Antisocial Narcissists Like Donald Trump Pose a Dire, Continuing Threat to America.
We need to prosecute ALL conspirators to the fullest extent of the law — if we want to save our country.
“Come and listen to my story ‘bout a man named Jed,
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed…”
Nah, not really. This isn’t the amusing musical prelude to a vapid 60s sit-com.
Rather, it’s a creepy story about the astounding gullibility and pervasive psychological ignorance of the American people. It’s a sad, sad story about the accelerating downfall of our nation — which may yet have an even sadder ending.
One thing’s become very obvious over the past 6 years in the United States: Immoral, devious, narcissistic people who rise to positions of great power — like ex-President Trump — have both the ability and the WILL to manipulate our entire governmental and social system, twist and abuse them to their own advantage, and effectively destabilize our democracy and our entire society in the process.
Please realize that this is not an exaggeration.
How do I know that what I’m saying is true, and not grossly exaggerated? It’s very simple: I’ve closely watched what’s actually happened in our nation over this time period. And here’s what I saw:
The U.S., and our media groups, and our government, and our politicians, and social media, and most of our citizens ALL failed to fully grasp what we were really facing and experiencing during Trump’s reign (uh, presidency). In the end, they ALL utterly failed to comprehend the depraved lengths to which malignant narcissists are willing to go — lying, cheating, manipulating, gaslighting, smashing norms, and undermining democracy — to get their way or destroy any opposition.
The result of our colossal collective failure was — Donald Trump and his minions decisively won this societal ‘battle’, and completely and successfully conned us. He won… and the U.S.A. lost. We blew it — badly. He manipulated the hell out of us… and not coincidentally ripped our society to shreds.
So even though he lost the 2020 election… overall, he still won, and is still winning today.
Donald Trump and all his devoted enablers succeeded wildly in massively duping our nation, totally pulling the wool over our eyes, and effectively convincing many of us — despite reams, boatloads, tons of contrary evidence — that Trump truly IS the savior who will rescue America from looming oblivion.
He and his core group of enablers (including Fox ‘News’, Newsmax, far right politicians, etc.) very successfully conned at least 1/3 of our nations’ citizens — that’s over 100 million people! And their ‘long con’ still continues today, and is still very powerful… even after our nation has experienced all the horrendous political B.S. and social turmoil Trump caused or encouraged in this country.
You’d think maybe we’d learn something from all this. You’d think…
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Here’s another observation, another distressing ‘take’ on our perilous situation: Our supposedly powerful Republic, perhaps the most powerful nation ever to exist on planet Earth… has for 6 years now been almost completely helpless (!) to contain or restrain a super-narcissistic, highly dangerous, and destructive-to-democracy demagogue named Donald J. Trump.
If that doesn’t terrify you… I don’t know what will.
We are all living through a totally crazy, unprecedented, and horrific event in American history — and it’s an unfolding event in motion, since Trump is still the undisputed ‘leader’ of the political Right in this country, and the current demi-god and role model (unbelievably) for today’s bizarre, seditious Republican Party.
Thank God that the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection/coup attempt and the conspiracy behind it is finally trying to correct this situation and initiate some kind of accountability… yet it remains to be seen whether (as usual) it will be ‘too little, too late’.
No matter what the Committee finds and presents to the American public, though — if the Department of Justice doesn’t indict all those concerned, prosecute their cases effectively, and get convictions and serious prison sentences… then the criminal, immoral behavior and blatant political manipulation modeled by Trump and his enablers will just keep happening, over and over again, into the foreseeable future.
And U.S. society and our semi-democracy will just keep imploding and collapsing.
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The maddening thing about all this is… it’s all quite predictable — because the behavior of power-hungry demagogues and narcissists is quite predictable. These people truly have one-track minds — and that one track is “It’s all about ME and my goals and desires, all the time and everywhere”. If power-hungry, narcissistic people aren’t held to account and stopped — they simply keep on doing whatever the hell they want, whenever they want, including blatantly immoral, illegal, and socially destructive actions.
That’s just how power-hungry and/or narcissistic people function. It’s who they really are — and they invariably have NO interest or investment at all in changing. (It’s well-known among therapists that sociopaths and narcissists are almost impossible to ‘cure’, since staying ‘as is’ serves their perceived self-interest.)
These people have NO regard for others (including their followers), or any interest in other’s well-being or rights or needs, or in any issues affecting the nation as a whole. These deeply dysfunctional people truly couldn’t care less (literally!)… since the only thing that matters to them is their own advancement, or power, or personal ‘reality’.
In fact, to them other people don’t really exist at all. They ‘exist’ only as potentially useful pawns to be manipulated, controlled, used up, and/or abused. PERIOD.
Again, please realize that this is not an exaggeration.
