"...people with his affliction have little ability to empathize with others or even to recognize other people as fully human."
Yahtzee!
As exemplified by Co-President Elon Apartheid Musk(rat): “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit. There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response."
It's been said "There's a sucker born every minute," so Trump came along when seventy or eighty million gullible and intentionally misinformed - and supposedly empathetic (softened up by forty plus years of Republican propaganda) political and economic ignoramuses who were ripe for the picking.
Some however, it must be conceded, were (and aren't) misinformed, but are simply in it for the money, knowing that most of the regulations and taxes they so abhor will be severely cut, if not reversed or discontinued by a Trump Adminstration. So the small, latter group (of oligarchs) poured untold millions into our media to convince the former (who were better off than most of their foreign counterparts) that they were victims of the American government....and it worked.
When you are filled with fear, everything in your orbit is a threat. The 'lack of empathy' is a conditioned response from both being treated without it, and watching and learning from how its absence impacts those you watch. When you observe the destruction created by withholding empathy, or even more, the use of cruelty to destroy any trust in empathy, you feel the norepinephrine-induced surge of pleasure that comes at the expense of any other. I grew up with a classmate who is a doppelganger of TFG. To these types, any value that empathy might have to any person, giver or receiver, would be seen as a 'bug,' a weakness. To survive without feeling compassion, or even pity, is the Shadow Self of rage against the darkness and emptiness within. Not surprisingly, most of these types are physical cowards, stalkers, assassins, ambushers, betrayers.
He has dementia. More than 3000 psychiatrists and mental health professionals have now added their signatures to a petition stating that Trump has probable dementia. They also concluded that their duty to warn the nation outweighed their duty to refrain from diagnosing in absentia. https://sabrinahaake.substack.com/p/how-much-insanity-will-we-endure
Because we need to keep beating the drum until others can hear it.
I have a counterpoint to Sabrina who I never disagree with (this is a first), but I think it is still an open question as to whether or not Trump has dementia. Today I wrote: 'Am I the only anti-Trump shrink who thinks Trump may not have dementia? He may. But he may not. I was a psychotherapist for 40 years but didn't learn about dementia until I moved to a senior community and saw it in dozens of residents." Probable dementia should be stated as possible dementia. Here: https://halbrown.substack.com/p/am-i-the-only-anti-trump-shrink-who-aeb
I concur wholeheartedly. I don't think he has dementia. I think he is just a mean, sociopathic racist bastard though I can understand the confusion and need to try to explain the twisted SOB. I have experience with mean sociopaths (a female) in my family and let me tell you: she is a Black female version of Smitty. https://rohnkenyatta.substack.com/p/smitty-have-you-heard-of-him
Just subscribed to your Substack. He is mean (worse really, he is sadistic), sociopathic, racist and is hellbent destroying norms to exact revenge on his enemies. He thrives on creating chaos. He meets the defintion for being a malignant narcisist and being in the Dark Tetrad . This is worse that the Dark Triad because it adds sadism to nacrissim, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. I wrote about that here: https://halbrown.substack.com/p/sadists-us-trump-and-the-dark-tetrad
This entity is a perverse sadist suffering from OCD, PTSD and ADD, ADHD. All these, and many other 'ticks,' are wrapped inside a delusional multiple personality disorder. Each personality is responsible for covering for the other.because without each other there is nothing there. Absolutely nothing. Not even a hologram. The lines have been repeated so many times that the grandstanding is rote, and certain visual or verbal cues send this gorgon bouncing around its stage like a ping pong ball. The terror deep inside this artifact reminds me of a tape recording of the Three Stooges on a continuous feedback loop. That 'comedy' was one of the most violent caricatures of human interaction I ever witnessed, and TFG is a kaleidoscope of their mania.
This is an accurate description of multiple personalities disorder. My late husband’s late wife with whom he had two children and was married for 19 years was discovered to have this condition after her death as the children in their teens then began to describe the different Moms. Which led to a discovery she had sexually abused them.
I can only imagine whatever the ‘f’ wrong is with Donald how he has shaped his children’s life. Thank God for their mothers.
And...I love that you love it. Truth, THE truth is a powerful force; perhaps THE most powerful in human endeavor and I bring it. The denial, the delusion, the inability to confront and, thusly, respond to truth is why this Crapshow is happening.
Smitty is NOT the disease, he is a symptom and he was, name notwithstanding, coming regardless for it is providence.
