By Hal Brown. MSW
| I wonder if Trump pays attention to the meager number of people who "like" his posts considering that 3,020 people is about 1/100,000th of the US population. Caricature: DonkeyHotey |
Trump couldn't even manage write an entire, albeit run-on, sentence which any rational American leader could have written in a way that truly honored those who this holiday is meant to honor. Take President Biden, for example. He was also up early today and this is his tweet:
Here are the first two paragraphs of "A Proclamation on Prayer For Peace, Memorial Day, 2023" issued on May 23rd:
On Memorial Day, we honor America’s beloved daughters and sons who gave their last full measure of devotion to this Nation. We can never fully repay the debt we owe these fallen heroes. But today, we vow to rededicate ourselves to the work for which they gave their lives, and we recommit to supporting the families, caregivers, and survivors they left behind.
For generations, stretching back to the formation of our country, these courageous people answered duty’s call, willing to give their lives for that which we all hold dear. They fought for our Independence. They defended our democracy. They sacrificed for our freedom. And today, as they lie in eternal peace, we continue to live by the light of liberty that they so bravely kept burning bright around the world.
One would have to be really cynical and a Biden hater to suggest or believe the president was playacting when he was at the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier today:
A number of reasons why Trump spends the wee hours of the morning (this one was posted later than most, at 4:43 AM) on his Truth Social platform venting his spleen (or whatever organ) have been proposed. Some have attributed this to dementia (even Steve Bannon) and a few have even suggested this is because he has late stage syphilis. The explanation is really simple: he's human.
What!
How can I say he's human?
This is because no matter who anyone is one of two things will happen when they are under extreme stress. The stress may be conscious or unconscious or something in between. Evil people may be facing the hangman's noose or an imminent natural death and have what religious people sometimes call a "come to Jesus moment" and ask God forgiveness, while others may escalate their, again with a religious metaphor, worst angels or inner devils.
I am not going to relitigate the case which I and many other psychotherapists have made for diagnosing or calling Trump a malignant narcissist. You can Google it here to see what others besides me have written or Google it with my name to see what I've written. Suffice to say he meets the criteria for this assessment of his psychopathology. For more applicable to what is happening to Trump Goggle narcissistic rage and injury here.
What I see as occurring now is an escalation of his rage reactions and lashing out against people he see as attacking him. Jack Smith, Fanni Willis, Alvin Bragg, Leticia James, and E. Jean Carroll are examples. He even raged against Judge Arthur Engoron who is hearing Leticia James' New York State case calling him a "Radical Left Lunatic Judge in New York City" who is "refusing to let go of the case. He is a partisan disaster. A Rigged & Corrupt System!"
We may never know whether any of his lawyers told him that this is recklessly self-defeating behavior for someone who is in a legal predicament. Even a lawyer who graduated last in their class from the worst law school in America and was handling nothing more consequential than traffic tickets they thought were unfair would tell their impulsive clients not to insult the judge.
As a bad legal client Trump and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, the eyepatch guy, have a lot in comment besides their personality in that they are a defense lawyer's worst nightmare. Rhodes, who his ex-wife described as cruel and abusive, might have avoided the 18 year sentence if he had shown a modicum of remorse. Instead he raged about how the system was corrupt and he was justified in everything he did.
The best judges and prosecutors don't let their emotions influence their adherence to the law, but I assume some of them struggle not to let their feelings get to them when they deal with defendants who are accused of committing horrendous crimes or who behave with outrageous disrespect whether in public or in the courtroom. When a judge holds someone in contempt it shouldn't be due to hurt feelings but because their behavior met object criteria for contempt.
Common sense would dictate that someone whose future depends on the total dispassionate objectivity of judges and prosecutors should try not to piss them off since, after all, they are only human. They'd be as stupid as a critically ill or injured patient rushed to the hospital who insulted the emergency room doctors and nurses.
.
Addendum:
From Barack Obama:
One doesn't have to pronounce that Trump has one or another actual psychiatric condition. For example, in "Understanding Donald Trump's Narcissism" a psychotherapist really diagnoses him without making a diagnosis.
Update:
Not to gush over President Biden, but his powerful and poignant Memorial Day remarks were one of his best speeches ever. While most of it was probably written for him and it was on a teleprompter you could see he was considering the meaning of each and every sentence as he spoke them. There were references that I am certain he added and while delivering the speech he seemed to add extemporaneous comments including to a mother and daughter ho were in the audience whose husband and father was killed in action. Not that I was looking for a stumble or stutter but I could count only three times when his delivery was anything but flawless. At the 40 minute mark you can watch the video of the speech here.
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