"Trump has cultivated a taste for savagery and defines the world in the image of his own self-interest and war. He has revived the architecture of fascism by mainstreaming its mobilizing passions. He calls people animals. He refers to the press as fake news as a way to discredit the oppositional media and journalists who hold him accountable; he rounds up the children of undocumented brown people and puts them in cages; he makes racial cleansing a governing principle of his administration; he normalizes lying, making it the basic rhetorical experience of our time; he amplifies the militarized discourse of fear and numbs the culture with his pervasive anti-intellectualism and control of the right-wing media as unadulterated propaganda machines."
Conclusion
It is predictable that a malignant narcissist in a position of power will become more and more out of control the more power he is given. Pathological narcissism can spiral into psychosis and impair the safety of the world. Domestically, Donald Trump is at high risk for creating a crisis and then saying, "You see, you need me." The result could easily be a declaration of martial law.
Clearly, he desires power for its own sake, and has no interest in bringing the country together. It is increasingly obvious that he is employing a divide and conquer strategy. He operates by amplifying divisions and bigotry.
Trump seems to be invested in our being surprised by his distractions, aimed at preventing us from connecting the dots to see patterns that would provide a genuinely illuminating picture. He creates caricatures of evil that he can attack without remorse, seeing himself as a victim rather than aggressor or victimizer. He constantly oversimplifies his world into black or white, friend or foe, reducing reality to an epic contest between righteousness and evil, winners and losers. His feelings of infallibility flourish unchallenged by reality in his fantasy world.
The following traits are evident to many clinically trained, as well as lay people: impaired judgment, volatile decision-making and constant gaslighting, fact free self-justification and a compulsion to go to war with the world. He is unable to take responsibility for any error, mistake, or failing. His default in such a situation is to blame others and to attack the perceived source of his humiliation. These attacks of narcissistic rage can be brutal, vindictive and destructive.
As psychiatrist and violence prevention expert Bandy Lee states:
"His presentation is consistent with a person who, when his falsely inflated self-image is questioned, or when his emotional need for adulation is thwarted, lashes out in an attempt to restore his sense of potency and command over others.
"All senior military leaders in the chain of command are required to pass yearly psychological as well as physical evaluations. Only the person known as the commander-in-chief is exempt from this requirement, but at this time he is, in fact, the person in most need and who is a maximum danger.
"We must also remember that his position makes him more dangerous, not less: he has the most destructive weapons and the greatest war-making powers at his disposal, but his mental defect also makes him a vulnerable target for manipulation by extremist forces within our country as well as in foreign nations. Our adversaries are highly likely to have his psychological profile, while we ourselves are kept in the dark.
"At this critical time, we simply cannot wait any longer to deal with the dangerous situation caused by a mentally compromised person acting in erratic, impulsive, reckless, and destructive ways.
"However, our examination of his public record leads us to believe that he has the pattern of fragile sense of self and is prone to blame and attack others when threatened. The President has also shown himself willing to encourage violence against his perceived enemies.
"We also should not ignore the President's ability to initiate a conflict with other countries in order to distract from his political troubles, perhaps with the hope of rallying the country around him, as often happens at the beginning of armed conflict. The fact that the President holds in his hands alone the ability to initiate nuclear war cannot be ignored."
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Yet, to be clear, authoritarianism (often bordering on fascism) is becoming more common in our world. And Trump (although he loves the spotlight and being the center of attention) is not alone in our government - in the congress and security services - or in the unelected cabals pulling strings from behind the wizard's curtain.
And, as of today, the fact that the election is close has much to say about the American people.
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