The President Is Trapped

[homersapien 11,362]

More opinion from a site that specializes in critical thinkers:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/presidents-character-unequal-task/608743/

March 25, 2020

Peter Wehner

Contributing writer at The Atlantic and senior fellow at EPPC

 

For his entire adult life, and for his entire presidency, Donald Trump has created his own alternate reality, complete with his own alternate set of facts. He has shown himself to be erratic, impulsive, narcissistic, vindictive, cruel, mendacious, and devoid of empathy. None of that is new.

But we’re now entering the most dangerous phase of the Trump presidency. The pain and hardship that the United States is only beginning to experience stem from a crisis that the president is utterly unsuited to deal with, either intellectually or temperamentally. When things were going relatively well, the nation could more easily absorb the costs of Trump’s psychological and moral distortions and disfigurements. But those days are behind us. The coronavirus pandemic has created the conditions that can catalyze a destructive set of responses from an individual with Trump’s characterological defects and disordered personality.

We are now in the early phase of a medical and economic tempest unmatched in most of our lifetimes. There’s too much information we don’t have. We don’t know the full severity of the pandemic, or whether a state like New York is a harbinger or an outlier. But we have enough information to know this virus is rapidly transmissible and lethal.

The qualities we most need in a president during this crisis are calmness, wisdom, and reassurance; a command of the facts and the ability to communicate them well; and the capacity to think about the medium and long term while carefully weighing competing options and conflicting needs. We need a leader who can persuade the public to act in ways that are difficult but necessary, who can focus like a laser beam on a problem for a sustained period of time, and who will listen to—and, when necessary, defer to—experts who know far more than he does. We need a president who can draw the nation together rather than drive it apart, who excels at the intricate work of governing, and who works well with elected officials at every level. We need a chief executive whose judgment is not just sound, but exceptional.

There are some 325 million people in America, and it’s hard to think of more than a handful who are more lacking in these qualities than Donald Trump.

But we need to consider something else, which is that the coronavirus pandemic may lead to a rapid and even more worrisome psychological and emotional deterioration in the commander in chief. This is not a certainty, but it’s a possibility we need to be prepared for.

Here’s how this might play out; to some extent, it already has.

Let’s start with what we know. Someone with Trump’s psychological makeup, when faced with facts and events that are unpleasant, that he perceives as a threat to his self-image and public standing, simply denies them. We saw that repeatedly during the early part of the pandemic, when the president was giving false reassurance and spreading false information one day after another.

After a few days in which he was willing to acknowledge the scope and scale of this crisis—he declared himself a “wartime president”—he has now regressed to type, once again becoming a fountain of misinformation. At a press conference yesterday, he declared that he “would love to have the country opened up, and just raring to go, by Easter,” which is less than three weeks away, a goal that top epidemiologists and health professionals believe would be catastrophic.

“I think it’s possible. Why not?” he said with a shrug during a town hall hosted by Fox News later in the day. (Why Easter? He explained, “I just thought it was a beautiful time, a beautiful timeline.”) He said this as New York City’s case count is doubling every three days and the U.S. case count is now setting the pace for the world.

As one person who consults with the Trump White House on the coronavirus response put it to me, “He has chosen to imagine the worst is behind us when the worst is clearly ahead of us.”

After listening to the president’s nearly-two-hour briefing on Monday—in which, among other things, Trump declared, “If it were up to the doctors, they may say … ‘Let’s shut down the entire world.’ … This could create a much bigger problem than the problem that you start off with”—a former White House adviser who has worked on past pandemics told me, “This fool will bring the death of thousands needlessly. We have mobilized as a country to shut things down for a time, despite the difficulty. We can work our way back to a semblance of normality if we hold out and let the health system make it through the worst of it.” He added, “But now our own president is undoing all that work and preaching recklessness. Rather than lead us in taking on a difficult challenge, he is dragging us toward failure and suffering. Beyond belief.”

YES AND NO. The thing to understand about Donald Trump is that putting others before self is not something he can do, even temporarily. His attempts to convey facts that don’t serve his perceived self-interest or to express empathy are forced, scripted, and always short-lived, since such reactions are alien to him.

This president does not have the capacity to listen to, synthesize, and internalize information that does not immediately serve his greatest needs: praise, fealty, adoration. “He finds it intolerable when those things are missing,” a clinical psychologist told me. “Praise, applause, and accolades seem to calm him and boost his confidence. There’s no room for that now, and so he’s growing irritable and needing to create some way to get some positive attention.”

She added that the pandemic and its economic fallout “overwhelm Trump’s capacity to understand, are outside of his ability to internalize and process, and [are] beyond his frustration tolerance. He is neither curious nor interested; facts are tossed aside when inconvenient or [when they] contradict his parallel reality, and people are disposable unless they serve him in some way.”

