February 17, 2017

“Our Narcissistic President”

Treading very carefully here with no malingering intent towards those who are mentally ill and not wishing to stigmatize or diagnose anyone from a distance, it is quite interesting to read in today’s news that 23,000 professionals in the areas of mental health have signed a petition saying because of President Trump’s narcissistic personality he is unfit to serve as President.  Thirty five mental health professionals in a letter to the New York Times have warned that the “grave emotional instability” indicated by Mr. Trump’s speech and actions make him “incapable of serving safely as president.”

Narcissistic Personality Disorder is defined in the DSM-V journal.  According to Psychology Today the following characteristics will be found in those with this disorder:

Grandiosity, a lack of empathy for other people and a need for admiration.

They believe they are superior or may deserve special treatment.

They seek excessive admiration and attention, and struggle with criticism or defeat.

Their letter to the New York Times, according to BBC News service, said:  “Mr. Trump’s speech and actions demonstrate an inability to tolerate views different from his own, leading to rage reactions.  His words and behavior suggest a profound inability to empathize.”

Individuals with these traits distort reality to suit their psychological state, attacking facts and those who convey them (journalists, scientists).  (‘Top Stories, BBC News Services’, “Trump’s mental health debate:  What is it about?”  February 17, 2017 (Internet news services).

The American Psychiatric Association follows ‘the Goldwater rule’ since 1973 and prohibits psychiatrists from giving diagnosis about someone they have not personally evaluated.  To do so by analyzing candidates in a political election is “irresponsible, potentially stigmatizing, and definitely unethical.” (as above).

It is interested to me, as a non-psychiatrist, so many have chosen to speak out breaking their own ‘Goldwater rule’.

No one is diagnosing President Donald Trump with a narcissistic personality disorder.  There are many who are saying he has the type of personality which exhibits these traits.  This certainly explains some of his erratic, what I have called ‘bizarre’ behavior.  One commentator tonight on the BBC News for America said President Trump is living in his own “parallel universe” where everything is alright in his universe, so he feels justified to deliver the tongue lashing to journalists who called his White House “chaotic” or “in chaos”.  “The rest of us,” the BBC commentator said, “are living somewhere else.”

Apparently tuned down by retired Vice-Admiral Robert Harward for the post of National Security Advisor after Michael Flynn resigned in disgrace, it does seem there is some difficulty obtaining suitable candidates for certain jobs in this administration.

As of tonight, the BBC News service is also reporting several thousand employees of the EPA have gone on record opposing Trump’s selection of manager for the agency, Scott Pruitt.  One judge from Oklahoma has ordered Mr. Pruitt to release thousands of emails between his office and fossil fuel companies.  The liberal CMD watchdog group is alleging only 411 of 3000 emails between him and Koch Industries, mining and drilling companies and the Republican Attorneys General Association have been forthcoming, though requested two years ago.  These documents will certainly provide insight into Mr. Pruitt’s priorities in leading the EPA and are relevant to his confirmation hearing before the Senate.

Regardless of a person’s political persuasion, lack of truthfulness is troubling when it is not exercised at the highest levels of government.  While we may all agree to disagree at times, all citizens like transparency in government so we know at the very least what the disagreements between parties and government officials are about.  We often trust the press (‘journalists’) to mine out the truth.  Given the amount of corporate wealth being invested in seeking to influence legislators, it is not surprising that ‘we the people’ are suspicious when things are deliberately hidden, as for example, President Trump’s tax returns.  If the President of the United States refuses to adhere to the standard of transparency in government, it is not surprising to see his own officials attempting to do the same.

There is a common saying, “Desperate times deserve desperate measures!”  Others say “requires them.”  President Trump has attempted to paint the picture of “desperate times in the United States” and “the mess left to him in government” as justification for his various executive orders and statements to the press.  So in his perception of reality, what he is doing is justified.  In the parallel universe where reasonable people still reside, his actions, statements and behaviors are ‘bizarre’.

President Trump is still seeking to appease his core constituency, what I have called ‘rabid Republicans’ who need to be fed red meat periodically so they do not consume their own elected officials.  Things like reducing the EPA from 15,000 employees to only 5,000 suits ‘rabid Republicans’ who sincerely believe reducing government employees will increase their own chances to have jobs.  Their logic is illogical, unless doing away with the 1970 Clean Air and 1972 Clean Water Acts is their intent.  Further, those who deny climate change as having an impact on global warming (as Will Happer, emeritus professor from Princeton University) claim this “is distracting the public from more pressing problems.”  He and those like him are so far removed from the scientific consensus around the globe as to be laughable.  This would be true if this same individual were not being seriously considered at President Trump’s science advisor.  Now this becomes truly troubling.

