Paranoia, sociopathy and cruelty: The American president
I heard an analyst on TV the other day say three things characterize Trump: paranoia, sociopathy and cruelty.
It’s evident. His paranoia comes from his conviction that his “enemies” are all out to “get” him. That would include the “fake media,” Democrats, liberal foreign leaders like Trudeau and Macron, the “criminals and rapists” who are trying to infiltrate this country, and the majority of the American people who believe he’s unfit. His paranoia also includes his allegations of a “deep state,” the rightwing equivalent to paranoids who believe the CIA (or FBI or Mossad or Communists or Martians or whomever) implanted secret electrodes in their brains.
The sociopathy is evident every time Trump tweets or speaks. Psychologists say sociopaths are “manipulative, often lie, lack empathy, and have a weak conscience that allows them to act recklessly or aggressively, even when they know their behavior is wrong,” a description that fits Trump to a “T” except for the last part: Trump does not know that his behavior is wrong, which I guess makes him an extreme sociopath.
As for cruelty, that is evident in what he’s doing to these Central American children: seizing them from their parents and imprisoning them in “tent cities.” That is cruel by any definition: I don’t care if you’re a tea party Republican or a liberal, it’s a wicked, awful, mean and unconscionable thing to do.
These same personality disorders—paranoia, sociopathy and cruelty—characterize dictators, like Kim Jong Un, who now appears to be Trump’s BFF—at least, until he’s not. Does anyone doubt that if Trump had the supreme power of a Kim (or any other absolute dictator) he would have his domestic “enemies” killed or imprisoned in mass numbers? I can very easily imagine such a scenario: Trump, having reduced the Democratic Party to feebleness (or having outlawed it altogether) declares himself President for Life (just as he has congratulated Xi, in China, Putin, in Russia, and Kim, in North Korea, for doing), and the next thing you know, his tent cities are not only for immigrant children, but for people like me: inconvenient “obstructionists” who do not “sit up when he speaks,” as Kim’s minions do in North Korea; Trump envies Kim for that and wishes “my people” would do that in America.
Well, of course that’s not going to happen. We’ll have a good old-fashioned civil war before the 58% of us who resist him kiss his fat white ass.
As an amateur historian, I often wonder what the History books will say about Trump and America and this current sad era. I suppose it depends who writes them: we’ve always had fascist historians—hello, Dinesh d’Souza–and we always will, so those people will write that “Trump the Great” was right up there with the best presidents ever. That is arrant nonsense, and it will be the opinion of only a tiny minority of future historians. The great majority of historians will have to search their Thesauruses to find derogations strong enough to describe the years 2016 through (?? whenever this nightmare ends). I don’t know how they will deal with such an aberration. America has had aberrations before, but not of this quality or danger. The problem is that Trump’s 32%, or 38%, or whatever it is, base will not change their point of view no matter what. That’s a lot of Americans, and while they may be insane (I believe they are), they’re capable of inflicting vengeance and violence on the rest of us, if they perceive that their Fuhrer was treated unfairly by (fill in the blank: a rogue FBI, a libtard snowflake media, the Democratic Party, homosexuals, Islamic radicals, blacks). They probably have more guns than liberals do, because liberals tend to be peaceful human beings, not ammosexuals who don’t feel complete unless they have the capability to kill others with bullets.
And then there is the matter of complicit Republican leaders. There are two historic routes we can take with them, in a jurisprudential sense: We can have Nuremburg-style courts that try them for (fill in the blank: treason, dereliction of duty, etc.) and then sentence them harshly, the way we sentenced Nazi war criminals. Or we can have South Africa-style Truth and Reconciliation hearings, which seek bipartisan solutions by bringing former enemies together in a spirit of unity. Which will it be? I think most Democrats—including me–favor something like Nuremburg, and there’s a good reason why: After the insults and smears from Republicans of the Clintons, of the Obamas, of every Democratic leader, of our liberal values, we’re sick and tired, and want to punish these rightwing extremists for fucking up our political system by driving morality and truth from the domestic conversation and replacing them with lies. That has been a horrible thing to do; Republicans have been doing it since the 1980s, and now they have the most horrible, despicable leader of all in the White House.
So, yes: paranoid, sociopathic and cruel. That is the President of the United States of America. Every former president is turning in his grave—and, as for those still living, I call out George W. Bush and Barack Obama for retreating behind their walls of dignified silence and offering, in obscure venues, only the blandest, milquetoast criticisms of Trump. We need both of them to be as outspoken as they’ve ever been about anything in their lives. Come out slamming and warning, George and Barack! If not you, who? In the immortal words of Rabbi Hillel:
