As images of the Swine- in -Chief came over the TV screen, bellowing balderdash at a Minnesota rally about Joe Biden, we quickly turned to MSNBC and Chris Hayes' show. There Harvard law professor Charles Fried correctly depicted Trump as the derelict, low class buffoon and national embarrassment he really is, noting:
"No president in history has ever talked this way! Can you imagine Dwight Eisenhower speaking the way this man speaks, or Lincoln, or Teddy Roosevelt? This man is ignorant and fol ,mouthed."
Prof. Fried added:
"This man terrifies me. Because of the way he thinks and what he says about himself. Basically, he says according to Article 2 powers he has the right to do whatever he pleases. He doesn't and any lawyer knows that- except maybe Bill Barr and Mr. Sekulow. Everybody's who's studied the Constitution - which I teach, knows that."
So why don't the Trumpies? Why can't these benighted followers see they're being used as pawns by Trump in a bid to get re-elected and trash this country into autocratic oblivion? Instead it seems these brain dead followers will make up any excuse to kiss his butt and follow him, even into the gates of hell. In many ways this lot reminds me of the 900 -odd cult followers of Jim Jones who drank his kool aid to show their undying gratitude and adulation. Except they all croaked, e.g.
But more plausibly, after examining the Trump base specimens in detail, they are more akin to zombies, aka the "walking dead.""According to a recent piece in the UK Guardian, referencing Trump's Minneapolis rally:
"Thousands sat in the stands wearing “Make America Great Again” caps as well as sweaters and T-shirts with slogans such as 'Cops for Trump', 'Fake News', 'Socialism Sucks', 'Space Force' and 'The Trump Strikes Back'.
They cheered as Trump delivered a blunt message: he is going nowhere. In fact, a man who built his political career on the formula that what does not kill him makes him stronger aims to do it again with the impeachment inquiry. In a blistering and blustering 102-minute speech, he made clear he intends to wield impeachment as a cudgel in next year’s presidential election.
The formula only works because of his fiercely partisan support base, which has proved willing to swallow his faults because he shares their animus towards the same foes. Robert Leonard, a radio news director in Iowa, told CNN many conservatives are “standing strong behind President Trump because he is a kind of a golden hammer” that they believe is “needed to break what they see as the liberal stranglehold on America”.
The piece went on to note that all but two with whom the Guardian spoke dismissed the impeachment inquiry, triggered by Trump pressuring the leader of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, one of his leading rivals, as mere political theatre. Few were troubled by the president’s abrupt decision to withdraw US troops from northern Syria.
Now as we behold the results of traitor Trump's betrayal of the Iraqi Kurds, with Turkish bombs raining down down on Kurdish prisons releasing ISIS terrorists - while the Kurds are butchered by the same Turks - one wonders what manner of person would support such an arrogant, outlaw scum who dares call himself a leader? It didn't take long for me to suggest to Janice one of those zombies from The Walking Dead. Proof? Look no further than the idiocy spouted by one of the resident kool aid drinkers at the MN rally:
“We think the United States is under attack by the liberals and it’s really changing our culture, pushing us towards socialism. We are so grateful for a president like him putting the American people first. Yes, he has faults, but don’t we all?"
This brain fart - supposedly from a "retired educational administrator" - begs the question: What kind of educational administrator? Anyone with half a brain, not even at the level of an "educator" or "administrator" would grasp Trump isn't putting the American people first. Not with his trade war, economy wrecking tariffs and bogus tax cuts for which 90 percent of the benefits have gone to the wealthiest and corporations.
And hey, surely putting America (and the American people) first never meant leaving American soldiers behind. The NY Times reported Monday that removing the American troops from Syria may now require an airlift. Trump basically, in his rush to withdraw, left soldiers abandoned "trapped between two advancing armies" - as the media informs us.
So doesn't this self-proclaimed "educational administrator" know any of that? Doesn't he know that Trump shaking down a foreign head of state to help him dig up dirt on a political opponent is not just a "fault"? It's an impeachable offense, and abuse of the power of his office. But since this stooge likely never even graduated high scho ol it makes sense he'd be ignorant of the difference.
But this is the sort of rabble and refuse we have to contend with, and then we're advised to make nice and be civil with these Walkers in the interest of national comity. Well to hell with that. Still, one must be grateful that a wide swath of our population - minus Trump's 43 percent of 'biters'- have managed to pick up on Trump's massive mental defects, though they lack any formal training in the psychology profession. This, according to Diana Diamond, a professor emeritus of psychology at the City University of New York who's just completed a clinical guide for treating narcissistic pathology. According to Prof. Diamond, quoted in a recent NY Times piece:
“ Like many narcissistic personalities, he may cause more severe distress in others than he himself experiences.”
Indeed, and I'd say it's even worse. See e.g.
by P.M. Carpenter | October 14, 2019 - 6:59am | permalink
Look, from the beginning of his presidency (and even before), mental health professionals and normal citizens have sounded the alarm about Trump’s stability. See for example, my take on his lack of any moral compass derived from getting treated like Hitler when he was as a kid, e.g.
Narcissism, The Pre-Moral Mind and Donald J. Trump...
Also recall Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist at Yale and editor of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.” described Trump's mental malignancy to a tee, leaving out nothing. She depicts a dyspeptic and disruptive personality and a peril to our collective security each day he remains in office. Few of Trump's followers may believe the psychologists and therps who contributed to Prof. Lee's book, but maybe they will believe Tony Schwarz, the ghost writer who helped him do 'The Art of the Deal'. In his words (p. 73, ibid.):
"His amygdala is repeatedly triggered...and his prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain that makes us capable of rationality and reflection - shuts down. He reacts rather than reflects - and damn the consequences. This is what makes his access to the nuclear codes so dangerous and frightening."
