This is truly a mental health pandemic. At 73 my bones are too brittle for rally’s, but my ssi can afford a small monthly contribution to ACLU and my Congresswoman.
The problem with Trump is that he's combination of so many fatalistic traits. If person has these traits in scarcity or even in moderation, they are manageable. But Trump is the extreme case.
Stupidity - Trump is an imbecile of the highest order. A thoroughly incompetent person with no understanding of world affairs.
Arrogance - A stupid person can be managed if his stupidity can be contained. But Trump is super arrogant and influenced by no one.
Delusional - We don't know how Trump gets his erratic stupid ideas. But once these ideas gets established in his brain, he can't let them go (his latest delusion is that country's running trade surplus with US are taking advantage of US). A stupid and arrogant person can be managed if he can at least learn from his mistakes & has some grounding in reality. Trump can never ever learn from his mistakes.
Reality TV star & master gaslighter - A stupid, arrogant and delusional person becomes a lot more dangerous if he can spread his delusions in society. The only skill of Trump is his reality TV persona through which he makes fool of society at grand scale & spread his mental illness worldwide.
No restraints - A stupid, arrogant, delusional person can still be dealt with if he has some inner restraints. But Trump has no restraints. If he could become king of the world, he would go for it. If he could become king of the universe, he would go for that. Example, Trump now wants to be a Pope which he may see a superior position than Presidency due to worldwide Christian influence.
The worst mistake was giving total immunity to such person. Trump is a kind of person who cannot be cured, reformed or controlled. Such kind of people should either be given capital punishment or life imprisonment from where he can never interact with society. Trump deserved it but US institutions, courts and justice system chose to put this person in White House.
Question the mental stability & competence of Senate, politicians and all lobbying groups who helped put these Justices into Supreme court. This is a systemic failure which goes beyond just these corrupted justices.
The Louis XIV-mimicking White House decor becomes seamless with the royalist ostentation of Mar-a-Lago decor for Trump, just as objective reality becomes indistinguishable in his mind from the subjective delusion he mistakes for it.
To me, the last question of the interview stands out as the most important. Women's rights are human rights; equality is desired and required. What is paramount in that enforced push toward universal respect is to integrate what one associates with women as 'feminine qualities' (e.g., compassion, mutual support, and nurtured growth) into a global politics. 😇🙏🏾😇
These qualities may not be intrinsically feminine; I would not know since I lack the knowledge. Yet they are deemed by many to be; more importantly, these qualities are overlooked, especially in terms of governance and the migration away from nation-states and toward a global community based on collective values rather than individual ambition and coercion.⚖️😇⚖️
Thank you, Dr. Lee, for posting that insightful interview with sagacious psychiatrist Dr. Judith Herman. What came through especially clearly is the psychodynamic irony of how a grandiose malignant narcissist such as Trump pushes his power aggrandizement -- and its objective reality denialism -- so far that, like all fascists, he inadvertently galvanizes a political resistance or ‘psychological jiu-jitsu’ that otherwise flounders. As you know, the ancient Greek tragedians well understood this standardly ineluctable psychodynamic in which the hubristic protagonist, often a king or leader, exceeds the boundaries of rational and sane power-aggrandizing to engage in ever more extreme behavior that precipitates his reversal of fortune and ultimate downfall and/or demise. We are all sitting in the amphitheater watching and living the modern incarnation of the moral and psychological apercus of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.
Pride goeth before the Fall. Hubris --eventually will turn on itself, bringing down the one who has lost his heart, his humility, his humanity, his innocence.
The problem is Creon et al. headed city-states.🤔Trump is sitting on top of up to five thousand nuclear weapons and the most powerful war machine in history.😱He could seek global dominance and end up with a world-empire of ashes.😱The psychological flaws are the same, but only to an extent.😵Oedipus, MacBeth et al. usually had more going for them.💡The differ, crucial for us, is the consequence of such hubristic imbalance.🤢
Back when drumpf was playing the big man in NYC, I was characterizing intimate partner violence and abuse as "domestic terror". Years later, I found evidence, language and validation in Judith Herman's book, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror.
With that, she informed my life and aided my personal recovery. I have never forgotten it or her, often recommending the book since then. Knowledge is power, as is exercising it by speaking out.
Thank you for highlighting Herman's recent interview in Ms Magazine, affirming what I and others have been saying about drumpf in office, let alone in his business and personal lives such as they are.
So, here we are. A world-class case study in the White House, again. With the full power of the office behind him and seemingly no constraints. However, we do not have to be his/their targets...their victims this time around. We know and others are slowly coming to understand the situation. We can give voice to and apply our own power because he has increasingly obvious, serious personal limitations.
