What does Trump have in common with Elaine Benes?

Click to watch video

By Hal Brown

There are several classic moments from Seinfeld. One is the Soup NAZI's "no soup for you" segment and another is the segment with Elaine dancing in the episode "The Little Kicks" which is described on Wikipedia here. In the segment she dances horribly at a staff party.

In order to perform the dance as badly as the script called for Juila Louis-Dryfus, who choreographed the dance herself, had to dance with without the music since that distracted her. The music was added later.

After George watches her spastic dancing George says "sweet fancy Moses."

Less well known is how Jerry told Elaine that she couldn't dance.

Click to watch

When she complains to Jerry that the next day she'd lost complete control with her staff who were at the party he has to explain to her that she was a horrible dancer. Kramer tells her that her dancing stinks and leaves the apartment. Then she asks Jerry if she really stinks and with trepidation he tells her that her dancing is beyond stink.

Elaine's reaction (below upper left) was shock, and she exclaims "it was that bad? (below lower right).

Elaine believed she had all the right moves. When she was told she had anything but the right dance moves she seems to reluctantly accept this and when Jerry leaves to take the garbage out she looks at the camera on a counter so she can view a tape of herself.

It is unfair to compare Elaine's illusion with Trump's delusion. After all Elaine was willing to consider that Kramer and Jerry were right.

Trump thinks he has all the right moves. He also thinks he can dance:

Here he is dancing to YMCA

Read: Trump the dancer? His moves to ‘YMCA’ at rallies are a hit

While all the main Seinfeld characters are in various ways narcissistic and they often hurt the feelings of people they associate with, none of them are sociopathic malignant narcissists.

When it comes to what Trump did in his trial yesterday, it was beyond stink even though the vainglorious egomaniac thought he put on an glorious performance.

I doubt any of his lawyers, his sons, his daughter, or his wife, have the guts to tell him his actions in court were beyond stink.

Glaring at Letitia James when he walked by her was a bad idea. He could have simply maintained some class and dignity and walked by her. Eric Trump stopped and shook her hands using both of his hands as he followed his father out of the courtroom (Reference). Blasting the judge outisde the courtroom was downright stupid.

Trump refuses to recognize the power that the judge in this trial or judges in his other trials have over him. His delusional arrogance and ignorance hopefully will come back to bite him bigly if, and hopefully when, a judge holds him in contempt.

Update:

NEW YORK — The judge overseeing a civil trial over alleged business fraud committed by Donald Trump and his company issued a gag order in the case Tuesday barring the former president from making public comments about his court staff. 

The decision by Judge Arthur Engoron, announced about a day and a half into the trial, came soon after Trump posted on social media about a staffer for the judge and included a picture of the person.

Engoron announced his decision publicly following multiple closed-door sessions with Trump, James and their attorneys. The judge said he had ordered the post deleted, and it appeared to be removed from Trump’s TruthSocial site by Tuesday afternoon. Engoron also said that violating his gag order would lead to “serious sanctions.

  Washington Post

MAGA World loves that Trump's a malginant narcissist, will they care that he's become cognitively impaired?

 

By Hal Brown, MSW, Retired psychotherapist

Few residents of MAGA World read HUFFPOST. I can tell this from from the few trolls who comment of their articles. I doubt many will read this article: 

Befuddled Trump Can't Figure Out Which Bush Did What In Bizarre Rant

I won't even excerpt the article since this wouldn't do it justise. Vox associate editor sums it up in his post on X: 

if Joe Biden confused Jeb and George W. Bush, Hannity would anchor special coverage that would last until the 2024 election

Here's another article:

'Terribly confused' Trump's rant about whales could be sign of cognitive decline: Morning Joe

If you do a search on Google with the words Trump malignant narcissism (here) you find numerious articles. Scroll down to the 32rd and you'll find one of mine.

Here's what I posted on Daily Kos.

Click above to read

For this blog I've changed the illustration.

The HUFFPOST article decribes the most recent example of cognitive confusion that any objective clinician would see as alarming indications that their patient might be suffering from early dementia. The only other explanation that I can see is that Trump's confusion about which Bush was which is due to his being under extreme stress. Of couse one explanation doesn't preclude the other.

I am not a medical clinician but I have been trained to know when a patient has symptoms that require a referral to a neurologist for an assessment. If Trump was my patient this is what I would have done when I was in practice. A neurologist would do more than administer the MOCA.

I am not even sure that if Trump took the MOCA test (above) now he would be given a clean bill of health as far as signs of early dementia.

The question as to whether his hard-core MAGA cult would care about this is something to consider. The typical member of the Trump cult is White and poorly educated. Part of the - love is not too strong a word - for him comes from his being a grandiose narcissist who rants about vegeance against his enemies. They vicarously enjoy how he relishes expressing how he'd destroy his enemies if he become president again. They not only care about him wanting to also destroy democracy but practically drool over the idea he'd become a dictator who whould empower them and push policies that express their bigotted beliefs.

Trump has built a cult of personality. It is difficult to imagine MAGA World with anyone else as its ruler. Unlike Trump's good pal Kim Jung Un he wasn't groomed to be successor to a dynasty.

There's no way Donald Jr. and certainly not Eric, could out-Trump or eve come close to equal-Trumping the original.

