany. All societal norms based on common decency, religious principle, and the rule of law, were suspended for one malignant personality.
They do not choose right over wrong: Republican Senators, John McCaine and Jeff Flake, warned us; McCaine said that the president of the United States went to Helsinki and abased himself in front of a tyrant, and Flake told us that if we accept what is clearly abnormal behavior as a new normal, we are complicit. We are all complicit now. Every day that we allow a deviant to lead us we are part of the narrative; and like Germany, we will carry a legacy of shame if we follow a man rather than the rule of law. Russians aren’t geniuses for murdering and raping our allies, legitimate election are not illegitimate by decree, facts are not fake news, a day of violence is not a day of love. In the military, if you lie you are disciplined, if you continue you are fired. If you cannot feel sympathy or empathy, you cannot obey the Geneva Conventions or rules of engagement, you’re eliminated. If you cannot tell right from wrong, if you violate others or you violate the constitution, you will be disciplined and if it persists you will be terminated or do prison time.
Hitler, unlike Trump, did prison time for his coup attempt, but like Trump, came back and was elected to power legitimately. But, with malignant narcissism, the leopard cannot change its spots — so history will judge. Our duty, to this country, to our constitution, is to be on the right side of history. It’s embarrassing, it’s humiliating, to admit that you were fooled by a con man, a felon, and a sadist, but Germany had to do it in order to reenter the world of free nations. So can we! But not until we accept the simple fact that we are following a leader who is mentally impaired, who is incapable of sympathy or empathy, who perpetuates lies he insists are true, and who believes that anything that benefits him is right, and anything against him is wrong. The lesson of Nazi Germany is our canary in the coal mine. The question is whether we will destroy 250 years of effort to make a more perfect union, or sacrifice it all for one malignant personality who is unfit to hold any office within the government of the United States of America.