I am amazed that others can so blatantly lie about someone and cover it with claims of mental illness. It is a dangerous thing to do. This is the type of tactic that led those who saw this current situation in the White House coming - they all wrote about it coming and essentially did nothing to stop it - because their tactics were falsely led.
I have been accused of being mentally ill so others can have their way. I have countered it the best I can for thirty years all the while suffering from 24/7 surveillance that had impeded my writing and life.
Now recently I heard there is a tactic/lie that is to say I am not good at managing my finances by looking through all my purchases. I operate not on an inheritance but my husband and my legitimate finances. I have stellar credit. No debt. And my finances are stable so that I can care for myself. All of my funds are intact since my husband’s passing. I have never been bankrupt. My ex husband ran his life into the ground bankrupting his affairs on multiple levels.
I have succeeded to be an expert in a few areas in my life and feel grateful for the opportunity to do so. I can even participate in my several hobbies such as acting and avid bird watching.
I know what has this to do with how Thom et al went about trying to stop the trend of today’s utter horrifying Trump/ oligarchy takeover back in the 80’s. It is the same poor choice of tactics that have failed those who chose to lie about me while I went underground for sanity to escape the thousands of people who follow me daily now for 24 years. I hate being the center of attention and people constantly following me is a hardship.
That I believe was my experience in the last five years of my husband’s life before he was diagnosed with non-smokers lung cancer. He died July of 2021, and his doctor nor I never detected or understood that some of his behavior was or may have been due to dementia. Usually very verbal his doctor told me Vic would come to his office and not say anything. His doctor, a former student of my husband’s, was caught in a dynamic of highly respecting Vic and looking to ask more of Vic to see his condition.
My husband was undergoing a personality change which allowed him to be manipulated by others so blind to it in their efforts to establish an endowment in his name they nearly destroyed our relationship.
The standard is usually to a reasonable degree of probabiity or certainty.
SSA Listing of impirments: 12.02 Neurocognitive disorders (see 12.00B1), satisfied by A and B, or A and C:
A. Medical documentation of a significant cognitive decline from a prior level of functioning in one or more of the cognitive areas:
1. Complex attention;
2. Executive function;
3. Learning and memory;
4. Language;
5. Perceptual-motor; or
6. Social cognition.
AND
B. Extreme limitation of one, or marked limitation of two, of the following areas of mental functioning (see 12.00F):
1. Understand, remember, or apply information (see 12.00E1).
2. Interact with others (see 12.00E2).
3. Concentrate, persist, or maintain pace (see 12.00E3).
4. Adapt or manage oneself (see 12.00E4).
OR
C. Your mental disorder in this listing category is “serious and persistent;” that is, you have a medically documented history of the existence of the disorder over a period of at least 2 years, and there is evidence of both:
Medical treatment, mental health therapy, psychosocial support(s), or a highly structured setting(s) that is ongoing and that diminishes the symptoms and signs of your mental disorder (see 12.00G2b); and
Marginal adjustment, that is, you have minimal capacity to adapt to changes in your environment or to demands that are not already part of your daily life (see 12.00G2c).
Listing 12.05 Intellectual disorder (see 12.00B4), satisfied by A or B:
A. Satisfied by 1, 2, and 3 (see 12.00H):
1. Significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning evident in your cognitive inability to function at a level required to participate in standardized testing of intellectual functioning; and
2. Significant deficits in adaptive functioning currently manifested by your dependence upon others for personal needs (for example, toileting, eating, dressing, or bathing); and
3. The evidence about your current intellectual and adaptive functioning and about the history of your disorder demonstrates or supports the conclusion that the disorder began prior to your attainment of age 22.
OR
B. Satisfied by 1, 2, and 3 (see 12.00H):
1. Significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning evidenced by a or b:
A full scale (or comparable) IQ score of 70 or below on an individually administered standardized test of general intelligence; or
2. A full scale (or comparable) IQ score of 71-75 accompanied by a verbal or performance IQ score (or comparable part score) of 70 or below on an individually administered standardized test of general intelligence; and
3. Significant deficits in adaptive functioning currently manifested by extreme . limitation of one, or marked limitation of two, of the following areas of mental functioning:
a. Understand, remember, or apply information (see 12.00E1); or
Interact with others (see 12.00E2); or
b. Concentrate, persist, or maintain pace (see 12.00E3); or
Adapt or manage oneself (see 12.00E4); and
c. The evidence about your current intellectual and adaptive functioning and about the history of your disorder demonstrates or supports the conclusion that the disorder began prior to your attainment of age 22.
