I don't want to write "it's not like we weren't warned" a year into Trump's second term.

 

Click above to read

Thom Hartmann posted this excellent article which clearly explains Trump's psychopathology. Reading it prompted me to revisit a topic I've written about numerous times. (Read Hartmann's bio on Wikipedia here.) He is a fellow Michigan State graduate who worked as a psychotherpist for a time and now, like me, lives in Portland, Oregon.

When I began to think about Trump's psychopathology I wasn't even aware of malignant narcissism. This is the combination of severe personality disorders described by Erich Fromm. I'd been a psychotherapist for 40 years and thought I knew all the diagnostic catergories whether they were in the official diagnostic manual or not (maligant narcissism never was in a diagnosis manual).

Then I joined psychologist Dr. John D Gartner's Duty to Warn group. ( It still has a private Facebook page here. 

Gartner (see his Wikipedia profile) started an online petition which called for Trump to be removed under the 25th Amendment back in 2017. 

2017 mental fitness for Office of President Trump petition

In the first months of 2017 Gartner collected the signatures of more than 25,000 mental health professionals and laypersons. The petition, "Mental Health Professionals Declare Trump is Mentally Ill And Must Be Removed", was sent to the Minority leader, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. At the end of April 2017, Gartner sent the petition to Washington D.C., with more than 41,000 signatures, although he failed to disclose that it was not only of mental health professionals.

The petition's declaration stated that: We, the undersigned mental health professionals (please state your degree), believe in our professional judgment that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States. And we respectfully request he be removed from office, according to article 4 of the 25th amendment to the Constitution, which states that the president will be replaced if he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office".

According to Gartner, Trump's mental handicaps are a mixture of narcissism, paranoia, sociopathy and a measure of sadism. 

I learned about what what malignant narcisism was. Erich Fromm was a preeminent social psychologist,  psychoanalyst, sociologist, and humanistic philosopher.   He described it as a "severe mental sickness" representing "the quintessence of evil". It wasn't a new psychiatric condition, rather it was a combination of the already deliniated diagnoses of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), antisocial, paranoid, and sadistic personality disorder.

 Wikipedia describes it here.

John went public with what for years was the only article, Donald Trump's malignant narcisism is Toxic, about this in a national non-partisan publication, USA Today in 2017. Now many people, at least among those who follow progressive media, know what malignant narcissism is because of Trump. Lawrence O'Donnell regularly has mental health professionals on his show discussing this. Even back in 2019 George Conway said Trump was a malignant narcisisst who was both mental ill and evil (Newsweek article).

Since then until recently until the last couple of years only anti-Trump and progressive media covered the dangerous psychopatholgy of Donald Trump. Gartner's 2017 USA Today article is is worth a read or re-read since it is precisent.

Shortly after the USA Today article was published, the best seller "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump" came out (Gartner was a contributor). It is interesing to read some of the reviews of the book below (from Wikipedia entry).

Estelle Freedman, the Robinson Professor in U.S. History at Stanford University, said of the book:

This insightful collection is grounded in historical consciousness of the ways professionals have responded to fascist leaders and unstable politicians in the past. It is a valuable primary source documenting the critical turning point when American psychiatry reassessed the ethics of restraining commentary on the mental health of public officials in light of the "duty to warn" of imminent danger. Medical and legal experts thoughtfully assess diagnoses of Trump's behavior and astutely explore how to scrutinize political candidates, address client fears, and assess the 'Trump Effect' on our social fabric.

Reviewing the book for The Wall Street Journal, Barton Swaim wrote "That the authors differ in their diagnoses does not give one great confidence in the field of psychiatry or, indeed, in the book’s value.", and stated that the essay authors sound "paranoid".

According to Jeannie Suk Gersen in The New Yorker, "A strange consensus does appear to be forming around Trump's mental state," including Democrats and Republicans who doubt Trump's fitness for office.

In a blog post republished on Salon in September 2017, journalist Bill Moyers wrote that "[t]here will not be a book published this fall more urgent, important, or controversial than The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump". In an interview with Robert Jay Lifton, Moyers said that Trump "makes increasingly bizarre statements that are contradicted by irrefutable evidence to the contrary." Lifton said, "He doesn't have clear contact with reality, though I'm not sure it qualifies as a bona fide delusion." As an example, Lifton said, when Trump claimed that former president Barack Obama was born in Kenya, "he was manipulating that lie as well as undoubtedly believing it in part."

If Trump gets reelected we will see his most extreme pathological impulses powered by the rocket fuel of the presidency. He'll be a guided nuclear missile with mutilple warheads aimed at American democracy. He already has his targets selected and has a plan for turning the United Staes into a dictatorship where he can destroy his enemies on a whim.

