This post contains my endorsement for President in the U.S. election on Tuesday. If you don't wish to read it (which I understand), simply do not click past the page break. I'm not allowing comments on this post and there won't be any further posts about politics.
Back to photographs tomorrow, with a photo-essay of my visit to a Mennonite cabinetmaker out in the countryside.
The below-the-break title of this post:
The Trouble with Trump
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men [and women] to do nothing."
—Edmund Burke, a founder of modern
conservatism, 250 years ago
I've already voted—I voted early, last Tuesday, at the County Building in Penn Yan. I had to wait a long time to vote. Three years, 11 months, and 26 days.
I like that joke.
I'm breaking with my normal practice this morning because of the responsibility I feel regarding Edmund Burke's quotation above. I normally don't discuss politics here, but in this case I feel a duty.
My opinion is that this election has more to do with psychology than politics. I believe Trump is sick. So as not to direct you to any specific web page, such that you may consider me to be "leading" you, just Google "Cluster B" for yourself and read down whatever list of symptoms you find. Then you tell me which ones apply to Trump.
It won't be hard.
My opinion is that Trump is afflicted with mental defects or disabilities called personality disorders. It's curious to me that personality disorders are considered mild mental illnesses. They're nothing of the sort—they're one of the chief causes of mischief and turmoil in human history. They get downplayed for three reasons: because they don't kill the people who suffer from them (eating disorders are the mental illness with the highest mortality rate); sufferers can remain outwardly high-functioning; and (this one's crucial), normal people just don't grasp them very well. We have a tough time wrapping our heads around the behaviors they cause. In some cases people look at the outward signs of even extreme personality disorders and actually like some of the attributes they see; people who suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), for example, can indeed be charming and beguiling. They have to be—they're natural con men (right, or women), and a con man by definition has to gain your confidence before he can take advantage of you.
The key to understanding
For most of us, though, people who suffer from Cluster B disorders like NPD are persistent mysteries. There are many reasons why, but one of them is what you might call the "compassion imbalance." (There's probably a more proper clinical term for that, but I don't know what it is.) People suffering from NPD can appear to have tender feelings; they might be observed being solicitous and considerate; they seem generous, extending credit and regard; they are exquisitely sensitive, and even seem to have lots of empathy. This can trick us into thinking well of them. Yet at the same time they can be monstrous: brutal or bullying, utterly without shame, and completely unconcerned about grotesque mistreatment of others, tolerating even torture and mass death with a shrug...never mind innumerable lesser breaks with decency and with expected human reciprocity. Not only can they not follow the Golden Rule (e.g. Matthew 7:12), it doesn't even make sense to them.
The key to understanding this apparent paradox is that the narcissist can only be tender toward him- or herself; considerate and solicitous of his or her own feelings, states of being, and interests; and will only be generous and extend credit and regard to themselves, which they do incessantly and without regard to accuracy. As far as empathy is concerned, they have great empathy...but exclusively for themselves. They're exquisitely sensitive to slights, disloyalty, insults and mistreatment, but only when those things are directed at them. They expect and demand empathy from you for them, never, ever the other way around. This explains the monstrous side of the imbalance: they believe they are objectively all-important and that they must be seen that way by others, and are simply incapable of empathy for others. They cannot "put themselves in someone else's shoes" as the saying goes. They react with fury to any attack, and will counterattack without any sense of proportion (as Melania Trump revealingly said, "as you may know by now, when you attack him he will punch back ten times harder.")
It's not that narcissists don't want to, or refuse to, empathize with others; it's that they can't. They didn't make a decision to be the way they are; it's that they can't be any other way. You'll notice this in the current political situation because even people who understand Trump's mental defects keep expecting him to turn around and be normal! They see opportunities for him to reach out, to show sympathy, to reassure, to unite, to soothe, to heal, to broaden his appeal—or even to pretend to do these things in order to gain political advantage. And even though they know he's a narcissist, they expect him to take the opportunity. And he doesn't. It happens again and again. We "normals" just can't believe people with disordered personalities really are the way they are. (Personality disorders are persistent and very difficult to treat, too.)
If we're right that Trump suffers from personality disorders, then some of the Trump-worshippers, the flag-waver types who respond with very strong positivity to Trump, might be implicated in the diagnosis. For example, children raised by a narcissist or a borderline (the children of borderlines have it the worst) simply have to adapt. They can almost not survive otherwise. They are formed by the disordered parent to supply the parent's needs—in fact the term for such people is "supplier." Such unfortunate individuals (who are victims, really) have a very strong urge to "take care of" a narcissist; when they meet a narcissist—especially when they are remote enough that they can't be affected by real interactions—their psychological response can be intense devotion. They know what the narcissist needs; they know what to do. It's what they know. In a sense, they were bred for the job. Every time I see Bill Barr's sad, stressed, submissive face, I silently think, "supplier." There's another dominant narcissist in that man's past or I'm a monkey's uncle.