I don't see Trump meeting enough of these criteria for him be diagnosed, but as I wrote, I obviously have not examined him in person. I am not a neurologist so conducting such an exam is beyond my expertise. This is a complex disorder and it is facile to throw out the term dementia when his behavior is eratic. Some people want to call him demented because they are sick and tired of his incessant rambling which his cult takes seriously. Just yesterday given credance to RFK Jr.'s autism claims.
There are alternative explanations for everything I see people say is dementia. Like I noted in the illustration and intro to my Substack: Sometimes Occam’s razor can have two sides. When it comes to Trump’a increasingly bizarre behavior there are two, not necessarily mutually exclusive, simple explanations. His behavior is certainly consistent with his psychodamics, but how much of it is influenced by dementia? There are those who have jumped on a bandwagon of looking for evidence that he has dementia. They certainly have found it. However, there are other simple explanations for his unhinged behavior.
OK. The AMA says that to accurately diagnose him, need a clinical examination.
There should be a medical record to establish it. IMHO when he was # 45, the records were buried.
From what I understand, he has had deficits since childhood. Even in the 1960's they did testing.
Most of the claimants alleging disability have a combination of impairments. The same person who has paranoia, flights of ideas, and is incessantly cruel may be vocationally functional.
For years I have had the opinion that all persons running for high level gov't posts should have neuro-psych evaluation. And I am just a mere PhD (biochem and genetics from back in the middle ages) and a PA-C retired. Start now!
It's like torcher to be forced to watch the trump Reality Show going on in the White House. I never watched the show he did back in the day, The Biggest Loser because I knew it was all BS. donOLD has never been a business man. He's always been a conman,cheat and lier. I've known that since the 1970ies. Thank you, Thom, for spelling It out so plainly, that Anyone can understand just how awful this man really is, and will reStack ASAP 💯👍
Authoritarian and as the Racheal Maddow show with Former Attorney General Eric Holder clarified - he clearly clearly emphatically states - the time to ACT....IS NOW !!!!!! Waiting is peril...we are already 90% or more into autoritarinism...and it gets much much worse from here on in
... look to Russia or Hungary for how we will soon be living - poor and complying IS the plan
Former Attorney General Eric Holder talks with Rachel Maddow about Donald Trump's efforts to intimidate the legal system in the United States and bend it to his will, and emphasizes the importance of the American legal community standing together and pushing back in defense of the rule of law. "The time is now to stand up and do all that we can to fight this administration."
There are others that further explain what he is after. Author Michael Lewis was on a talk show recently. He said the goal Trump works for is to destroy TRUST.
My take is he doesn't want divided loyalty; he wants NO loyalty, except to him. His sycophant cabinet seems to fit the bill for this. Disgusting, childish, and stupid doesn't begin to describe that cabinet meeting. I hope he comes for this group of fellow psychopaths while they are coming for us.
In the meantime, build all the trust you can among our ranks. The next 50-50-1 demonstration is the19th. It is necessary, and it will help.
What is fascinating is how open he has been about all this, even saying to a crowd that he loves uneducated people...and they cheered! There is something deep in the American psyche that doesn't trust experts, those seen as sophisticated (remember how Kerry was berated for knowing French?), or anyone who isn't a "plain, ordinary folk". Yet at the same time those who don't have much often think they have to look up to those who do.
Politicians have tapped into this going back to Jackson vs. JQ Adams and Huey Long, but the best thought they could make the country a better place and really cared about the citizens. What does really worry me beyond all that Thom has said is that if Trump's world collapses not only will he blame everybody else but he'll try to bring the house down with him. At the end of his rule Hitler wrote the so-called Nero Decree, saying that since the German people had failed him they should destroy everything in the country. Fortunately cooler heads stopped that, but if the same scenario plays out we can't trust those ordered to invade Canada or who knows what to be as sensible.
Omigosh, sir, you masterfully said it all. You exposed exactly what’s going on and explained that no one is in control, because the carnival barker has no self-control. As you said, he will harm everyone eventually. I think soon. You explained that these soulless ghouls don’t care that they are hurting children and disabled people, and depriving millions of health care. They want their huge tax cuts for the already morbidly wealthy. He is destroying our democracy because he wants total control. This psychopath wants total control. And he’s close to getting it.