I made it though this blog story without proving Godwin's Law to find examples to illustrate this, well, at least until now:

Addendum:

I used to be a columnist for Capital Hill Blue (my articles). Many of my essays there were about Trump's psychopathology. 

Musk's Twitter rebrand and name change: will it be an Edsel?

 

Musk owns Space X. He shoots rockets into the air. Did he just shoot an arrow into the air and instead of a successful flight he killed the iconic bird of the company he overpaid for and turned into a purveyor of hate and lies?

By Hal Brown

Read on a single webpage here.

The very top illustration above showing the article which was the No 1 trending story from Time Magazine here.

Elon Musk Rebranded Twitter as 'X.' Users Immediately Rejected the Change

This is another Time article: 

By Turning Twitter Into X, Elon Musk Risks Killing Billions in Brand Value

Here's an excerpt:

Analysts and brand agencies call the product’s renaming a mistake. Twitter is one of the most recognizable social media brands, said Todd Irwin, founder of brand agency Fazer. Bird decals adorn small businesses and websites worldwide, alongside Instagram and Facebook logos.

Twitter’s popularity has also made verbs like “tweet” and “retweet” part of modern culture, used regularly to explain how celebrities, politicians and others communicated with the public, said Joshua White, assistant professor of finance at Vanderbilt University.

X will require the company to rebuild that cultural pull and linguistic consensus from scratch. But that may be part of the motivation, so users stop comparing Twitter post-takeover to what it was before. “It’s an exceptionally rare thing — in life or in business — that you get a second chance to make another big impression,” Yaccarino (an expert) tweeted.

Below are from the newly rebranded social network with Elon Musk's Xing (I guess we'll have to get used to that term instead of tweeting, kind of like Trump's "truthing" on Truth Social) that he enjoys negative feedback. Whether he's a mascochist or believes that bad publicity is better than no publicity can't be determined. It could be a bit of both.

As far as publicity goes, Musk certainly has gotten a lot of attention with this:

This all made me think of the 1985 failed New Coke so I did a web search and was surprised to see that there's a new new Coke and the rebranding of Twitter was featured in the search results. I was't the only one to think of New Coke when considering what Musk did. This is from the NY Post:

Elon Musk risks ‘New Coke’-style marketing blunder after ditching blue bird for ‘X’ logo

It turns out that there's a new New Coke:

Coca-Cola Launching Bizarre New Flavor

Will the new new Coke be the rousing success despite the failure of the old New Coke that CocaCola hopes it will be? Time will tell. The same holds for the rebranded Twitter. However there's a big difference between the two products. Brand introductions in large successful corporations usually aren't made to satisfy the ego of one person. They are made with careful deliberation between innovators and a marketing team. Edsel Ford didn't come back from the grave and decide a car should be named for him. 

Will X be an Edsel? Perhaps it will be come to be called the Xsel. The new Ford Motor Company car was advertised to be the car of the future. Here's what Wikipedia says about why Edsel failed:

Historians have advanced several theories in an effort to explain Edsel's failure. Popular culture often faults vehicle styling. Consumer Reports has alleged that poor workmanship was Edsel's chief problem. Marketing experts hold Edsels up as a supreme example of the corporate culture's failure to understand American consumers. Business analysts cite the weak internal support for the product inside Ford's executive offices. According to author and Edsel scholar Jan Deutsch, an Edsel was "the wrong car at the wrong time."

Most people couldn't identify the Edsel logo which to me looks like an open mouth.  At least it was unique unlike the new X.

I think the Edsel grill, which came to represent the car, was just plain ugly even compared to the Ford built Mercury.

 

Will X be an Edsel? Stay tuned...

Addendum:

In 2020 Musk named one of his chuldren  X Æ A-Xii.  is considered a letter in Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and and Faroese and is prounced as a long E sound. (Reference) I assume his name is pronunced XeeA, or Exy-A and for formal introductions he'd be XeeA the seventh.

His wife, the Canadian singer Grimes, real name Claire Boucher, explained the name's meaning to her fans.The singer  has used Æ before, naming a song on her latest album 4ÆM.

The A-12 is a Lockheed plane built for the CIA. It was known by designers during its development as Archangel.

She also claims Archangel is her favourite song but does not explain who the song is by.

I wonder how the child will do when he reaches school age.

Perhaps since Elon loves X so much he should change his own name. Of course, Malcolm Little did it when he change his name successfully to Malcolm X, someone I doubt Elon is a fan of.  This probably rules out him changing his name to Elon X although it does have a ring to it.

Prince ended up being called the artist formerly known as Prince even after he changed his name to a symbol that had no pronunciation. 