Congress has the power to stop the man. To curtail much of the damage. We have the power to pressure Congress.
Dr. Lee is on target and this article is on target. The main motivation behind maniacal synchronization of lunatic practices in power politics and in society is a misguided attempt, by certain dominant personality types, to evade the consequences of personal and systemic violence. Persons whose violence levels shoot above the mananageable norms exert all efforts to entrap everyone else into "the same" hyperviolent behaviours, vainly hoping thereby to deflect, evade and elude all accountability and consequences. This automatically makes their own conditions and situations much worse and inflicts much damage on unsuspecting persons, including abuse, violence, and relationship and family breakdown. Society has the means to enforce universal transparency in society, assisted by ethically used, universal candid camera surveillance, for the protection and benefit of individuals and populations. G-d bless!
Thank you, Dr. Lee, for more thought-stimulating reading, while I am proceeding with APE & ILE for the next several months, around institutional breaks and commitments, probably completing the practical course requirements next year, and currently completing some companion course research requirements earlier. I appear to be still on course to complete the MPH: NUWL in 2026/2027, and I have restructured my professional and academic schedule to enable heightened weekly productivity for MPH completion and for continuing through the next level, G-d blessing. Two publications that help keep me academically sharp, and which form part of my continuous, weekly reading and response activities, are your valuable newsletter and a wide spectrum Seventh-day Adventist publication.
History has shown that things like the Trump/MAGA-Republican cult/gangster mob spiral beyond toleration by humanity. I sincerely hope that it can be topped without much damage. But if the pattern holds, there will likely be a terrible reckoning.
So all the progressive men were in exile or in jail...or...to be blunt...dead. Men, wem, them, whoever stands in the way of the heard is at risk of trampling. Gender isn't the fundamental difference, individuation is. You stand up to the heard, even with your few dozen colleagues results in your being targeted. Who started the stampede? Fox and fiends.
Worst is yet to come. Donald "The Beast" Trump is building a wall once again. Colossal tariff wall that is the beginning of the end for the system of down. At first the beast will pull the plug out of the global economy. The worst financial crisis of human history will pull a swarm of the banks underwater and the bank run begins. Then the beast will collapse a mountain of debt shattering the backbone of the monetary system causing a systemic risk to realize. Finally the beast will cast American citizens into a system slavery under the name of Ronald Wilson Reagan, just to "honor his legacy" count the number. After the destruction a new world order will be established in the US. And the Golden Age begins from the ruins of the world wide collapse. All of the system slaves will love it. No more cash - just digital transactions. No more traditional criminal activity. No more tax evasion. No more transactions without the "all seeing eye". Outcasts will hate the world without freedom, hope and privacy. To cover up the mess and distract the public by smoke and mirrors, the beast will engage in a war with Iran. Lies and deceit, corruption and decay, dancing on the graves will continue. Until; Black hole sun, won't you come, won't you come... I want to play a game. Time has come to opt out of the empire of filth. Live or die...
The process of appointment of Pope is underway. Pope Francis was a hard worker right until end of life. Despite my few complaints about him, his competence and integrity cannot be doubted.
I am no religious person by any means, not even spiritual because of certain reasons. Maybe some day i will elaborate in my blog why. But even still, i think we need people like Bandy Lee to be appointed cardinal in America in these dark times. We need it to fight against Christian nationalism and evangelical movement which has sold its soul to serve Trump. The takeover of Christian faith by Donald Trump is another of obscenities happening in America. We need 'people of faith' like Bandy Lee in religious institutions.
This is truly a mental health pandemic. At 73 my bones are too brittle for rally’s, but my ssi can afford a small monthly contribution to ACLU and my Congresswoman.
Well done, good and faithful savante!😇You set an example for me, Linda;⚖️thank you.🤝🏻
The problem with Trump is that he's combination of so many fatalistic traits. If person has these traits in scarcity or even in moderation, they are manageable. But Trump is the extreme case.
Stupidity - Trump is an imbecile of the highest order. A thoroughly incompetent person with no understanding of world affairs.
Arrogance - A stupid person can be managed if his stupidity can be contained. But Trump is super arrogant and influenced by no one.
Delusional - We don't know how Trump gets his erratic stupid ideas. But once these ideas gets established in his brain, he can't let them go (his latest delusion is that country's running trade surplus with US are taking advantage of US). A stupid and arrogant person can be managed if he can at least learn from his mistakes & has some grounding in reality. Trump can never ever learn from his mistakes.
