Done Deal: Crazy Person To Control the Nukes
The political hacks that cast the ballots in the Electoral College on Monday made it official: a mentally ill and corrupt authoritarian demagogue will soon become the most powerful person in the world.
Donald John Trump, a big loser in the popular vote who captured one of the lamest wins ever in the pro-slave-state Electoral College system, in January will command the mightiest military force in the history of man. He is now assembling an astonishingly reactionary government composed of fellow plutocrats and science-denying right-wing ideologues whose highest political purpose is to cut taxes on the rich and transfer wealth to oil companies and the most moneyed 1% of Americans. And the Trump family itself.
God bless the United States of America.
Even Shrinks Are Scared. We await with great trepidation but undeniable excitement, the inevitable, vicious four-year war the treacherous, Russian-backed 46% 45th president intends to wage against the progressive programs and values of California, which stands as a singular obstacle to his terrifying ignorance of the U.S. Constitution, let alone political norms that have governed the nation since its founding.
For today, however, we focus on the most menacing aspect of the venal barbarian: the genuine mental disorder that shapes his every action.
It’s a sad commentary that it was not until the very day he formally won power that a high-profile national news organization took the trouble to assert what has been obvious to those who bothered to research the tools of psychological diagnosis: Trump’s erratic behavior proceeds from the diagnostically distinct derangement syndrome known as narcissistic personality disorder.
In the Huffington Post, communications strategist Richard Greene reported receiving a copy of a letter sent to President Obama by three recognized professors of psychiatry who “strongly recommend that, in preparation for assuming these responsibilities, he (Trump) receives a full medical and neuropsychiatric evaluation by an impartial team of investigators” to determine if he is mentally competent to rule over America’s nuclear arsenal.
“If someone does have “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” they can, indeed, wake up, see a Tweet or a news report from a foreign leader criticizing him, mocking him, calling him “weak” or threatening his ego in any way and order some kind of impulsive, vindictive, punishing, immediate response that could include an unhinged order to attack that foreign leader or foreign country with military force, even including the authorization of nuclear weapons,” the mental health professionals wrote.
Toldja! This comes as no surprise, of course, to our loyal readers.
By dint of Actual Reporting, Calbuzz was the first media organization to sound the alarm about Trump’s psychological disease back in August 2015. At the time, we consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, and aligned his behavior with the list of symptoms used by professional mental health workers to diagnosis the disorder.
DSM-5 criteria for narcissistic personality disorder include these features:
–Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
–Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
–Exaggerating your achievements and talents
–Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
–Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people
–Requiring constant admiration
–Having a sense of entitlement
–Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations.
–Taking advantage of others to get what you want
–Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs or feelings of others
–Being envious of others and believing others envy you
–Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner.
So there’s that.
The Triumph of Tyranny. As Paul Krugman pointed out, the only guarantee that our republic will persevere is the consensus of political norms that has governed us since 1776, the shared standard of belief that the president should put country ahead of party, let alone the financial self-interest of himself and his grasping family.
Republican institutions don’t protect against tyranny when powerful people start defying political norms. And tyranny, when it comes, can flourish even while maintaining a republican facade.
“Famously, on paper the transformation of Rome from republic to empire never happened. Officially, imperial Rome was still ruled by a Senate that just happened to defer to the emperor, whose title originally just meant “commander,” on everything that mattered. We may not go down exactly the same route — although are we even sure of that? — but the process of destroying democratic substance while preserving forms is already underway.
Here’s the thing: The Mainstream Media bears a heavy and disgraceful responsibility for setting the stage for fascism in America. Mark our words, all it will take is a major terrorist attack – or riots in California – for this thug real estate developer and the Star Wars cantina throng of goons that surrounds him to declare martial law.
Or maybe just another bad restaurant review from Vanity Fair.
The MSM helpfully ushered Trump on to the White House throughout 2016 by persisting in framing the election with a false narrative built on a false equivalency: that his craziness was commensurate with the non-scandal of Hillary Clinton’s email use.
Then, piling on, they endlessly reported on the minor and quite ordinary revelations contained in hacked emails of her campaign chairman and the Democratic National Committee, with barely a nod to the meta-fact that these were stolen in attacks by a hostile foreign government and released by a white-haired megalomaniac who’s been closeted in a foreign embassy for years in a cowardly effort to avoid rape charges.
And all the while they acted as if Trump was merely a normal presidential candidate, instead of reporting on the madness that was hiding in plain sight.
Now, with few exceptions, that same MSM is shamefully engaged in normalizing his behavior, once again performing like courtiers instead of journalists. (For some world-class orange ass-kissing, check this out.)
Memo to Beltway geniuses: maybe you should check out Calbuzz more often.
Hail Caligula!
(That being said…. beautifully written, gentlemen. A fitting requiem for what once was.)
“I would be incredibly concerned if a President Trump governed in a way that was consistent with the language that candidate Trump expressed during the campaign….Let me give you a punchline: If he were to order that [the killing of family members of terrorists] once in government, the American armed forces would refuse to act. You are not required to follow an unlawful order. That would be in violation of all the international laws of armed conflict.”
– Gen. Michael Hayden
Reading your trash on Trump, it is easy to conclude that you all are Lefty haters.
During the last 8 Obama years, we Republicans, did not come close to your hating level. I even went to the Obama Inauguration 4 years ago and arranged with Congressman Farr for a couple of Inaugural ball tickets.
And all your hate is written before Trump is sworn in.
What in the hell is wrong with you? Give Trump a chance to lead us out of this mess we are in both domestic and foreign.
The Schumer clowns are not going to cut it my fellow Americans!
Sorry, Ernie, we have never had such a moronic, narcissistic, bilious authoritarian about to take control of the government. Obama is not leaving a “mess” behind — he’s handing over an economy and set of foreign relations that are vastly improved from the mess George Bush left him. We’ll give Trump every break Mitch McConnell gave to Obama.