Cassius Clay paid homage to his friend and mentor Malcolm X when he changed his name to Muhammad Ali although throughout the 1960's the media referred to him by what he called his slave name. (Reference)

Thanks to everyone who read this far. I know that I have a habit of digressing into lengthy afterthoughts only tangenital to my main blog story.

Does the Barbenheimer weekend tell us anything about our country?"

By Hal Brown

Please bear with me as I explain why watching the wonderful Danish TV series "Seaside Hotel" relates to this topic. The series starts in the early 1930's and follows the characters of guests and staff and their intertwined soap-opera lives. Now we're watching season six and it's 1939 and Hitler has already been elected PM of Germany and anti-Semitic violence has erupted across Germany. Only one character has been following the news from Germany since the series began and is sounding the alarm about the growing threat to German democracy and the danger to Denmark. 

Sometmes mocked by other guests for listening to the radio to keep up with the news Hjalmar Aurland (left) followed events in German since the beginning of the series. He has the newspapers delvered secretly to him by the staff because he knows that his wife gets upset when he reads them.

He tries to explain this to other guests but they don't take it seriously. One is even trying to invest in German industry. Another is a young German woman who worships Hitler.

There is a chilling parallel here. The light themes of the early seasons are getting darker and darker. We know that what is going to happen not only in Denmark, but in the world. Without giving too much away, there are two gay characters, one in the closet and one out, and both have already suffered because of not just prejudice but actual visiting teenaged NAZI youth.

Now we get to what I make of the Barbenheimer weekend. My sense is that there are two kinds of people who decided to venture into the theaters despite some of them having friends or acquaintances who recently came down with Covid. Those who went to see Barbie I would hazard a guess mostly wanted to either escape from worrying about the threat to democracy posed by Trump or someone like DeSantis becoming president or actually want to see us become a fascist state ruled by a racist dictator. Both want to see the fluff of an escapist movie like the hyped up Barbie film which has reviews called it WITTY, IMPECCABLY DESIGNED, OVERBLOWN FUN.

Then there are those who opted to see the can't get much more serious movie Openheimer. I'd bet my pile of chips that the majority of these viewers are those who are very concerned about what having a far-right president would do to democracy in America.

They are like the Hjalmar Aurland character in Seaside Hotel. They are like Thom Hartmann who just published "How Democracy Dies the First Month of the Next Trump or GOP Presidency."

Hartmann concludes his essay as follows:

As Trump told a group of young people last week of his plan to destroy the American government: 

“This will be the most important election with your country, your freedom, and your future on the line. We are in trouble. This country is in trouble. The election will decide if your generation inherits a fascist country or a free country, if you will have the rule of tyrants or the rule of law, if Marxist radicals burn our civilization to the ground, which they are looking to do, or young patriots like you propel America to glorious heights greater than ever before. … When I get back into the oval office, I will obliterate the deep state.”

Gradually, then suddenly.

People like Thom Hartmann and I, and probably almost everyone reading my blog including the 2,280 weekly readers in Germany and 468 in Russia (see below) have been following the news and are anxious over the prospect that what happened in Germany in the 1930's could happen here.

 ....

 ....

I never heard of Eric Ramsey until now. He has a lesson for spineless Black football players who were on Tommy Tuberville's teams.

 

By Hal Brown

Click photos to enlarge them.

Read this blog story on single page.

The Raw Story + Exclusives published "A deafening silence from Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s Black football players" by Donnell Alexander. I think those without a subscription can read if here.  The author tried unsuccessfully with one notable exception, to reach Black football players who were on Tommy Tuberville's college teams. He wanted to ask them about whether they'd seen instances of his racism back in their college days. Reading the article made me want to scream out loud. Instead of doing this I wrote the following blog.

Only Black former player who spoke out for the article was Eric Ramsey. This is what Wikipedia tells us about him:

Eric Ramsey was a defensive back for Auburn University's football team in the early 1990s who used a tape recorder to secretly record conversations between his football coaches and Booster "Corky" Frost regarding an illicit player payment scheme. Ramsey's allegations also included racist practices at Auburn, including disapproval of inter-racial dating in the community and segregation of black and white players in the resident athletic dorm. After his tapes were revealed, Auburn received strict penalties and probation for the sixth time in the school's history. This scandal prompted Coach Pat Dye's resignation and preceded the hiring of Samford Universityfootball coach Terry Bowden. Read complete profile here.