Reality TV star & master gaslighter - A stupid, arrogant and delusional person becomes a lot more dangerous if he can spread his delusions in society. The only skill of Trump is his reality TV persona through which he makes fool of society at grand scale & spread his mental illness worldwide.
No restraints - A stupid, arrogant, delusional person can still be dealt with if he has some inner restraints. But Trump has no restraints. If he could become king of the world, he would go for it. If he could become king of the universe, he would go for that. Example, Trump now wants to be a Pope which he may see a superior position than Presidency due to worldwide Christian influence.
The worst mistake was giving total immunity to such person. Trump is a kind of person who cannot be cured, reformed or controlled. Such kind of people should either be given capital punishment or life imprisonment from where he can never interact with society. Trump deserved it but US institutions, courts and justice system chose to put this person in White House.
We really need to question the mental stability and cognitive competence of the SCOTUS Justices who conferred that immunity on Trump. Insane!
Question the mental stability & competence of Senate, politicians and all lobbying groups who helped put these Justices into Supreme court. This is a systemic failure which goes beyond just these corrupted justices.
Right you are, Sanjeev.
Recall how they installed Kavanaugh into SCOTUS. Dr Lee tried to oppose it & consequently became victim of toxic harassment & intimidation.
Dr Lee, have you noticed how Trump is redecorating White House with gold ornaments and articles? He's making WH like a palace as if he's a King.
This is interesting article from 2016.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/photos/2016/03/donald-trump-mansions-saddam-hussein-palaces?srsltid=AfmBOop_T8XhXXSPsmbVb282E093Q3G1c3Bfh92_Xuw9HedrYcQ4dDvI
The Louis XIV-mimicking White House decor becomes seamless with the royalist ostentation of Mar-a-Lago decor for Trump, just as objective reality becomes indistinguishable in his mind from the subjective delusion he mistakes for it.
¡Jeez, talk about tacky, Sanjeev!🤢¿Is virtual barfing a breach of etiquette?😰
¿Is Trump so hollow inside that making everything around him gold is the way he boosts his status?😰
Obsession with gold paraphernalia is reflection of predatory and autocratic mindset. This is prevalent among predatory cultures and rulers.
Thank you for the insight, good man.🙂Tuition check is in the mail.😉
To me, the last question of the interview stands out as the most important. Women's rights are human rights; equality is desired and required. What is paramount in that enforced push toward universal respect is to integrate what one associates with women as 'feminine qualities' (e.g., compassion, mutual support, and nurtured growth) into a global politics. 😇🙏🏾😇
These qualities may not be intrinsically feminine; I would not know since I lack the knowledge. Yet they are deemed by many to be; more importantly, these qualities are overlooked, especially in terms of governance and the migration away from nation-states and toward a global community based on collective values rather than individual ambition and coercion.⚖️😇⚖️
Thank you, Dr. Lee, for posting that insightful interview with sagacious psychiatrist Dr. Judith Herman. What came through especially clearly is the psychodynamic irony of how a grandiose malignant narcissist such as Trump pushes his power aggrandizement -- and its objective reality denialism -- so far that, like all fascists, he inadvertently galvanizes a political resistance or ‘psychological jiu-jitsu’ that otherwise flounders. As you know, the ancient Greek tragedians well understood this standardly ineluctable psychodynamic in which the hubristic protagonist, often a king or leader, exceeds the boundaries of rational and sane power-aggrandizing to engage in ever more extreme behavior that precipitates his reversal of fortune and ultimate downfall and/or demise. We are all sitting in the amphitheater watching and living the modern incarnation of the moral and psychological apercus of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.
Pride goeth before the Fall. Hubris --eventually will turn on itself, bringing down the one who has lost his heart, his humility, his humanity, his innocence.
The problem is Creon et al. headed city-states.🤔Trump is sitting on top of up to five thousand nuclear weapons and the most powerful war machine in history.😱He could seek global dominance and end up with a world-empire of ashes.😱The psychological flaws are the same, but only to an extent.😵Oedipus, MacBeth et al. usually had more going for them.💡The differ, crucial for us, is the consequence of such hubristic imbalance.🤢
Back when drumpf was playing the big man in NYC, I was characterizing intimate partner violence and abuse as "domestic terror". Years later, I found evidence, language and validation in Judith Herman's book, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror.
With that, she informed my life and aided my personal recovery. I have never forgotten it or her, often recommending the book since then. Knowledge is power, as is exercising it by speaking out.
