The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump

by Bandy X. Lee

  These three incidents of demonstrably factually false statements made in the space of five minutes exemplify scores of other completely false claims: He has claimed to know more than all the generals. He has said he has the best temperament of anyone ever to be president. He still bellows (Sarlin 2016) that the black and brown teenagers wrongly convicted of raping and brutally beating a woman jogger in the 1989 “Central Park Five” case are guilty, this despite the fact that the actual rapist confessed nine years after the crime and knew intimate details of the scene, and despite the rapist’s DNA matching a sample from the crime scene. DT insists he saw on TV thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001. He insists that he was the very best high school baseball pro prospect in New York City (Maddow 2016). He has bragged that, “in a movement like the world has never seen,” he won the presidency by the greatest electoral landslide since Reagan when, in fact, he trailed five of the previous seven electoral totals. And so on, and so on. The fact that he lost the popular vote by three million, because it does not comport with his grandiose delusions, he explains away by declaring that these votes were made by were fraudulent voters, despite study after bipartisan study demonstrating at most a few thousand illegal votes nationwide.

  Though the term solipsism comes from philosophy, not psychology, it appears relevant to this discussion: “Solipsism is the belief that the person holding the belief is the only real thing in the universe. All other persons and things are merely ornaments or impediments to his happiness.”

  DT lies regularly and reflexively, telling the truth only when it randomly suits his purposes. Yet, pathological lying does not nearly seem to account for the staggering, self-aggrandizing statements I have referred to. Does he actually believe what he is saying based upon underlying delusions of grandeur? Had he been hooked up to a lie detector test during his CIA speech, would he have passed without so much as a blip, as I believe?

  You now have the simple diagnostic criteria. You make the call.

  Why Does Trump Admire Brutal Dictators?

  Thomas Jefferson insisted that an “informed citizenry” is the best protection for democracy. It is therefore extremely disconcerting that a staggering percentage of Americans cannot name our president during the Civil War or the country from whom we won our independence. Even more worrisome is that DT himself did not understand that there are three branches of the federal government and that judges cannot simply “sign bills into law.” During a late campaign interview (Stephanopoulos 2016), he was unaware that Russia had not only invaded but had been occupying Crimea for two years. In his first global tour, he commented that he was happy to be in Israel after coming from the Middle East.

  In keeping with Jefferson’s warning, if in fact DT harbors an underlying delusional disorder, from a clinical perspective, his delusions would likely be grandiose and paranoid in nature. This would help us to answer once and for all the question of why, during the 2016 presidential campaign and beyond, DT has repeatedly and openly expressed admiration for Kim Jong-un of North Korea, Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, and especially Vladimir Putin. There is considerable evidence to suggest that absolute tyranny is DT’s wet dream. The unopposed dictator is the embodiment of the ability to demand adulation on the one hand and to eradicate all perceived enemies with the simple nod of the head on the other. With statues and thirty-foot portraits everywhere attesting to his godlike status, there would be no problem whatsoever with critical Fake Media, marching protesters, pesky appellate courts, or the slightest political opposition. Such is the awesome power of the despots whom DT so inexplicably reveres.

  Here are statements (Keneally 2016) DT made about each during his campaign, followed by brief illustrations that barely scratch the surface of their hideous brutality:

  • Kim Jong-un: “You gotta give him credit … when his father died, he goes in, he takes over these tough generals and he’s the boss. It’s incredible. He wiped out the uncle, wipes out this one, that one. It’s incredible.” Kim’s uncle was ripped out of a large government meeting as an example and summarily executed by a machine-gun-toting firing squad, along with seven of his aides. Kim’s aunt, his father’s sister, was poisoned. All their remaining children and grandchildren were killed. He executed one general with a firing squad of antiaircraft missiles at close range and another, bound to a post, with a mortar round, while requiring multitudes to watch, including their families. His entire country is quite literally starving to death while he finances his nuclear ambitions.

  • Bashar al-Assad: “I think in terms of leadership, he’s getting an A and our president is not doing so well.” In his struggle to stay in power, Assad has ruthlessly suppressed his countrymen, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths of civilian men, women, and children, many by gassing. If deposed, he will be charged with crimes against humanity.

  • Saddam Hussein: “Okay, so he was a very bad guy. But you know what he did so well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good! He didn’t read them their rights. They didn’t talk. You were a terrorist, it’s over!” Hussein is universally regarded as perhaps the most monstrous tyrant of the last several decades. Among his countless atrocities, in what has been described as “the worst chemical-weapons attack in human history,” he gassed more than 100,000 of his Kurdish citizens, then hunted down tens of thousands of survivors, whom he buried alive, for a total of 180,000 murdered in this slaughter alone.