This piece couldn’t be more exactly right! My greatest sadness is the people who, for lack of education (or brain washing by “faith”) have fallen for this outrageous reality show. And our helplessness to stop it!
Thank you, Thom, for articulating the mess we are all enduring. I think those who have fallen for this reality show have transferred their emotional need to worship a sports team to the Trump Reality Show.
“How to beat the broligarchs: Experts Town Hall” is on youtube. Sponsored by Patriotic Millionaires, I think many progressives would find this an effective tool for stating the case in favor of a more fair & just American Democracy.
Erica Payne. Co-author with Morris Pearl of Tax the Rich: How Lies, Loopholes and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer (2021), which economist Gabriel Zucman called a “must read,” and the author of The Practical Progressive: How to Build a 21st Century Political Movement (2008).
Just wondering: Seems that trump's shakedown of law firms would fall squarely within RICO laws. Add the screamingly obvious "Yes/No, Yes/No" tariff trades in the financial markets, as well as the continuing "pay to play" schemes, and we could be looking at very interesting indictments.
"...people with his affliction have little ability to empathize with others or even to recognize other people as fully human."
Yahtzee!
As exemplified by Co-President Elon Apartheid Musk(rat): “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit. There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response."
Empathy, he said, has been “weaponized.”
My weak empathy for the psychopath and his autistic, drug-addled henchman is fighting with my better judgement about what we should do to them.
I have some ideas, but Mr. Hartmann would not appreciate my publicly disclosing them.
It's been said "There's a sucker born every minute," so Trump came along when seventy or eighty million gullible and intentionally misinformed - and supposedly empathetic (softened up by forty plus years of Republican propaganda) political and economic ignoramuses who were ripe for the picking.
Some however, it must be conceded, were (and aren't) misinformed, but are simply in it for the money, knowing that most of the regulations and taxes they so abhor will be severely cut, if not reversed or discontinued by a Trump Adminstration. So the small, latter group (of oligarchs) poured untold millions into our media to convince the former (who were better off than most of their foreign counterparts) that they were victims of the American government....and it worked.
I have a 400 year HIS-story of being a "victim of the American government." These M.F.'s ain't victims, they are victimizers. Point goddamned blank.
When you are filled with fear, everything in your orbit is a threat. The 'lack of empathy' is a conditioned response from both being treated without it, and watching and learning from how its absence impacts those you watch. When you observe the destruction created by withholding empathy, or even more, the use of cruelty to destroy any trust in empathy, you feel the norepinephrine-induced surge of pleasure that comes at the expense of any other. I grew up with a classmate who is a doppelganger of TFG. To these types, any value that empathy might have to any person, giver or receiver, would be seen as a 'bug,' a weakness. To survive without feeling compassion, or even pity, is the Shadow Self of rage against the darkness and emptiness within. Not surprisingly, most of these types are physical cowards, stalkers, assassins, ambushers, betrayers.
Yahtzee!
Again!
And, of course, the opposite of empathy...is apathy.
Excellent comment and I thank you for it.
Back at you. Always gain from your insights. Strength and honor.
He has dementia. More than 3000 psychiatrists and mental health professionals have now added their signatures to a petition stating that Trump has probable dementia. They also concluded that their duty to warn the nation outweighed their duty to refrain from diagnosing in absentia. https://sabrinahaake.substack.com/p/how-much-insanity-will-we-endure
Because we need to keep beating the drum until others can hear it.
I have a counterpoint to Sabrina who I never disagree with (this is a first), but I think it is still an open question as to whether or not Trump has dementia. Today I wrote: 'Am I the only anti-Trump shrink who thinks Trump may not have dementia? He may. But he may not. I was a psychotherapist for 40 years but didn't learn about dementia until I moved to a senior community and saw it in dozens of residents." Probable dementia should be stated as possible dementia. Here: https://halbrown.substack.com/p/am-i-the-only-anti-trump-shrink-who-aeb
I concur wholeheartedly. I don't think he has dementia. I think he is just a mean, sociopathic racist bastard though I can understand the confusion and need to try to explain the twisted SOB. I have experience with mean sociopaths (a female) in my family and let me tell you: she is a Black female version of Smitty. https://rohnkenyatta.substack.com/p/smitty-have-you-heard-of-him
Just subscribed to your Substack. He is mean (worse really, he is sadistic), sociopathic, racist and is hellbent destroying norms to exact revenge on his enemies. He thrives on creating chaos. He meets the defintion for being a malignant narcisist and being in the Dark Tetrad . This is worse that the Dark Triad because it adds sadism to nacrissim, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. I wrote about that here: https://halbrown.substack.com/p/sadists-us-trump-and-the-dark-tetrad
Agree. (MSN, RN (ret.) with Psych & Aging focus past 10 years).