The salient question for Trump's reelection is whether his cult wants someone who is the embodiment of the mad king from The Game of Thrones as their leader but who is also becoming senile.

Click to read article

I can't see any of the other GOP presidential candiates coming close to having the kind of charisma Trump exudes for his cult. Trump's madness is his brand.

If you add senility, or fast developing dementia, to his madness it will be fascinating to see if he can keep a grip on the hold he exerts over his cult.

Addendum:

The only GOP candidate who actually has their own kind of charisma is Chris Christi. I think this is why Trump fears him the most. While he can never be a cult leader, and I doubt he aspires to be one, there's no doubt that the man is a commanding pressense.

Christi can equal or better the bloviating of Trump, and he does so with a razor sharp wit using fresh rather than stale retorts and talking points the way Trump does.

If it comes down to Republicans wanting a Trump-lite candidate who promises a renewal of Trump's policies only from someone who has full command of their mental faculties they will go with DeSantis or Ramaswamy. They could want someone more in the middle like Nikki Haley. They won't want Christi who is more of a Republican like John McCain was or Mitt Romney is today. Christi doesn't represent today's  MAGA Republican Party.

If I was a small government Republican rather than a big and effective government liberal Democrat I'd favor Chris Christi. He doesn't believe in America First nationalism and he doesn't want to dismantle democracy and replace it with autocracy. He is also very, very smart.

Since the GOP has done an effective job of demonizing President Biden I actually think Christi would stand a good chance of becoming the next president if he pulled a rabbit out of the hat and won the GOP nomination.

It is possible if Trump's cognitive decline contiunes to the point that it is impossible to deny unless one is a totally brainwashed member of his cult. This will leave the GOP candidates to battle it out among thmselves and Christi will then have an opportunity, to use the Mafia term popularized in The Godfather, to make his bones, and take out the other candidates.

.

If Trump testifies in one of his trials could he have a Captain Queeg breakdown?

By Hal Brown, MSW, Retired psychotherapist and mental health center director

Click above to watch the video of the famous court martial scene when Captain Queeg has a parnoid mental breakdown from the 1954 movie The Caine Mutiny. Unless you have a good memory of the scene in the movie to fully appreciate what I am saying could happen you need to watch at least the court martial scene which is considered a classic. I also have included the missing strawberries clip.

Credit: My friend R. gave me the idea for this story. 

Below is the strawberries scene that is refrred to in the court martial and and was, dare I hestitate to write, the final straw(berry) that led to the mutiny:

Click above to watch three minute clip

For those not familiar with the plot of the Herman Wouk novel or the movie  (it was also on Broadway) here's what led to the mutiny in the navy destroy Caine:

As the Caine begins its missions in the Pacific under his command, Queeg begins to lose the respect of the crew and the loyalty of the wardroom through a series of increasingly unusual incidents — including running over and severing the cable to a valuable target, which he blames on John Stilwell, the helmsman — that reveal his cowardice, paranoia, and inability to accept responsibility. Queeg becomes increasingly isolated from the other officers, who come to dread his rages and unreasonable demands, which often entail loss of leave privileges and, at one low point, a 48-hour moratorium on drinking water while the ship is sweltering near the equator. Keith realizes that De Vriess was a far more competent, effective, and fair-minded leader, and inwardly grimaces at the irony of his original, naive judgements of both captains. During the following invasion of Kwajalein, Queeg is ordered to escort low-lying landing craft to their line of departure. But instead, Queeg orders the crew to throw over a yellow dye marker to mark the spot, and hastily directs the Caine away from the battle area. The officers nickname him "Old Yellowstain."

Queeg's next act of paranoia begins when over half of a prized container of strawberries is discovered to be empty. He concocts elaborate and time-consuming procedures in which to catch the thief. These occupy all of the officers and crew for long hours and further erode confidence in and respect for the captain. When Queeg's pet theory is finally decisively flouted, he disappears into his cabin, leaving the ship in executive officer Lieutenant Stephen Maryk's hands for days. Wikipedia

As you can see the straw that broke the camel's back with the crew involved strawberries.

In my blog of Aug. 5th, "Chance some of Trump's aides may be witnesses in trials could lead to a paranoid breakdown" which explains why under stress maligant narcissists sometimes have paraoid psychotic breaks I wrote:

It stands to reason that if there's anything would put Trump on the brink of having an actual episode of clinical paranoia, a real psychotic break from reality possibly requiring hospitalization, given his existing psychopathology, it would be the legal jeopardy he is is.

Let's say for the sake of argument that Trump makes it until his first trial without having a psychotic episode so obvious nobody except his brainwashed MAGA cult supporters could deny he needed to be committed to a psychitric hospital.

Short of actual conviction of a crime and being sentenced to prison there's no stress greater than the unrelenting cross-examination he'd be subjected to by Jack Smith who he already has a visceral hate for.

It is possible that we could see Trump out-Humphery Bogarting Humphery Bogat's performance of Captain Queeg's paranoid breakdown. Only in the case of Donald Trump it wouldn't be acting. It would hapopen in a real courtroom. The consequences of this could result in his lawyers requesting, or the judge issuing, a ruling that would put the trial on hold until such time as Trump recieves treatment and is able to particupate in his own defense.

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