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Narcissists and other power-hungry sociopaths have most or all of the following character traits (even though they utterly lack any ‘character’, in truth):
- No morality or ‘moral compass’.
- No empathy.
- No principles or strongly-held political beliefs.
- No consistency — whatever serves them in the short-term is what they ‘believe in’ and follow.
- No conscience — at all. Ever.
- No fidelity at all to truth or justice.
- No generosity or kindness.
- No humility or modesty.
- No genuine interest in other people, except perhaps their immediate family (IF their family members ‘behave’ and kowtow sufficiently).
- No real desire to help others politically, economically, socially, or in any other way — though they always try hard to appear to care!
And… in addition to lacking all these esteemed and vital human traits, they also strongly desire and pursue certain self-centered ends:
— Increasing their power over others.
— Amassing more and more wealth, status, power, and/or fame.
— Being the constant center of attention; being constantly admired and praised.
— Constantly ‘winning’ and always getting their own way (Example: Trump is infamous for his obsession with ‘winning’, and even more for his total hatred of ever ‘losing.’ Thus we see… his ongoing, infantile, democracy-destroying reaction to losing the 2020 election — namely, insisting endlessly that massive fraud ‘stole’ the election from him and that he really won!)
— Using explosive anger and fear tactics to intimidate and cow others around them.
— Holding on to all perceived slights and grudges, and seeking intense personal revenge on those ‘enemies’ who displease or oppose them.
— Lying and manipulating truth and reality to serve their needs and whims; lying at the slightest provocation, about anything and everything.
Listen: One of the greatest mistakes any community or nation can ever make is to trust a malignant narcissist or sociopath and install them in ANY position of power — and the greater the power, the worse the mistake. Of course, this means that the U.S., in allowing Donald Trump to run for and then BE our President for 4 excruciating years, made a terrible, terrible mistake — one with such vast ramifications and consequences that we will all be paying for it for many years to come.
The legions of enraged, resentful, and well-armed MAGA fanatics will make sure of THAT.
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To me, many of the sociopolitical problems we’re experiencing are directly connected to the uncontrolled rise of sociopaths and narcissists, and the rapid spread of their amoral, hateful, and destructive ways.
Another horrific example: mass shootings and rampant gun violence. The ascendance of sociopaths and narcissists in our nation shows up, bigtime, first in the rise of the lunatic shooters themselves — and then in the furious acrimony and conflict over guns and gun rights.
My purpose here, however, is not to take sides (though I will) or to prove or disprove anything. Rather, I’m pointing out a VERY problematic pattern — namely, the many ways in which our current society is letting the vilest, nastiest human beings (in this case, the gunmen) consistently WIN.
America is reeling in horror, as mass shootings become a daily — almost hourly — occurrence. Yet for many Republicans, what matters most to them, by far, is their ‘rights’ and ‘freedom’ re: gun ownership. Meanwhile, they minimize the experiences of victims of gun violence, and gloss over the rampant mass shootings and growing body count.
I hate to say it, but this is highly narcissistic, antisocial behavior that deeply affects ALL of us — very negatively.
They also gloss over the fact that our lax-to-nonexistent weapons laws really DO end up aiding and abetting the craziest and most dangerous among us, and essentially give them free rein to wreak as much havoc as possible.
Again, this is not an exaggeration.
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I find this willful ignorance/denial especially infuriating — and unconscionable — when we start talking about ‘red flag’ gun laws: Laws which allow the removal of guns from the homes of confirmed mentally ill or abusive or violent gun owners.
In any sane society, such a common-sense, protective law should be a no-brainer. Yet, in our society… of course, it’s not, and instead it’s a source of conflict, accusations, and recriminations about the government trying to ‘take people’s guns away’.
The crucial point here, though, is this: All the poorly-informed nonsense resisting these proposed ‘red flag’ laws is based on narcissistic misinterpretation of what these laws actually DO.
And what they do is: They temporarily remove the guns from a person’s immediate vicinity, until that person can demonstrate that he/she is well enough and responsible enough to be entrusted with them again. That’s it. It’s NOT permanent ‘confiscation’ or ‘trampling our God-given rights’, as many guns rights folks like to claim.
Plus, we desperately need to put some responsibility back on gun owners, instead of just giving them a blanket ‘free pass’ because of their supposed ‘inalienable rights’ as an American. If someone is out of control, mentally ill, abusive, or violent — then they really should forfeit their personal gun ‘rights’, at least temporarily. That’s exactly what our vaunted ‘rule of law’ is designed to deal with.
But the worst aspect of all this, to me, is the adamant refusal of gun rights advocates to even recognize the grave dangers posed by enraged, self-centered, immature, or narcissistic gun owners (though they’ll sometimes pay them passing lip service). In their refusal/denial, they are mirroring the inability of our entire society to fully comprehend and deal with the intense dangers posed by certain mentally-ill or pathological individuals.