Sublime, mate.
Thanks (I think.... my partner thinks I resemble tha description) good to meet you here on Thom's Substack.
The honor is entirely my own, matey and ditto.
This entity is a perverse sadist suffering from OCD, PTSD and ADD, ADHD. All these, and many other 'ticks,' are wrapped inside a delusional multiple personality disorder. Each personality is responsible for covering for the other.because without each other there is nothing there. Absolutely nothing. Not even a hologram. The lines have been repeated so many times that the grandstanding is rote, and certain visual or verbal cues send this gorgon bouncing around its stage like a ping pong ball. The terror deep inside this artifact reminds me of a tape recording of the Three Stooges on a continuous feedback loop. That 'comedy' was one of the most violent caricatures of human interaction I ever witnessed, and TFG is a kaleidoscope of their mania.
This is an accurate description of multiple personalities disorder. My late husband’s late wife with whom he had two children and was married for 19 years was discovered to have this condition after her death as the children in their teens then began to describe the different Moms. Which led to a discovery she had sexually abused them.
I can only imagine whatever the ‘f’ wrong is with Donald how he has shaped his children’s life. Thank God for their mothers.
I loved your Smitty breakdown of Trump
And...I love that you love it. Truth, THE truth is a powerful force; perhaps THE most powerful in human endeavor and I bring it. The denial, the delusion, the inability to confront and, thusly, respond to truth is why this Crapshow is happening.
Smitty is NOT the disease, he is a symptom and he was, name notwithstanding, coming regardless for it is providence.
Thank you for such a kind acknowledgement.
https://rohnkenyatta.substack.com/p/the-looming-2024-crapshow?utm_source=publication-search
I am amazed that others can so blatantly lie about someone and cover it with claims of mental illness. It is a dangerous thing to do. This is the type of tactic that led those who saw this current situation in the White House coming - they all wrote about it coming and essentially did nothing to stop it - because their tactics were falsely led.
I have been accused of being mentally ill so others can have their way. I have countered it the best I can for thirty years all the while suffering from 24/7 surveillance that had impeded my writing and life.
Now recently I heard there is a tactic/lie that is to say I am not good at managing my finances by looking through all my purchases. I operate not on an inheritance but my husband and my legitimate finances. I have stellar credit. No debt. And my finances are stable so that I can care for myself. All of my funds are intact since my husband’s passing. I have never been bankrupt. My ex husband ran his life into the ground bankrupting his affairs on multiple levels.
I have succeeded to be an expert in a few areas in my life and feel grateful for the opportunity to do so. I can even participate in my several hobbies such as acting and avid bird watching.
I know what has this to do with how Thom et al went about trying to stop the trend of today’s utter horrifying Trump/ oligarchy takeover back in the 80’s. It is the same poor choice of tactics that have failed those who chose to lie about me while I went underground for sanity to escape the thousands of people who follow me daily now for 24 years. I hate being the center of attention and people constantly following me is a hardship.
I am amazed at all the expert’s who claim they know what is up with Trump’s mental state of mind. ANC they have never treated him as a patient.
That I believe was my experience in the last five years of my husband’s life before he was diagnosed with non-smokers lung cancer. He died July of 2021, and his doctor nor I never detected or understood that some of his behavior was or may have been due to dementia. Usually very verbal his doctor told me Vic would come to his office and not say anything. His doctor, a former student of my husband’s, was caught in a dynamic of highly respecting Vic and looking to ask more of Vic to see his condition.
My husband was undergoing a personality change which allowed him to be manipulated by others so blind to it in their efforts to establish an endowment in his name they nearly destroyed our relationship.
I am so sorry to hear of what you went through with Vic. My wife died of lung cancer at 65 but it was due to smoking from age 13-45.
Thank you for your comment.
The standard is usually to a reasonable degree of probabiity or certainty.