Chaos
The personality disorders, which some consider only "minor" mental illnesses, actually cause or contribute to some of the worst disruptions in human history. I've always refused to use the conventional cognomen of Alexander III of Macedon: I prefer to call him "Alexander the so-called great." He was a destroyer. Even that far back in history it's not so difficult to read between the lines. If you look down any list of the symptoms of Trump's disorders, you'll see many that fit, but one in particular should stand out: chaos creation. It's a known and previously-identified symptom of Trump's type of mental defect. They like chaos. They like to stir things up, create trouble, wreak carnage, destroy things. The more chaos, confusion, and disruption they can cause, the better they like it. More than one has upended the existing order, crossed the Rubicon, wrecked the built world, marched on Moscow, or slaughtered hundreds or thousands or even millions of innocents going about their own business.
Now that's NPD: The only person important enough to crown Napoleon Emperor of France was...Napoleon. His brother and his own mother refused to attend, though, no doubt because they were all too familiar with what an asshole he really was.
The intersection of narcissism with religion is too big a topic for this essay. Suffice it to say that narcissists worship themselves as gods, and they demand their followers do likewise. This makes easy prey of otherwise Godly people, who are well used to being worshippers. It's an easy fit to apply to the Leader the same deference and supplication they grew up applying to God. In ancient times the issue was more literally conflated: as late as Louis XIV in France, the so-called "Sun King," the monarch was asserted to be divine.
Many so-called "great" leaders have very likely been afflicted with NPD, from Augustus Caesar to Napoleon Bonaparte. Saddam Hussein and Adolph Hitler are particularly woeful examples (I sometimes call NPD "asshole disease," because of the way the compassion imbalance makes them act toward others, but at other times "dictator disease." Not all narcissists are dictators, but all dictators are narcissists). Trump is not as bad as he could be (as of yet, anyway—he still has the nuclear codes). That should probably be reserved for rulers like Saddam who are narcissists and also sadists. And Trump is neither educated nor clever. Were he more effectively Machiavellian, like Putin, he could be more insidious. In fact I don't fear Trump so much as some as-yet-unrevealed dictator-type who is, for now, silently watching, learning Trump's tricks, using him to case our wounded system's weaknesses. In ancient Rome, Sulla's example made Caesar possible.
And it's not just Trump. It goes further than the current election and even the "disunited" status quo in the United States. My conviction is that the human race won't really be either safe or civilized until humanity somehow learns to inoculate itself and its political systems against leaders who suffer from pathological personality disorders. No more Idi Amins; no more Leopold IIs. During that three years, 11 months, and however many days I mentioned, we've been witnessing some of the disruption and disorder they cause. We consider it extraordinary, but, historically, it's not unique. It's typical.
And as for the United States, it's high time—well, four years past time—that we establish qualifications for the office of President. Something like the following: a record of at least 17 years in public service; a minimum of three elected positions held previously, including at least one at the federal level; a graduate degree in government, political science, or a related field; tested minimum college-level knowledge of the structure of U.S. government, the Constitution, basic domestic and foreign policy, and U.S. history; submission to a nonpartisan FBI investigation into the candidate's financial affairs, international entanglements, and business conflicts of interest; nonpartisan examination for ordinary, normal health both physical and mental; and a maximum age limitation such that the candidate shall not be more than 65 years old on the last day of his or her term. We scorn wonks and bureaucrats, but in fact that's what a democracy wants and needs in its leadership positions...citizen servants, not Wizards of Oz. It's ridiculous that the most important job in the world requires fewer qualifications than those for an entry-level paralegal, and that such people are subject to less formal scrutiny than a higher-level manager might receive at the hands of a hiring corporation's private investigation firm.
Endorsement
In sum: my opinion is that the election on Tuesday should not be about our paltry personal politics, whatever they may be, and we citizens should not vote according to our selfish interests this time around—because one of the candidates is unfit. Therefore the endorsement of TOP in this election, no humor intended at all, is:
Our country needs us to be citizens and think of society. If you normally align with Democrats, don't make "The 2016 Mistake"...make sure you vote. I plead with you not to be tempted to waste your vote on a third party candidate or a write-in. And if you normally align with Republicans (you are of course not unwelcome here—I have any number of family members and local friends who are Republicans) I especially urge you to be of good conscience and put your country ahead of your party. As my father, a lifelong Republican who had friends in the Nixon White House and was a high level appointee under Jerry Ford, puts it: "vote Democratic until Trump is gone."
Mike
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