  • Vladimir Putin: “If he says great things about me, I’m going to say great things about him. He’s really very much of a leader … very strong control over his country … and look, he has an eighty-two-percent approval rating!” Stunning comments. DT states clearly that his radiant view of Putin required only that he be flattered by him. In fifteen years of Putin’s tyranny, journalists who dissent are shot in the back of the head. Dissidents who flee the country are regularly stalked and murdered, with poison the favored method, KGB style. Others in asylum are in constant fear for their lives, including the former world chess champion and current chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, Garry Kasparov, and the Russian Olympic runner who blew the whistle on Russia’s pervasive doping program, Yuliya Stepanova. Either DT is incomprehensibly naïve regarding Putin’s popularity at home—the 82 percent rating was fabricated—or he was swooning from the compliment when Putin called him “bright” (not a “genius,” as DT has bragged ever since).

  In addition, during the campaign, DT spoke of “fighting for peaceful regime-change” if elected. (America is not ruled by a regime.) He bloviated that he would “blow out of the water” the seven small Iranian boats whose sailors had harrassed and given the finger to our “beautiful destroyers.” He bragged that “Russia and I would get along really well.” He suggested that maybe “the Second Amendment people” might be able to stop Hillary; that his supporters should patrol voting sites to ensure he was being treated fairly, and that he would love to “hit and hit and hit [his critics from the DNC] until their heads spin and they’ll never recover.”

  He insisted that he will “bomb the shit out of ISIS” and order our soldiers to kill their presumed families. He repeatedly goaded supporters to rough up hecklers at his speeches and pontificated that NFL players who refuse to stand for the national anthem should find another country. He quoted Mussolini’s “Better to live one day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep,” and he expressed genuine bewilderment about why we build nuclear weapons if we don’t use them.

  In the clinical assessment of such frightening characteristics, why would DT admire grotesque tyrants while never praising our own past presidents but boasting that he himself could be the greatest in history, “except maybe Abe Lincoln”? From childhood throughout life, we all look for role models to emulate, especially when trying to navigate new and unfamiliar life challenges and transitions. We select inspirational people, often from a different time or place, who guide us by their example of how to get i
t right. We search for what has been called an “ego ideal” who best personifies our own highest intentions.

  Whether or not his admiration for despots derives from an underlying delusional disorder, grandiose and paranoid in nature, DT is drawn to leaders who already fit his fundamental personality makeup. While anticipating the presidency, he looked for role models for how to preside, what that would look like, which leaders performed in ways that were inspiring. For Obama, it was Kennedy, Reagan, Dr. King, and Mandela. Bill Clinton turned to JFK; and Hillary to Eleanor Roosevelt. George W. Bush modeled his leadership after Jesus and Winston Churchill. For DT, it was Hussein, Jong-un, Assad, and Putin. Those guys know how to run a tight ship!

  Once elected, certainly DT, many argued, would moderate his words and actions in a so-called “soft pivot.” When a person is character-disordered or worse—especially one who always blames others, never apologizes or displays accountability, and who never for an instant believes there is anything wrong with himself—the only possibility for change is for him to become worse, not better. In fact, all DT’s despicable traits have been frighteningly exacerbated by his ascension to the presidency. He has tried to become more of the tyrant he wants to be, not less.

  And since becoming president, what has DT’s attitude been toward brutal dictators? He has congratulated President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines for dealing with his country’s drug problems in the “right way,” with the vigilante slaughter of nearly ten thousand people merely suspected of using or dealing drugs. In April, DT invited him to the White House, though Duterte has not yet come.

  He has expressed support and approval to President Recep Erdogan of Turkey, another invitee to the White House, who has engaged in a harsh, systematic purge of all opposition over the past year while arrogating dictatorial powers to himself alone over what had previously been a democratically elected government. During his Washington visit, Erdogan unleashed his bodyguard thugs to savagely repel peaceful protesters in front of the Turkish embassy.

  Despite their clashes and nuclear saber rattling, DT has referred to Kim Jong-un as a “smart cookie,” one whom he continues to admire for the insanely harsh methods Kim has used to maintain control over North Korea since his father’s death. Bizarrely, Kim, too, has been invited to the White House. Ditto President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi, who has viciously ruled Egypt with an iron fist since taking office in 2013.

  By contrast, shortly after his inauguration DT insulted Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of Australia in a phone call, reportedly slamming the phone down, and he childishly refused to shake the hand of German chancellor Angela Merkel, with live television cameras broadcasting the world over, during her April visit to the White House. Australia and Germany have long been among our closest allies. DT also stunningly shoved aside, while all the world watched, the prime minister of Montenegro, Dusko Marcovic, in his haste to get to the front row for a group photo op during a G20 conference.

  Far beyond his staggering affinity for monstrous tyrants, Trump, since coming to office, has railed against a critical free press; vilified millions of marching protesters as paid professionals; denigrated our federal appeals courts for thwarting his Muslim travel ban as unconstitutional; abruptly fired forty-six state attorneys general; and, shockingly, fired FBI director James Comey for what DT brazenly admitted was Comey’s ongoing investigation of potential collusion between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.

  The day following Comey’s abrupt departure, despite the mind-boggling optics, DT welcomed Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov to the White House, and allowed Russian film crews into the meeting, while blocking American press and photographers.

