So first the malignant narcissist dotard chose a military option that was put there to make less crazy options seem palatable. Or so anonymous officials say.
I believe them, and I will tell you why. We may read about Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) of the malignant, i.e. sociopathic, type, we may memorize its symptoms, we may know it inside and out on an intellectual level. We may see a leader do and say stupid, crazy things on matters less crucial than the ones that are our purview. But without a deeper-than-intellectual knowledge and emotional acceptance of the reality of this mental illness, our normal human expectations will kick in. It is instinctive and natural to expect another human to have empathy, to have an instinctive sense of how other people feel, to have a natural urge for preservation of the species, and to automatically step up and take a crucial matter—such as the lives and deaths of thousands or millions—more seriously than he has others. We hardly even know we have these expectations of normal human social functioning, they are so natural. And they are very strong. We don’t abandon them willingly. It is not easy to override them. But to act appropriately with and toward a malignant narcissist, we have to.
“Stunned.” “Flabbergasted.” “Alarmed.” These words, all used by those anonymous officials, all describe the natural reaction when those expectations of normalcy are blown away by a malignant narcissist’s choice. But they’ll do it to you repeatedly. You keep thinking you can’t be surprised, they can’t go any lower. That’s your expectations of normalcy, invalid with this person, reacting. Talk to someone who has been married to one, was raised by one, had one for a boss, etc. etc. (they’re in the comment section.) An example from a narcissistic-abuse-recovery website: a guy with NPD was pleased when his ex-girlfriend committed suicide because of the way he treated her — because it proved he was significant.
Then came the threat to attack culture:
Any chance IMPOTUS knows 52 Iranian cultural sites? Not an iota. This was another scenario the brass dreamed up and put in front of him. (Their job is to come up with a wide range of military options for any and all situations — they have them prepared, ready to go if a situation comes up — to give the president lots of choices). Maybe it was the second-most “far out”. And there it is, in a tweet, because the malignant narcissist dotard is actually incapable of understanding why it should not be.
So here is my message to the Joint Chiefs of Staff & crew.
I hope you have learned from this. I want to give you more of an explanation, though, because just the one crazy assassination command and the one crazy threat against culture based on your extreme options may not fill out what you need to understand about the man who is commanding you. I’m going to put the core concept in simple and blunt terms.
It is this: in his mind, other people do not really exist.
Not as independent entities with value or feelings — only as the effects they have on himself, whether that be financial gain, political gain, sexual satisfaction, feelings of power he draws from their pain, fear he feels from their threats, etc. You do not really exist for him, no matter how brilliant, expert, credentialed and experienced you are; he will betray you in a second if that will gain him something. Got it? You are not there.
No number of people exist for him either. Not hundreds, thousands, millions or billions. In his mind he is more important than all of the other 6,999,999,999 humans on the planet. He is the man who is happy because his ex-girlfriend killed herself due to how he treated her, because it proves to him he is significant, but on a global scale. That’s the barrel of the gun the world is looking down, got it? Turning a Muslim country into a sheet of glass would prove him significant in his own mind. So would 100,000 dead American soldiers. Got it? None of those people are there.
So would World War III.
Got it? For him, the HUMAN SPECIES is not there.
He’ll talk to you. He’ll look at you. He’ll praise you in general terms. You’ll think you’re having a normal interaction. (If you’re ignoring your intuition, that is: these people put off a vibe like everyone.) You are not, because these people are incapable of having normal interactions; they can only fake them. Because you are not there. Else he’d praise you with specifics. No one is there, in his mind. Not one other person on the planet. Not even his family; he only looks at them as reflections of himself, and would jettison them in a moment if they displeased him.
Unbelievable? No one can be that sick? Study NPD and sociopathy, the ingredients of malignant narcissism, some more. Talk to professionals. Get examples. Look at things your CiC has done in his life. Read The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump. He will not step up to respect the gravity of war. He is incapable of stepping up to respect the gravity of war. Because, due to his mental illness, no one fighting on either side, including you and everyone you love, IS THERE.
I don’t like writing this. I feel sick and full of fear writing this. I’m inured to narcissists as I’ve been both raised by one and in a long-term relationship with one, but having one in the Oval Office I am not inured to, and think it’s impossible for anyone to be inured to.
I don’t know all the things you can do with this information, don’t know exactly what your powers and opportunities are. I think that when offering him options going forward, you shouldn’t suggest any that you yourselves think would be a bad idea, but I’m sure you’ve already thought of that. I know that you game out scenarios, so I think you should game out this one: a POTUS to whom no other human beings really exist. Where does that end, militarily, for the USA and the world?
What you can do to prevent the worst case for that scenario, I do not know. Perhaps you can have some discussions with the ostensible political adults in the room, Congress, especially the US Senate. All I know is that, since power and responsibility are one and the same, the consequences of you (and they) not doing whatever is possible will all be on your (and their) shoulders. You are the military adults in the room (and they the political adults, supposedly) with a lunatic completely devoid of empathy with his finger on the button.
Act accordingly.
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