Frank Bruni lays it all out there in his Sunday column in The New York Times. While he stops just short of diagnosing Trump as suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder (though plenty of folks in the comments have no such qualms), Bruni makes it clear that Trump is not stable enough to continue to serve as president.
Bruni starts with a description of Trump’s ugly use of racism in his campaign and his rocky relationship with black voters, culminating in Trump’s bizarre Black History Month publicity stunt this week:
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So what was his demeanor on Wednesday, when he marked Black History Month by sitting down with a handful of black leaders (supporters, really) in the Roosevelt Room? Did he ramp up the courtesy? Tamp down the self-congratulation? Go out of his way to emphasize that he’d be a president for all and that he fully appreciated the struggles and hardships of black Americans over time?
Not so much.
But he did talk about his struggles. His hardships. He couldn’t mention Martin Luther King Jr. without flashing on the King bust in the Oval Office, noting that there had been an erroneous report of its removal and lamenting what he sees as his terrible victimization by biased journalists and “fake news.”
King’s martyrdom became Trump’s martyrdom. Black History Month turned into Trump Appreciation Day.
Me, me, me, me, me.
I don’t believe I’ve ever read a story in any legitimate mainstream press source that recounts a president’s “masturbatory reveries.” But here it is in Bruni’s column in the Times:
By the time he got to his inauguration, his masturbatory reveries had morphed into the claim that he was the helmsman of “a historic movement, the likes of which the world has never seen.” The Bolsheviks might quibble, and I might point out that only 77,000 ballots in three states gave him that Electoral College win, in contrast to the nearly three million ballots by which he lost the popular vote. The math doesn’t flatter the movement.
But it’s the outcomes of that megalomania that are more frightening, as Bruni points out:
But that’s the smaller problem with his assessment. The larger one is that when you’re selling a revolution and convincing yourself of it, you’re obliged to scale your actions to your exaggerations. They must be as sweeping as the supposed circumstances — it’s central to the delusion, integral to the illusion. Hence the wall. Hence the immigration ban. Hence all the executive orders signed and still to come.
As much as I enjoyed “masturbatory reveries,” I think I enjoyed the last sentence in the following paragraph even more:
Trump’s analysis of people and situations hinges on whether they exalt him. A news organization that challenges him is inevitably “failing.” A politician who pushes back at him is invariably a loser. Middle-school cliques have more moral discernment.
The comment section of this article is also worth reading. As many of those commenting point out, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and the rest of the Republicans are along for the ride with Trump, placing their love of power and hyper-partisanship over the good of the nation.
Trump, Bannon and company are a danger, not just to us, but to the world. As I noted two days ago, I am quite sure that this crew will soon take us to war. Only the Republicans can stop him. But they’re drunk with power. Falling-down drunk. And they show no signs of drying out.