Opinion writers have also discussed his narcissism openly; so have administration officials, though only in private.
Narcissism, The Pre-Moral Mind and Donald J. Trump...
Also recall Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist at Yale and editor of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.” described Trump's mental malignancy to a tee, leaving out nothing. She depicts a dyspeptic and disruptive personality and a peril to our collective security each day he remains in office. Few of Trump's followers may believe the psychologists and therps who contributed to Prof. Lee's book, but maybe they will believe Tony Schwarz, the ghost writer who helped him do 'The Art of the Deal'. In his words (p. 73, ibid.):
"His amygdala is repeatedly triggered...and his prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain that makes us capable of rationality and reflection - shuts down. He reacts rather than reflects - and damn the consequences. This is what makes his access to the nuclear codes so dangerous and frightening."
Opinion writers have also discussed his narcissism openly; so have administration officials, though only in private.
Prof. Lee's book, which I read last year, is a tour de force on malignant personality in a leader, and echoes many similar assessments of Adolf Hitler.. See e.g.
More recently, in an interview with The Inquisitir she asserts that the media, politicians and the American public don't understand the peril that his mental pathology poses. Most disturbing is her take on Trump's most ardent supporters (who I peg as the Walking Dead). These forlorn zeros continue to enable and energize him and "are driven by a desire for chaos and want to see society burn."
I have no doubt of that, and again attribute this perverse attitude to their own failures and grievances which at least are tolerable if everyone else - especially of any stature- goes down with them. And what better vehicle than the combustible, unstable criminal with access to the nuclear codes.
I have no doubt of that, and again attribute this perverse attitude to their own failures and grievances which at least are tolerable if everyone else - especially of any stature- goes down with them. And what better vehicle than the combustible, unstable criminal with access to the nuclear codes.
As Lee also made clear, Trump has "conclusively failed a most basic test of mental capacity" adding: "Without mental capacity, no presidential capacity is possible, or for any other jobs."
Let's note the distinguishing feature of the zombie, the "walker", is the lack of any executive brain function. There is no capacity for analysis, reason, or even basic language expression or interpretation. All responses are totally reactive, like when his zombie packs mindlessly bellow "Lock him up!" or "Lock her up!" after Trump spouts it. All the brain left is in the reptilian R-complex and amygdala. We see this repeatedly in Trump rally scenes, and in the responses of the zombie pack..
The impetus for destruction is also a characteristic of the walker. Hence, the existing defect in mental capacity, other than for hatred and chaos, affects Trump's base like a contagion. Indeed, they identify with fellow Trumpies by their hatred of political correctness (which is also the manifestation of a form of social moral capacity), elitism in any form and the "establishment elites" . Their own mental deficits also compel narcissistic hungers - similar to zombie brain hunger- that lead them to identify with Trump and emulate his bestial ferocity and incivility. . Hence, they aspire to become the bodacious bully they see in Trump and love it when he says "punch 'em out". Like the walking dead in the series, lacking any consistent supports and resources, only the familiarity of the 'pack, their abiding drive is to only inflict pain on the outsiders: the Dems, the women voters who despise Trump as a serial assaulter and the citizens who tag him f.or the social predator and traitor he is.
Their narcissistic pathology and aggression based on imagined grievance (and isolation from actual citizens) is aligned with Trump's which is where the real danger lies for our nation and any future civility. For so long as Trumpism and its implicit degeneracy and incivility is their guiding star there will never be peace in the U.S., civil peace. We will always be one disastrous event from a de facto civil war- with the walking dead. We better win, starting with the election next year or we devolve into a nation of the Walking Dead, as millions more become inured to the toxicity.
See also:
Let's note the distinguishing feature of the zombie, the "walker", is the lack of any executive brain function. There is no capacity for analysis, reason, or even basic language expression or interpretation. All responses are totally reactive, like when his zombie packs mindlessly bellow "Lock him up!" or "Lock her up!" after Trump spouts it. All the brain left is in the reptilian R-complex and amygdala. We see this repeatedly in Trump rally scenes, and in the responses of the zombie pack..
The impetus for destruction is also a characteristic of the walker. Hence, the existing defect in mental capacity, other than for hatred and chaos, affects Trump's base like a contagion. Indeed, they identify with fellow Trumpies by their hatred of political correctness (which is also the manifestation of a form of social moral capacity), elitism in any form and the "establishment elites" . Their own mental deficits also compel narcissistic hungers - similar to zombie brain hunger- that lead them to identify with Trump and emulate his bestial ferocity and incivility. . Hence, they aspire to become the bodacious bully they see in Trump and love it when he says "punch 'em out". Like the walking dead in the series, lacking any consistent supports and resources, only the familiarity of the 'pack, their abiding drive is to only inflict pain on the outsiders: the Dems, the women voters who despise Trump as a serial assaulter and the citizens who tag him f.or the social predator and traitor he is.
Their narcissistic pathology and aggression based on imagined grievance (and isolation from actual citizens) is aligned with Trump's which is where the real danger lies for our nation and any future civility. For so long as Trumpism and its implicit degeneracy and incivility is their guiding star there will never be peace in the U.S., civil peace. We will always be one disastrous event from a de facto civil war- with the walking dead. We better win, starting with the election next year or we devolve into a nation of the Walking Dead, as millions more become inured to the toxicity.
See also:
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