Ramsey was not one to accept wrongdoing back in 1991:

The most successful sustained period in Auburn football history was undone in part by a “pay for play” scandal that broke early in the 1991 season. In June of that year, former Tigers defensive back Eric Ramsey alleged in a term paper that was made public that Auburn’s football program was “racist and condescending” to African-American players. That September, Ramsey unloaded another bombshell, that he’d been paid by boosters under an elaborate incentive program, and that he had secretly recorded meetings with assistant coaches Larry Blakeney, Steve Dennis and Frank Young in which the scheme — which involved two Auburn boosters funneling money to players through the football staff — was openly discussed. The Birmingham News printed a transcript of several of the tapes in November, on one of which Blakeney can be heard telling Ramsey to keep the arrangement quiet, uttering the infamous phrase “keep it down home, cuz.” The NCAA’s Letter of Inquiry arrived in November 1992, charging the football program with nine violations. Head coach Pat Dye — who had also been the Tigers’ athletic director during the time the violations occurred — resigned a few weeks later on the eve of the Iron Bowl. The following August, Auburn was hit with a two-year bowl ban, a TV ban for 1993 and the loss of 13 scholarships over a four-year period.

Reference 

Here's what Ramsey told Raw Story writer Donnell Alexander about whether the other Black players would expose Tuberville's racism while they played for him:

• "They're not going to do or say anything. They fear the repercussions. They're worried about the consequences.”
• “They are free to do everything, but talk. It all goes back to the mentality of being seen and not heard. It's just something that is ingrained in them.”

Here's how the Raw Story+ article describes what happened after he exposed the payoff scheme at Auburn:

Back then, though? He was fortunate not to be tarred and feathered. At his 1992 graduation from Auburn, Ramsey and his wife were booed, called the N-word and had objects thrown at them. 

“I wasn't worried,” said Ramsey, who identifies as a Christian. “I had a higher purpose.”

Ramsey now is an actor and filmaker, and runs a security firm in California:

Here's the Ramsey Security Agency website.

Here's his Internet Movie DataBase  (IMDB) profile.

Eric B. Ramsey is originally from Birmingham, AL, and is the middle child of nine children. After High School, he began his professional career as a football player with Auburn University, and subsequently he was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in 1991. After receiving an injury while with the Chiefs he retired from football, and moved to Maryland. Once in Maryland Eric began receiving offers to model professionally, and act in the television and film industry, and that is when his focus changed from sports to the entertainment arena.




In 2005, Mr. Ramsey relocated to Los Angeles, CA where he quickly found his other talents for filmmaking, writing, and producing. In 2007, Eric wrote and executive produced the short film The Promise, which is based on his own personal experiences with college and professional football.




He then went on to write and produce the short film My Brothar's Keeper, which is also loosely based on Eric's personal life experiences. In 2010, he co-wrote, executive produced and starred in Black Rain. Eric wrote, directed, and produced Unspeakable Indiscretions that is receiving rave reviews throughout film festivals across the country. There is just no stopping this creative genius. While one film is still in the festivals, Eric just recently wrote, produced and directed CainAbel, a modern-day version of the biblical story about Adam and Eve's sons.

You can watch his short film, The Promise, here.

The only other former player who has gone public that I can find is White. It's Auburn linebacker-turned-novelist Ace Atkins who was interviewed for the Raw Story article. This is what he tweeted in May:

Read:

Alabama senator on white nationalists in the military: 'I call them Americans'

A spokesperson for GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville said the senator “has kind of a sarcastic sense of humor” and “was expressing doubt about this being a problem in the military.”

Of all the hundreds of Black players who are familiar with Tommy Tuberville and may be able to relate accounts of how his bigotry was manifest when they were on his teams * it is lamentable that only this one has spoken out if they also observed or experienced his racism.

Then again, it is possible that except for rare moments when he let his true feelings and beliefs slip nobody else saw this side of him. Or is it possible that he doesn't have a racist bone in his body?

Perhaps his current comments which have been taken as indications of racism have been misinterpreted. Maybe when an interviewer asked if Tuberville believed white nationalists should be allowed in the military it wasn't racist when he responded by saying “Well, they call them that. I call them Americans” and he just meant this literally. After all, racists who are citizens are Americans the same way Neo-NAZIs, bank robbers, and serial killers are, and the same way that members of the KKK burning crosses and hanging Black people were also American citizens.

My blog won't reach very many people, but I can only hope that articles like this in Raw Story and republished for a wider audience on MSN prompt other Tuberville team members whether Black or not, if in fact there are any, who can give examples of Tuberville's racism go public.

Update: Read: Tommy Tuberville made $25m off Black men. God forbid they get anything back from The Guardian about nine months age. The former Auburn football coach earned a small fortune thanks to Black athletes. As a US senator he has shown them little but contempt

This article is more than 9 months old

--------------

*He coached  at Auburn University from 1999 to 2008. He was also the head football coach at the University of Mississippi from 1995 to 1998, Texas Tech University from 2010 to 2012, and the University of Cincinnati from 2013 to 2016)