Sadly, despite all the rampant gun violence and the growing potential for ultra-violent events, the overall (absurdly ineffective) public response is still to… NOT respond adequately, and in the name of ‘freedom’ let all the demagogic, narcissistic politicians and deranged gunmen run loose — and in effect run the show.
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All of these, and similar, issues now seem to be coming to a head in the U.S. We’re besieged by crisis after crisis… most of them with no clear resolution or solution in sight. Over the past several decades, it seems that our society has lapsed into a sort of numb, avoidant unconsciousness, an overall state of denial about the dire issues facing us.
And during this same time period, we’ve ALSO lapsed into an apathetic, anything-goes attitude re: the pathological ‘bad actors’ among us — based on an unconscionable and wrong-headed interpretation of Americans’ ‘rights’ and ‘freedom’.
The truth is, not everyone deserves to have unlimited ‘rights’ and ‘freedom’ — especially those who abuse our system, or flout our laws, or conspire to overturn our elections, or abuse their fellow Americans with lies or devious manipulation or physical abuse and violence.
As of now, today, our nation is poised to learn some very difficult and critical lessons about the mistakes we’ve been making throughout our society. These lessons look like they’ll come at a very heavy social and emotional cost.
Both trends I’ve explored here — the way we allowed the rise of Trump and MAGA fascism, and enabled the rise of the ultra-violent, gun-toting crazies and school shooters — have rapidly undermined our security, safety, and overall well-being in this country.
That amounts to a severe loss of freedom for most law-abiding Americans — while some of the worst among us go scot-free, or worse, are further enabled and protected and empowered.
While most of us become increasingly less safe and less ‘free’ — this pathological minority is reveling in its freedom to abuse, or attack, or mislead, or overpower the rest of us.
How crazy is that?
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But apparently, we Americans need to learn things the hard way now. And this ‘hard way’ is already upon us, and intensifying.
Probably the scariest aspect of our current sociopolitical scene is this: Now that we have allowed and enabled the rise of Trump and his MAGA hordes, there are actually no good or easy solutions or societal responses in the short term. We’ve made our stinking bed — and now we have to lie in it.
This means that no matter how our government decides to ‘deal with’ Trump and all his lies and demagoguery, the die is already cast, and there will be great turmoil and violence no matter what we do.
If the Department of Justice chooses to indict Trump on any (or several) of the many potential charges related to his obvious law-breaking and devious manipulations, the MAGA fanatics and Fox ‘News’ will go wild and foment rage and violent uprisings. If Trump ends up being convicted of serious crimes and is sentenced to prison, much more rage and insurrection and murderous violence will almost certainly follow.
We’re stuck in a daunting, haunting dilemma: No way out.
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Yet if we don’t hold Trump accountable, don’t bring him to justice, and instead let his arrogant, unlawful, and seditious actions slide in order to ‘protect our nation’ from chaos and internal conflict — all the conflict and violence we’re trying to avoid will happen anyway, sooner rather than later, because we’re in effect allowing and condoning lawlessness and lying and deception and vicious manipulation of our system.
You think we have problems with arrogant, violent ‘bad actors’ and crazies right now? Just wait until we give Trump — the ultimate ‘bad actor’ — a pass, a literal “Get Out of Jail Free” card.
What we will have done then is… give all the power-hungry demagogues, lunatics, and violent partisans free rein to act out, undermine, and destroy as much and as often as they can. Giving Trump a pass is a sure-fire way to hasten the collapse of America. It would be a policy disaster of epic proportions.
Scarily, the horrible bottom line is this: Over the next few years, we are facing incredibly difficult and challenging — and probably quite violent — times in this country. We truly brought it on ourselves, through our laxity and inaction and permissiveness — and at this point, there’s no way to avoid all the coming pain.
Unfortunately, no matter what we choose to do now, or don’t do, with regard to Donald Trump — the nation and its citizens are set to suffer tremendously. Either way — in the short term, we all lose.
Again, no way out.
So I say: Since conflict, violence and suffering are already ‘baked in’ to our situation — we should adhere to the strict rule of law, and indict and punish Trump and his top henchmen ‘to the full extent of the law’ for all their lawless infractions, anti-democratic lies, and rule-breaking. ALL of them.
We really have to re-establish the rule of law, and common-sense, and social responsibility in our country, if we are to have any chance at all of surviving much longer as a nation.
We should fully enforce the law — ALL our laws… and then let the chips fall as they may.
Hard as this will be to endure… it is still far better than weak-kneed, pathetic submission to the worst among us. That’s a sure recipe for total disaster.