It would seem, in the Trump administration we have a deliberate attempt to dismantle the EPA, turn back the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and deny the science behind climate change, rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere and their relationship to global warming.  What Trump and his administration are doing is attempting to replace good science with bad, to provide deniability in their attempts to dismantle environmental legislation so the oil, coal and gas industries can have free hand to pollute the environment, and to also confuse the general public with an alternative to good science, since many are genuinely worried why the weather is behaving so strangely since 1980-1983.

We had hoped the State of Tennessee v John Thomas Scope, decided July 21, 1925 taught us something about good science overcoming bad.  In that day the controversy was between Fundamentalist and Modernist.  The final result was that modern science could be taught in public schools and the Bible was still there but was no longer considered authoritative in matters of science, since a 3000 year old creation story was finally updated by modern evolutionary theory!

President Trump and his advisors are trying to hold on to an old creation myth and have not embraced modern science, because it suits them to believe a non-truth they have manufactured while denying 98% of the word’s scientists their due.  Hopefully, the lawsuit by the 9 year old boy will find its way to the President’s desk, since President Trump is being sued by this young man for not addressing Climate Change and per this young man President Trump is “putting his future and that of the whole planet in jeopardy.”  It is hard to believe that a 9 year old boy has more good sense than the President of the United States, but in the world of parallel universes which President Trump is attempting to create almost anything can be true anywhere, as long as you speak loudly, yell, stomp your feet and lie well enough!

I am only quoting the Republicans who have said President Trump does not always tell the truth, but “often lies when he finds it convenient to do so”.  Dr. Allen Frances, who helped write the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV, says President Trump does not have Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  However, he does say this, “He may be a world class narcissist, but that does not make him mentally ill, because he does not suffer from the distress and impairment required to diagnose mental illness.”  Then he added, “Mr. Trump causes severe distress rather than experiencing it and has been richly rewarded, rather than punished, for his grandiosity, self-absorption and lack of empathy.” (BBC News, February 17, 2017).

I would like to be able to say, “I rest my case!”  In the court of public opinion I would hope I have made a persuasive, even convincing argument.  However, I suspect this may not be true.  Likely President Trump will dismantle the EPA, reward the oil, gas and mining industry, and increasingly pollute our air and our water in order to make good on his promise to “bring jobs back to America”.  For a short time, President Trump and chosen advisors will deny climate change and the rising oceans and warming planet.  I doubt I will be living when the ocean waters lap away at his private club in Palm Beach, Florida or a violent hurricane floods his New York residence.  Even a President cannot hold back the ocean!

An old saying says, ‘When the waters rise they cover all the rocks and carry them out to the sea.”  The rising waters have been carrying big rocks and little rocks in a process called erosion out to the sea for a long time.  The sand, which covers Mar-a-Lago beach was once a stone somewhere.  It lies now a fine and powdered dust on which guests walk in the club owned by President Trump.  Take a lesson from the sand, Mr. Trump.  You are a big rock now and can crush a lot of people.  In the course of time, you will be nothing more than sand on the beach.  My children and my grandchildren will walk on you, or what is left of your legacy and wonder why you chose not to listen to the other half of the citizens you are trying to govern.  Perhaps they will still be enough sand on the beach where they can play with your children’s children, too.  I certainly hope so.  Just remember, you did nothing in your time to stop the rising of the ocean.  You did nothing to preserve the clean air they need to breathe and the clean water they will need to drink in order to live.  Just remember you only thought of yourself!  If you want any legacy as President you will remember the little ones now and those yet to be.  Think on that our narcissistic President!  I do not sleep because of you!  I stay up and write all the night trying to remember what life was like before you came!  Think on that Mr. President.  I am not the only one who believes you really might be insane!  But then, I am not a psychiatrist.  So what do I know?  Ignore those like me long enough and you will find irrelevance in history and in life!  Listen and there still may yet be time for you and your Presidency to be saved!

A Voice of One Crying in this Wilderness, “Make straight in this desert a Highway for our God!”

In the name and by the redemptive power of Jesus Christ our Lord!  “Amen!”

Let all of God’s people say, “Amen!”

 

“Amen!  We praise you, Lord Jesus Christ!”