If It Were Only Just Lies

“…can you call it Treason?  Sure… why not.” So Donald Trump described the Democrats and others during his State of the Union speech when they did not applaud during what he thought were universally good pronouncements. 

Forget that Treason is a serious crime that can be punishable by death in this Country. Forget that he doesn’t have even minimally useful mental firepower to understand that the Opposition Party does not credit him with many economic positives (especially those that involve minorities).  Forget that the use of labeling your opponent as “un-American” or “Treasonous” is classic authoritarian rhetoric.

It was inflammatory, ignorant, insulting…and absurd. But it was also telling.  

All these things that involve viewing Trump through a microscope of intellectual analysis continue to miss the point. I find it so frustrating day after day to listen to both opposing and supporting pundits review the behavior of this man. 

I now start almost every weekday watching 30 minutes of recorded Morning Joe and 30 minutes of recorded Fox and Friends (not a healthy activity). I read articles to a fault from every perspective I can find.  I feel at a gut level the chaos that is beyond articulation.

Attempting to stand back and view the dialogue as a whole tells me one important thing: the foundation of the pundit’s, “expert’s”, and politician’s observations and opinions is wrong. They want to apply logic, often in the absence of truth, to try and explain what is happening.

As I have stated at length on several posts to this Blog (starting well before Trump was elected President), the explanation is simple, and you might even say organic (if that term pleases you more). Donald J. Trump suffers from a relatively rare mental condition known as a Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). That fact explains EV-ER-Y-THING!! It is the only logic remaining after the dust settles at the end of each day.

Narcissism is a spectrum we all fall on to different degrees. Someone with NPD falls so high on the spectrum that certain behaviors become almost hard-wired and predictable.  It doesn’t necessarily negate other abilities or talents, and, in fact, can enhance some personal traits we often find attractive, such as confidence, enthusiasm, or congeniality.

To dismiss the fact that Trump has a NPD because such a pronouncement requires professional counseling with the President is sadly misinformed. Not only will a sufferer of NPD not submit to counseling because they cannot accept the possibility of the condition, but also because Trump’s public persona provides more observational data than any psychologist could hope to extract from a one on one meeting with an ordinary patient.

Trump’s detractors label him as a liar. Make that a colossal liar. The Washington Post recently tallied Trump’s “lies” during his first year in the thousands. Politifact has quantified him as the most untruthful individual (of those with a significant volume of entries) in the history of their publication. We have all seen it with our own eyes and ears and now routinely accept it as a new normal. The dogmatic Trump supporters don’t even consider his untruths as anything more than grunts and cheers.

I don’t believe Trump is a liar, not to say he hasn’t used deception from time to time, as many do. The reason I don’t is important. In order to lie, you must believe there is a exterior truth. Truth is not something that exists for someone with a NPD. If you can understand that reality, then Donald Trump begins to become understandable and possibly even predictable.

For an individual with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder truth or facts are not concepts that are exterior to themselves.  As they view both their actions and their thoughts they are forced to refashion external reality to coincide with the conclusions they already arrived at. When actual facts are presented to them contradicting their conclusions they naturally view those facts as incorrect, and even view those presenting the truth as conspiratorially opposing them.

When you think about Trump's use of “fake news”, or his inability to admit a mistake, or refusing to apologize it all begins to make sense.

It should be of no surprise to anyone that the most vulnerable people to Trump’s mental handicap are those, who by necessity, must surround and advise an American President. They must perform a daily kabuki dance of explaining to him he’s wrong by simultaneously telling him he’s right. Ergo the exodus that has left the White House, and continues unabated.

There is one irrefutable reality. A person with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder should not be President of the United States. 

I had a relationship through most of my life with a person suffering from a NPD and I saw how it evolved.  I experienced, first hand, the irrationality and paranoia that overtook that individual.  The need to remove Trump from office is far greater than you may have considered in November of 2016. At the very least…the very least…his power needs to be neutered by a significant change in Congress. Just watching cannot be an option.