You know Trump is a narcissist-- a malignant narcissist. Every psychopath is also a narcissist and it's clear that Trump is also a psychopath. You probably knew that too.
The question is, how did a malignant narcissist psychopath become president-- not just president but a horrific monster who is intentionally destroying the protections that have made Americans and America save from the predations of the worst corporations and his fellow billionaire psychopaths? And what should we do about it.
It's a long story. Before civilization, humans evolved, over at least seven million years, to live in small hunter-gather bands where they were bottom-up beings-- empathic, kind, cooperative, sharing, interdependent, living with bottom-up connection consciousness-- awareness of how decisions and actions affected all the people around them-- and the natural ecosystems they depended upon. Anyone who tried to take more than their share of the bands resources would be seen as insane, or would banished or killed. for example, one expert on psychopaths told me that in the far north, a psychopath living amongst the indigenous peoples would be put on an chunk of ice and pushed off into the ocean to float away.
The creeping opening of humanity to vulnerability to the depredations of narcissists and psychopaths started with the onset of civilization, when food surpluses and possession of domesticated animals led to the creation of police and soldiers to protect them. That led to hierarchy, centralization, authoritarianism and domination. Narcissists and psychopaths began to flourish because there was no band of people to stop them.
Most of history (as opposed to prehistory)has been, until the past 3040 years, the top-down history of generals and rulers, i.e., despots, monarchs and worse. Civilization, while bringing some wonderful good advances came with a high price-- slavery, serfdom, feudalism, privatization of the commons and brutal exploitation of the people at the bottom.
The narcissistic, top-down ideas of privatization and exploitation have been framed and celebrated by the right as aspects of "liberty" and individualism, as described by Ayn Rand. These narcissistic behaviors have become values that are supported and encouraged by religious and political leaders
Today, some businesses actually seek out psychopaths as employees. That gives them increasing access to wealth and power. Trump is a born-on-third-base child of wealth. These people are, I believe more at risk for developing the characteristics of psychopaths-- particularly callousness, hard-heartedness, absence of empathy, propensity towards lying and disrespecting laws and morals. Of course, Donald Trump fits this profile perfectly.
His massive scale child abuse is a clear sign of his having all the signs-- callousness, hard-heartedness, absence of empathy, propensity towards lying and disrespecting laws and morals. Worse, his deranged behavior is contagious, as evidenced by the many supporters and flunkies who defend this depraved policy. Even worse, ripping away children from their loving parents will permanently traumatize them and make them, the victims more at risk of becoming narcissists and psychopaths themselves. We have to take serious, aggressive action.
I've written many articles, in my article series, Psychopaths, Sociopaths and Narcissists, on the challenge narcissists and psychopaths present to a decent society. Trump and his enablers have made my message even more urgent. We need to develop a science and culture that reject the "values," really, pathological behaviors and thinking, as the vile, evil things they are. People who engage in such behaviors, people with strong narcissistic and psychopathic tendencies and characteristics should be identified, just as sexual predators are. This is not bigotry, not separating out any particular religion, race, or culture. This is what is done with sexual predators and carriers of highly contagious diseases.
We need to deal with the reality that these people are dangerous, malignant, destructive people. At one level, they are predators who take life savings from innocent victims who love them. But they are also the same people who gave us the multi-trillion dollar economic collapse of 2008, and the people who profit from war and drugs-- addictive and pharmaceutical.
These are the people who set examples of the worse kind, so we see massive increases in hate, bigotry, intolerance and discrimination. We need to identify them and protect the whole, healthy people who are not narcissists and psychopaths. This should be a conversation that is on the table. It will not be easy. There are billionaire narcissists and psychopaths who will fight it and they will fight dirty, attacking the messengers, attacking the idea. But we've gone far too long without doing this necessary work.
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