Thank you for highlighting Herman's recent interview in Ms Magazine, affirming what I and others have been saying about drumpf in office, let alone in his business and personal lives such as they are.
So, here we are. A world-class case study in the White House, again. With the full power of the office behind him and seemingly no constraints. However, we do not have to be his/their targets...their victims this time around. We know and others are slowly coming to understand the situation. We can give voice to and apply our own power because he has increasingly obvious, serious personal limitations.
Congress has the power to stop the man. To curtail much of the damage. We have the power to pressure Congress.
Thank you for inspiring that, Dr. Lee.
Thank you for a moving account, Karen, of your transcendin g a dark part of your life into a position of strength through compassion. 💔😢🤔⚖️✌🏼
Dr. Lee is on target and this article is on target. The main motivation behind maniacal synchronization of lunatic practices in power politics and in society is a misguided attempt, by certain dominant personality types, to evade the consequences of personal and systemic violence. Persons whose violence levels shoot above the mananageable norms exert all efforts to entrap everyone else into "the same" hyperviolent behaviours, vainly hoping thereby to deflect, evade and elude all accountability and consequences. This automatically makes their own conditions and situations much worse and inflicts much damage on unsuspecting persons, including abuse, violence, and relationship and family breakdown. Society has the means to enforce universal transparency in society, assisted by ethically used, universal candid camera surveillance, for the protection and benefit of individuals and populations. G-d bless!
Thank you, John, for a carefully argued, well thought out comment.🤝🏻Has me chewing the cud.🤔
Thank you for your positive, encouraging response, Ned, and for your insights in your comments.
Thank you, Dr. Lee, for more thought-stimulating reading, while I am proceeding with APE & ILE for the next several months, around institutional breaks and commitments, probably completing the practical course requirements next year, and currently completing some companion course research requirements earlier. I appear to be still on course to complete the MPH: NUWL in 2026/2027, and I have restructured my professional and academic schedule to enable heightened weekly productivity for MPH completion and for continuing through the next level, G-d blessing. Two publications that help keep me academically sharp, and which form part of my continuous, weekly reading and response activities, are your valuable newsletter and a wide spectrum Seventh-day Adventist publication.
Good luck in your studies, good man. ✍️💡✌🏼⚖️🙏🏾
Thank you, Ned McDoodle. I'll need it! God bless you, too!
You are welcome.
History has shown that things like the Trump/MAGA-Republican cult/gangster mob spiral beyond toleration by humanity. I sincerely hope that it can be topped without much damage. But if the pattern holds, there will likely be a terrible reckoning.
That is my fear, too. Trump's collapse of hubris may prove to be a reckoning for the rest of us. 😱🤬💔
Thank you!
So all the progressive men were in exile or in jail...or...to be blunt...dead. Men, wem, them, whoever stands in the way of the heard is at risk of trampling. Gender isn't the fundamental difference, individuation is. You stand up to the heard, even with your few dozen colleagues results in your being targeted. Who started the stampede? Fox and fiends.
Worst is yet to come. Donald "The Beast" Trump is building a wall once again. Colossal tariff wall that is the beginning of the end for the system of down. At first the beast will pull the plug out of the global economy. The worst financial crisis of human history will pull a swarm of the banks underwater and the bank run begins. Then the beast will collapse a mountain of debt shattering the backbone of the monetary system causing a systemic risk to realize. Finally the beast will cast American citizens into a system slavery under the name of Ronald Wilson Reagan, just to "honor his legacy" count the number. After the destruction a new world order will be established in the US. And the Golden Age begins from the ruins of the world wide collapse. All of the system slaves will love it. No more cash - just digital transactions. No more traditional criminal activity. No more tax evasion. No more transactions without the "all seeing eye". Outcasts will hate the world without freedom, hope and privacy. To cover up the mess and distract the public by smoke and mirrors, the beast will engage in a war with Iran. Lies and deceit, corruption and decay, dancing on the graves will continue. Until; Black hole sun, won't you come, won't you come... I want to play a game. Time has come to opt out of the empire of filth. Live or die...
The process of appointment of Pope is underway. Pope Francis was a hard worker right until end of life. Despite my few complaints about him, his competence and integrity cannot be doubted.
I am no religious person by any means, not even spiritual because of certain reasons. Maybe some day i will elaborate in my blog why. But even still, i think we need people like Bandy Lee to be appointed cardinal in America in these dark times. We need it to fight against Christian nationalism and evangelical movement which has sold its soul to serve Trump. The takeover of Christian faith by Donald Trump is another of obscenities happening in America. We need 'people of faith' like Bandy Lee in religious institutions.
CD w we