A Damaged Soul and a Disordered Personality

[babylonsister]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/03/trump-tweets-attack-john-mccain/585193/

A Damaged Soul and a Disordered Personality
Trump’s continuing attacks on John McCain reveal a worrisome state of mind.
1:13 PM ET
Peter Wehner
Contributing editor at The Atlantic and senior fellow at EPPC

snip//


A culture lives or dies based on its allegiance to unwritten rules of conduct and unstated norms, on the signals sent about what kind of conduct constitutes good character and honor and what kind of conduct constitutes dishonor and corruption. Like each of us, our leaders are all too human, flawed and imperfect. But that reality can’t make us indifferent or cynical when it comes to holding those in authority to reasonable moral standards. After all, cultures are shaped by the words and deeds leaders, including political leaders, validate or invalidate.

“To his equals he was condescending; to his inferiors kind; and to the dear object of his affections exemplarily tender,” Henry Lee said in his eulogy of George Washington. “Correct throughout, vice shuddered in his presence, and virtue always felt his fostering hand; the purity of his private character gave effulgence to his public virtues.”

But the other reason we should pay attention to the tweets and other comments by the president is that they are shafts of light that illuminate not only his damaged soul, but his disordered personality.

It doesn’t take a person with an advanced degree in psychology to see Trump’s narcissism and lack of empathy, his vindictiveness and pathological lying, his impulsivity and callousness, his inability to be guided by norms, or his shamelessness and dehumanization of those who do not abide his wishes. His condition is getting worse, not better—and there are now fewer people in the administration able to contain the president and act as a check on his worst impulses.

This constellation of characteristics would be worrisome in a banker or a high school teacher, in an aircraft machinist or a warehouse manager, in a gas station attendant or a truck driver. To have them define the personality of an American president is downright alarming.

Whether the worst scenarios come to pass or not is right now unknowable. But what we do know is that president is a person who seems to draw energy and purpose from maliciousness and transgressive acts, from creating enmity among people of different races, religions and backgrounds, and from attacking the weak, the honorable, and even the dead.

Donald Trump is not well, and as long as he is president, our nation is not safe.

[MyOwnPeace]

1. More terrifying........

is that there is ANY percent of our population that accepts this!

[johnnyfins]

3. I'll go further...

Not only accepts it, but cheers it on. This percentage of our population thinks just like he does. Now THAT is downright depressing.

[Lonestarblue]

6. I heard an NPR segment last week on the topic of malicious envy.

Here’s a description of hoe the envy that normal people feel occasionally might become malicious.

“But envy can also turn malicious, causing us to feel resentment, rage, and a desire for revenge. University of Kentucky social psychologist Richard Smith says malicious envy is often intertwined with another dark emotion, schadenfreude — the pleasure we feel at the suffering of others.

Researchers have found evidence that malicious envy and schadenfreude may be fueled by competition in realms like politics and sports. In one study, researchers found that hard-core sports fans felt pleasure when a rival team's player was badly injured. In another study, researchers found that some people felt joy when American service members died in large numbers in the war in Iraq, because it made the other political party look bad.”

Trump obviously takes pleasure from hurting other people. His campaign rallies often called for violence against the press and people who did not support him. He is obviously not normal, yet his supporters believe he is perfect. We’re living in an alternate reality of his distortions and lies.

[MyOwnPeace]

9. I'm sitting here

reading this, thinking, "Yep, you got that right."

How sad is that!

[smirkymonkey]

2. Of course we aren't safe with him in power.

What can be done to remove him? He's a loose cannon and as long as the republicans refuse to put their country before party or personal gain, it will only get worse. Do we have to wait until their is a full-fledged civil war in this country, or even worse, until he starts WWIII? It will never get better until he is gone.

[maxsolomon]

8. 2020 is the best bet.

The payoffs to women won't be enough for the GOP to convict.

Of course, 2020 is a risk, as about half of Americans are below the mean in intelligence.

[Woodycall]

10. Or, as George Carlin put it...

"Think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of 'em are stupider than that."

[erronis]

12. Not to be pedantic, but the median IQ (100) is not the mean IQ.

I haven't looked into the numbers but my bet is that the mean is quite a bit higher than the median.

First of all, the right-wingers probably score in the 60-99 range (lower than this they couldn't even spout their biliousness.) And there are only 30-40% of these in the voting population (says someone.)

This leaves 60-70% in the non-RW camp and I'll bet most of them are liberals and intelligent. Obviously DUers are pushing that upper number towards IQ:130-150.

Of course, one idjit IQ:45 can cause disruption to all these fine statistics.

Hope you got my

[pdsimdars]

4. And to some, our system is not worth the effort to impeach him.

[kairos12]

5. Seen this act before. Jim Jones.

[safeinOhio]

7. Hold on to your hat.

We ain’t seen nutting yet.
If I had a farm, I’d bet it on bigger stuff to come.

[George II]

11. All I needed to read was your subject line and I knew who you would be talking about.

[YOHABLO]

13. I would say the very conservative Christian Right are far more dangerous. Trump is their stooge.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

14. You may be interested in this conference...

It’s being held tomorrow and is live streamed, you need to register.

Live Stream this on our YouTube Channel @ 12:45 pm EST, 19 March 2019.

Link..... https://dangerouscase.org/

Bandy X. Lee was interviewed by Raw Story. Snip below.




Bandy X. Lee: It’s an unprecedented conference for unprecedented times. There has probably never been a conference where 14 top experts across such diverse fields urgently came together on a single panel, let alone the unprecedented topic. Also, it is open to the public and for the public. From nearly all walks of life and from every disciplinary perspective, the adverse impacts of Mr. Trump’s mental impairment, such as an inability to have empathy when so many lives depend on him, are undeniable. We are in uncharted territory where the greatest injury to our nation is being done by our own leader. Panels like this and other multidisciplinary efforts are essential to shed light on the ways the president’s actions have harmed and continue to harm the nation, and to find ways to minimize the damage.

I’ve organized it through the World Mental Health Coalition because, as a mental health professional, I am responsible for two types of psychiatry: clinical psychiatry and preventive psychiatry. Clinical psychiatry deals with individuals, but preventive psychiatry, as a branch of public health, deals with the mental health of whole populations.

[world wide wally]

15. The most disturbing part is what a hero he is to the evangelicals.

Let's hope this is their ultimate downfall once and for all. No society can survive that extent of hypocrisy for very long.

[ravencalling]

16. I agree

But I don't think it will be their downfall. I grew up watching in horror the television evangelicals sell their snake oil and it was just as bizarre then as it is now. It literally breaks my heart to know that someone is putting their heart's hope into magic pancakes or holy pool water and now Trump. Evangelical leaders are attracted to Trump because they are cons themselves and see a kindred soul. But even with all of this exposure of hypocrisy the followers will find a way to excuse it all, now and in the future and if we all go down because of it, it will be because in the name of hands off religion, we gave it legitimacy.