SSA Listing of impirments: 12.02 Neurocognitive disorders (see 12.00B1), satisfied by A and B, or A and C:
A. Medical documentation of a significant cognitive decline from a prior level of functioning in one or more of the cognitive areas:
1. Complex attention;
2. Executive function;
3. Learning and memory;
4. Language;
5. Perceptual-motor; or
6. Social cognition.
AND
B. Extreme limitation of one, or marked limitation of two, of the following areas of mental functioning (see 12.00F):
1. Understand, remember, or apply information (see 12.00E1).
2. Interact with others (see 12.00E2).
3. Concentrate, persist, or maintain pace (see 12.00E3).
4. Adapt or manage oneself (see 12.00E4).
OR
C. Your mental disorder in this listing category is “serious and persistent;” that is, you have a medically documented history of the existence of the disorder over a period of at least 2 years, and there is evidence of both:
Medical treatment, mental health therapy, psychosocial support(s), or a highly structured setting(s) that is ongoing and that diminishes the symptoms and signs of your mental disorder (see 12.00G2b); and
Marginal adjustment, that is, you have minimal capacity to adapt to changes in your environment or to demands that are not already part of your daily life (see 12.00G2c).
In some cases,
Listing 12.05 Intellectual disorder (see 12.00B4), satisfied by A or B:
A. Satisfied by 1, 2, and 3 (see 12.00H):
1. Significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning evident in your cognitive inability to function at a level required to participate in standardized testing of intellectual functioning; and
2. Significant deficits in adaptive functioning currently manifested by your dependence upon others for personal needs (for example, toileting, eating, dressing, or bathing); and
3. The evidence about your current intellectual and adaptive functioning and about the history of your disorder demonstrates or supports the conclusion that the disorder began prior to your attainment of age 22.
OR
B. Satisfied by 1, 2, and 3 (see 12.00H):
1. Significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning evidenced by a or b:
A full scale (or comparable) IQ score of 70 or below on an individually administered standardized test of general intelligence; or
2. A full scale (or comparable) IQ score of 71-75 accompanied by a verbal or performance IQ score (or comparable part score) of 70 or below on an individually administered standardized test of general intelligence; and
3. Significant deficits in adaptive functioning currently manifested by extreme . limitation of one, or marked limitation of two, of the following areas of mental functioning:
a. Understand, remember, or apply information (see 12.00E1); or
Interact with others (see 12.00E2); or
b. Concentrate, persist, or maintain pace (see 12.00E3); or
Adapt or manage oneself (see 12.00E4); and
c. The evidence about your current intellectual and adaptive functioning and about the history of your disorder demonstrates or supports the conclusion that the disorder began prior to your attainment of age 22.
I don't see Trump meeting enough of these criteria for him be diagnosed, but as I wrote, I obviously have not examined him in person. I am not a neurologist so conducting such an exam is beyond my expertise. This is a complex disorder and it is facile to throw out the term dementia when his behavior is eratic. Some people want to call him demented because they are sick and tired of his incessant rambling which his cult takes seriously. Just yesterday given credance to RFK Jr.'s autism claims.
There are alternative explanations for everything I see people say is dementia. Like I noted in the illustration and intro to my Substack: Sometimes Occam’s razor can have two sides. When it comes to Trump’a increasingly bizarre behavior there are two, not necessarily mutually exclusive, simple explanations. His behavior is certainly consistent with his psychodamics, but how much of it is influenced by dementia? There are those who have jumped on a bandwagon of looking for evidence that he has dementia. They certainly have found it. However, there are other simple explanations for his unhinged behavior.
OK. The AMA says that to accurately diagnose him, need a clinical examination.
There should be a medical record to establish it. IMHO when he was # 45, the records were buried.
From what I understand, he has had deficits since childhood. Even in the 1960's they did testing.
Most of the claimants alleging disability have a combination of impairments. The same person who has paranoia, flights of ideas, and is incessantly cruel may be vocationally functional.
For years I have had the opinion that all persons running for high level gov't posts should have neuro-psych evaluation. And I am just a mere PhD (biochem and genetics from back in the middle ages) and a PA-C retired. Start now!