  Days later, reports circulated that DT had shared, without permission, highly classified information given to the United States by Israel, possibly leading to the deaths of embedded Israeli spies. DT reportedly did so in an impulsive and boastful way, seeming to try to impress the Russians. The event has rattled our allies, who now feel they cannot trust the United States with intelligence, and thus exposed and endangered the intelligence sources who provided the information. In addition, he reportedly bragged to the Russians about firing FBI director Comey, whom he called a “nut job,” and expressed relief that the Russia-Trump campaign collusion investigation was over. (It is not.)

  His honeymoon with Putin has already cooled, but what is DT capable of when the bromance ends? Given his mental instability, his thirst for adulation is rivaled only by his obsession for vengeance, even for the tiniest of slights. What happens when he discovers that Putin has been playing him like a fiddle or when Putin potentially humiliates him on the world stage? As Trump stated dozens of times during the primary, “As long as they’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to them. But if they get nasty and hit me, I’ll hit back much, much harder.”

  Checks and balances? Hey, nobody writes checks anymore. And you can’t see his balances until his IRS audit is completed!

  The Constitution? Believe me, those are rules, and rules are meant to be broken. Besides, rules are for losers, and DT’s a winner. He’s a winner!

  Like the despots he idolizes, DT intends to rule, not lead; to control, not compromise. The 2016 presidential election was not about traditional Republican-versus-Democratic views. Quite literally, it was about apocalypse, not politics.

  This can’t be happening? It can and it is. Jefferson’s warning has never been more relevant.

  Why “Crazy Like a Fox” versus “Crazy Like a Crazy” Really Matters

  DT’s penchant for brutality alone would be disconcerting. Yet, given the evidence of delusional disorder, we must ask why the distinction of “crazy like a fox” versus “crazy like a crazy” even matters. Although there are several areas in which DT’s particular version of personality disorder is vital to understand, none is more compelling or terrifying than his control of the nuclear codes. Surpassing the devastation of climate, health care, education, diplomacy, social services, freedom of speech, and liberty and justice for all, nothing is more incomprehensible than the now-plausible prospect of all-out nuclear war. For all but the few remaining survivors who witnessed the atomic bombing of Japan and its aftermath, we simply have nothing in our own experiences to imagine instantaneous annihilation. Quite literally, we are here one second and vaporized the next, along with everyone and everything.

  Because of this very real existential threat, it is absolutely urgent that we comprehend the titanic differences between a president who is merely “crazy like a fox” (shrewd, calculating, and convinced that the truth is spoken only when it happens to coincide with his purposes) versus what I have termed “crazy like a crazy” (possessing well-hidden, core grandiose and paranoid delusions that are disconnected from factual reality). To illustrate the differences, let’s look at two actual episodes from recent American history and consider how DT might act faced with similar circumstances.

  The 3:00 a.m. Call: President Carter

  In 1979, near the end of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, the nightmare phone call (Sagan 2012) came at 3:00 a.m., awakening Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, with the news that 250 Soviet nuclear missiles were bearing down on America. Knowing that he still had five or six minutes to act and that mistakes could cause false alarms, Brzezinski directed an aide to find further verification. The aide immediately called back, this time to report that 2,500 missiles were incoming. As Brzezinski prepared to call President Carter to advise a full-fledged counterattack, he elected not to wake his sleeping wife, reasoning that she would be dead in a matter of minutes. As he was reaching to phone the president, a third call came in announcing that the report of the incoming missiles was a false alarm caused by a computer glitch.

  It is extremely disconcerting to note that false alarms and accidents are by no means a rare occurrence.

  The Cuban Missile Crisis: President Kennedy

  Unlike the nightmarish false alarm of 1979, lasting five minutes, which few were aw
are of, the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 lasted thirteen white-knuckle days, played out before the entire world in a series of very real, terrifying actions and reactions between America and the USSR. At several junctures, the world was within an eyelash of all-out nuclear holocaust. The gist of the crisis entailed Russia’s intention to place nuclear missiles in Cuba in response to the United States’ having deployed nuclear sites close to Russia’s borders in Turkey and Italy. The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously pressured President John F. Kennedy to preemptively attack Cuban missile sites already in place, with the rationale that Russia would back down and not counterattack, especially given its much smaller nuclear capability. Fortunately, JFK had the equanimity to hold off and follow the advice of his civilian advisers, notably RFK and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

  Interviewed many years later, McNamara described leaving the White House late in the crisis. Marveling at a beautiful sunset, he thought that it might well be the last any of us would ever see. Government families in DC, as well as those from cities and towns everywhere, were fleeing to remote regions in the hope of surviving a nuclear attack.

  The standoff climaxed when Russia agreed to remove the existing missile sites from Cuba and to build no new ones in exchange for the United States’ public commitment never to invade Cuba. Saving face, JFK also secretly agreed to remove the missiles from Turkey and Italy. The world exhaled.

  * * *

  The “crazy like a fox” characterization of DT needs little explanation. The phrase describes someone who may appear “crazy” (e.g., erratic, irrational, impulsive) on the surface, but whose seemingly crazy external behavior is a cleverly designed strategy to mislead, distract, and deceive others into responding in precisely the manner that is secretly desired. This is indeed one aspect of DT’s behavior. Someone who is “crazy like a fox,” during that given moment, is actually the exact opposite of crazy.