Narcissistic Personality Disorder, described on this Mayo Clinic website, and been discussed by professionals (see first link).. His career up to his activities of late 2015, when he chose run for president, were ideal for one with his disorder. Most of his interactions where with other’s who chose to deal with him, either buying into his soon to be bankrupt Casino’s or attending his “University.” Others he dealt with, were the N.Y. city construction industry, which many maintain is a den of corruption, both in ownership and unions, and are able to take care of themselves. Trump and John Gotti spoke the same language and deserved each other.
He used his august office to “request” networks forego hundreds of millions in revenue that could have been distributed in dividends or gains that ultimately redound to shareholders, who would spend that money on buying better Scotch, or some food for their kids. Ironically, the most harm of this shutdown are to the poorest of the close to a million people who may extend their credit cards, with fines and 25% interest rates. But this is invisible to one with Trump’s condition.
I actually have sympathy for Trump, as I do for every fellow human being, as much as I can have contempt for his actions at the same time. Pelosi and Schumer had the opportunity to respond to this character for what he is, display some human outrage that could have been tempered even with understanding. I’ll illustrate my feelings about Trump, from the L.A. Times article about another person, Charles Manson.
In 1967, he was scheduled to be released from Terminal Island with no friends or family on the outside who wanted to see him, no trade and no prospects for a job. “I told the officer who was signing me out, ‘You know what, man, I don’t want to leave!,’” Manson wrote. “‘I don’t have a home out there! Why don’t you just take me back inside.’ The officer laughed and thought I was kidding. ‘I’m serious, man! I mean it, I don’t want to leave!’ My plea was ignored.”
Donald Trump told the American people who he was before he was even nominated: "You know what else they say about my people? The polls, they say I have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay? It’s like incredible,"
The opposition missed the context of this statement and still do. Trump was pointing out a reality, that his popularity was then, and is to this day, based on a God-like reverence that his supporters have to this individual. It’s turning out that the public had never had a thug, a mafioso king pin, or a maniacal murderer run for the presidency. Somehow, by the time he had won the nomination of a major political party, the general public assumed that they had vetted his character, that if he did gain this position he would inherently absorb the demeanor, the values, the responsibility of the office.
Donald Trump never said that he would do anything of the kind, but it was assumed. During the election there were hundreds of times he was solemnly described as “unfit” for the office. Perhaps there should have been some more graphic language. How about, “Look, this guy say’s he could shoot someone on fifth avenue without losing a vote, well if you elect this maniac, he will still think he could launch a nuclear missile without any reaction from his countrymen. “
As far as last weeks taking control all of the media when he in his demented thinking he will be calling all the shots after he declares a National Emergency, he still made the threat as this headline in WaPo: President Sets threshold for Declaring Emergency on Border
Pelosi and Schumer are rational polite individuals, and pitting them against a powerful thug with a personality disorder isn’t going to connect with the public. Trump has intimidated every Republican Senator, attempted to do so with the Chief of the Federal Reserve, and fired all of his top level officials who do not succumb to his Charles Manson like power.
Trump having been reared among wealth and privilege does not mitigate the seriousness of this personality disorder. It results in his inability to acknowledge his own limitations, which would open him to the expertise of bureaucrats and scholars in every area that is under his domain. He is emotionally incapable of doing so. Hostility, even threats of prison, will only exacerbate his patterns or aggressive defensiveness.
It’s no longer killing an individual on fifth avenue that he feels he could do -— but destruction so great as to be unimaginable