Letting Flicka Rest in Peace?

The phrase Beating a Dead Horse is 150 years old, and for good reason. Despite the brutal image it creates by current standards, its relevance (and resilience) lies with the reality that everyone has engaged in the futility of pursuing something that cannot come to be. 

For those challenged by obvious similes, its origin comes from the pointlessness of vigorously attempting to make a horse move after it has expired. Anyone not pleading guilty to occasionally engaging in this human foible I believe your UFO is double parked.

The problem clearly is due to the beater not being able to recognize that the horse is dead. So is the case with my fixation on something that appears so perceptible to me yet seems to gain no traction in the court of public opinion. 

Once again, for the fourth time over the past two years, I am writing about Donald Trump’s mental illness.  Will it be just another sweet nothing sent across desert air or worse, the flogging of a poor animal who only wants to graze in the great beyond?

For anyone who has experienced, first hand, the behavior of someone with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and possibly researched that disorder in order to deal with the relationship, they should be able to see that Trump is so inflicted. Furthermore, they should understand, with reasonable ease, the actions he has taken and confidently predict those actions yet to be inflicted on a weary nation. It explains everything Trump.

Anti-Trump pundits and supporters alike run an entire gamut of explanations on why this man has done what he has, why he acts the way he does, and what motivates has actions.  “He’s a liar”, “he’s a tell-it-like-it-is businessman”, “he’s immoral”, “he’s a counter-puncher”, “he’s a racist”, “he’s a Conservative patriot”, “he’s an authoritarian”, “he’s a family man”, “he’s a womanizer”, “he’s a deal maker”, “he’s ignorant”, and so on.

The commentators we hear daily are like doctors who reflect confidently on the symptoms that are causing distress but never touch on the underlying disease.

NPD is not new, and although Narcissistic behavior is common, a Narcissistic Personality Disorder is not. The disorder creates in the inflicted individual behaviors they can’t control.

NPD is as much defined by the impairment created by the behavior as it is the characteristics.

Here is a common list of characteristics of NPD which you can retrieve from multiple sources. This list comes from Mayo Clinic’s website:

Has an exaggerated sense of self-importance

Has a sense of entitlement and requires constant, excessive admiration

Expects to be recognized as superior even without achievements to warrant it

Exaggerates achievements and talents

Is preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance

Believes they are superior and can only associate with equally special people

Belittles or looks down on people they perceive as inferior

Expects unquestioning compliance with their expectations

Takes advantage of others to get what they want

Has an inability to empathize or recognize the needs and feelings of others

Is envious of others and believe others envy them

Behaves in an arrogant manner, coming across as conceited, boastful and pretentious

These characteristics (which all need not apply to be considered having a NPD) are not the most important aspect of the disorder. The real problem is that reality for the NPD patient is almost entirely subjectively resourced.  A person such as Donald Trump does not view the world external to himself as having objective truth.

More telling than the countless untruths and inane actions are the many small absurdities such as denying the crowd size of his predecessor’s inauguration or saying he created the phrase prime the pump. It is the reason a person with an NPD cannot admit that they are wrong, because to do so would contradict their subjective understanding of truth.

This I believe makes Trump a far more sympathetic individual than the Progressive pundits like to describe him. However, I also believe it makes him far more dangerous and heightens the necessity to remove him from office.

Because the objective world is constantly contradicting the subjective world Donald sees as truth it is inevitable that he will become increasingly paranoid. We have already seen this evolution taking place. He will perceive conspiracies everywhere affecting him directly, instead of those he frequently observed in his past from a distance. 

As I predicted a year and a half ago, those closest to him would be targeted first. So it has been unceasingly. Worse than that is the likelihood that those wanting to keep their positions will give him no counsel. It is a tragedy that Republican lawmakers are unwilling to address the lunacy that parades before them in their desire to retain power. Such neutralizes the effectiveness of our Constitution.

There is no good outcome from his remaining in office, as someone with a NPD simply cannot accept an objective reality and therefore cannot accept his own dysfunction.

It is imperative that Congress is flipped from Republican control at the end of this year, that Mueller presents his case sooner than later, and then, perhaps, I will see Flicka rise to her feet and take another run around the track.