It's like torcher to be forced to watch the trump Reality Show going on in the White House. I never watched the show he did back in the day, The Biggest Loser because I knew it was all BS. donOLD has never been a business man. He's always been a conman,cheat and lier. I've known that since the 1970ies. Thank you, Thom, for spelling It out so plainly, that Anyone can understand just how awful this man really is, and will reStack ASAP 💯👍
Authoritarian and as the Racheal Maddow show with Former Attorney General Eric Holder clarified - he clearly clearly emphatically states - the time to ACT....IS NOW !!!!!! Waiting is peril...we are already 90% or more into autoritarinism...and it gets much much worse from here on in
... look to Russia or Hungary for how we will soon be living - poor and complying IS the plan
Former Attorney General Eric Holder talks with Rachel Maddow about Donald Trump's efforts to intimidate the legal system in the United States and bend it to his will, and emphasizes the importance of the American legal community standing together and pushing back in defense of the rule of law. "The time is now to stand up and do all that we can to fight this administration."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPNp_E0a7Tk
You wrote this whole thing describing run of the mill fascism characteristics without using the word fascism.
Impressive.
Trump's empires, Tomorrow's ashes.
No one says it better than you, Thom.
There are others that further explain what he is after. Author Michael Lewis was on a talk show recently. He said the goal Trump works for is to destroy TRUST.
My take is he doesn't want divided loyalty; he wants NO loyalty, except to him. His sycophant cabinet seems to fit the bill for this. Disgusting, childish, and stupid doesn't begin to describe that cabinet meeting. I hope he comes for this group of fellow psychopaths while they are coming for us.
In the meantime, build all the trust you can among our ranks. The next 50-50-1 demonstration is the19th. It is necessary, and it will help.
We must not lose trust in Power to the People.
Target Congressional Republicans. Write. Call. Picket. Sit in.
https://jerryweiss.substack.com/
What is fascinating is how open he has been about all this, even saying to a crowd that he loves uneducated people...and they cheered! There is something deep in the American psyche that doesn't trust experts, those seen as sophisticated (remember how Kerry was berated for knowing French?), or anyone who isn't a "plain, ordinary folk". Yet at the same time those who don't have much often think they have to look up to those who do.
Politicians have tapped into this going back to Jackson vs. JQ Adams and Huey Long, but the best thought they could make the country a better place and really cared about the citizens. What does really worry me beyond all that Thom has said is that if Trump's world collapses not only will he blame everybody else but he'll try to bring the house down with him. At the end of his rule Hitler wrote the so-called Nero Decree, saying that since the German people had failed him they should destroy everything in the country. Fortunately cooler heads stopped that, but if the same scenario plays out we can't trust those ordered to invade Canada or who knows what to be as sensible.
Wow. I always learn from the comments.
So do I.
Omigosh, sir, you masterfully said it all. You exposed exactly what’s going on and explained that no one is in control, because the carnival barker has no self-control. As you said, he will harm everyone eventually. I think soon. You explained that these soulless ghouls don’t care that they are hurting children and disabled people, and depriving millions of health care. They want their huge tax cuts for the already morbidly wealthy. He is destroying our democracy because he wants total control. This psychopath wants total control. And he’s close to getting it.
Today's song is amazing.
Just listened to the song a dozen times. Can this be published separately?!
Just checked my Facebook copies of this Hartmann article with the song I sent to friends, and song is different and not good. Hacked?
This piece couldn’t be more exactly right! My greatest sadness is the people who, for lack of education (or brain washing by “faith”) have fallen for this outrageous reality show. And our helplessness to stop it!
Thank you, Thom, for articulating the mess we are all enduring. I think those who have fallen for this reality show have transferred their emotional need to worship a sports team to the Trump Reality Show.
“How to beat the broligarchs: Experts Town Hall” is on youtube. Sponsored by Patriotic Millionaires, I think many progressives would find this an effective tool for stating the case in favor of a more fair & just American Democracy.
https://patrioticmillionaires.org/people/erica-payne/
Erica Payne. Co-author with Morris Pearl of Tax the Rich: How Lies, Loopholes and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer (2021), which economist Gabriel Zucman called a “must read,” and the author of The Practical Progressive: How to Build a 21st Century Political Movement (2008).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzQCEJA1WhE
The only people happy are on the tippy top.
Reagan + Bill Clinton - the best Republican presidents....
Thanks, Thom. I actually woke up feeling pretty good this morning. Can't have too much of that, I guess.
Just wondering: Seems that trump's shakedown of law firms would fall squarely within RICO laws. Add the screamingly obvious "Yes/No, Yes/No" tariff trades in the financial markets, as well as the continuing "pay to play" schemes, and we could be looking at very interesting indictments.
Thank you, Thom - great synthesis across facts!
Thom Hartmann is must read. Every day.