IT’S USEFUL HERE to recall that Trump’s success as a politician has been built on his ability to impose his will and narrative on others, to use his experience on a reality-television show and his skill as a con man to shape public impressions in his favor, even—or perhaps, especially—if those impressions are at odds with reality. He convinced a good chunk of the country that he is a wildly successful businessman and knows more about campaign finance, the Islamic State, the courts, the visa system, trade, taxes, the debt, renewable energy, infrastructure, borders, and drones than anyone else.

But in this instance, Trump isn’t facing a political problem he can easily spin his way out of. He’s facing a lethal virus. It doesn’t give a damn what Donald Trump thinks of it or tweets about it. Spin and lies about COVID-19, including that it will soon magically disappear, as Trump claimed it would, don’t work. In fact, they have the opposite effect. Misinformation will cause the virus to increase its deadly spread.

So as the crisis deepens—as the body count increases, hospitals are overwhelmed, and the economy contracts, perhaps dramatically—it’s reasonable to assume that the president will reach for the tools he has used throughout his life: duplicity and denial. He will not allow facts that are at odds with his narrative to pierce his magnetic field of deception.

But what happens to Trump psychologically and emotionally when things don’t turn around in the time period he wants? What happens if the tricks that have allowed him to walk away from scandal after scandal don’t work quite so well, if the doors of escape are bolted shut, and if it dawns on even some of his supporters—people who will watch family members, friends, and neighbors contract the disease, some number of whom will die—that no matter what Trump says, he can’t alter this epidemiological reality?

All of this would likely enrage him, and feed his paranoia.

As the health-care and economic crises worsen, Trump’s hallmarks will be even more fully on display. The president will create new scapegoats. He’ll blame governors for whatever bad news befalls their states. He’ll berate reporters who ask questions that portray him in a less-than-favorable light. He’ll demand even more cultlike coverage from outlets such as Fox News. Because he doesn’t tolerate relationships that are characterized by disagreement or absence of obeisance, before long we’ll see key people removed or silenced when they try to counter a Trump-centered narrative. He’ll try to find shiny objects to divert our attention from his failures.

All of these things are from a playbook the president has used a thousand times. Perhaps they’ll succeed again. But there’s something distinct about this moment, compared with every other moment in the Trump presidency, that could prove to be utterly disorienting and unsettling for the president. Hush-money payments won’t make COVID-19 go away. He cannot distract people from the global pandemic. He can’t wait it out until the next news cycle, because the next news cycle will also be about the pandemic. He can’t easily create another narrative, because he is often sharing the stage with scientists who will not lie on his behalf.

The president will try to blame someone else—but in this case the “someone else” is a virus, not a Mexican immigrant or a reporter with a disability, not a Muslim or a Clinton, not a dead war hero or a family of a fallen soldier, not a special counsel or an NFL player who kneels for the national anthem. He will try to use this crisis to pit one party against the other—but the virus will kill both Republicans and Democrats. He will try to create an alternate story to distract people from an inconvenient truth—but in this case, the public is too afraid, the story is too big, and the carnage will be too great to be distracted from it.

America will make it to the other side of this crisis, as it has after every other crisis. But the struggle will be a good deal harder, and the human cost a good deal higher, because we elected as president a man who is so damaged and so broken in so many ways.

Peter Wehner is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and Egan visiting professor at Duke University. He writes widely on political, cultural, religious, and national-security issues, and he is the author of The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump.

[jj3jordan 2,050]

Obviously you are no Trump fan. You have a recommendation?

[Grumps 3,704]

Critical thinkers don't start articles that way.

[Mikey 16,575]

19 hours ago, homersapien said:

But we’re now entering the most dangerous phase of the Trump presidency.

That's some radical speculation. With five more years remaining in the Trump presidency, who knows what will be the most dangerous phase? Only the hindsight available to history can determine that.

[alexava 6,973]

1 hour ago, Mikey said:

That's some radical speculation. With five more years remaining in the Trump presidency, who knows what will be the most dangerous phase? Only the hindsight available to history can determine that.

Within five years I’m betting Amy Klobuchar will be the president. 

[Grumps 3,704]

12 minutes ago, alexava said:

Within five years I’m betting Amy Klobuchar will be the president. 

Just curious as to how you come up with that. Biden picks Klobuchar as his VP pick and then he wins and dies or becomes incapacitated? I'd rather her be POTUS than Biden.

As an aside, do you think the COVID-19 crisis is helping Biden? It seems that he is able to lay low and not scare people right now, which may be good for his candidacy. Thoughts?

[I_M4_AU 7,789]

1 hour ago, Mikey said:

Only the hindsight available to history can determine that.

This greatly depends on who writes the history.  Hopefully not our current press corps

[alexava 6,973]

1 hour ago, Grumps said:

Just curious as to how you come up with that. Biden picks Klobuchar as his VP pick and then he wins and dies or becomes incapacitated? I'd rather her be POTUS than Biden.

As an aside, do you think the COVID-19 crisis is helping Biden? It seems that he is able to lay low and not scare people right now, which may be good for his candidacy. Thoughts?

Yes and yes.  I don’t think Biden will get out of the first term. So those swing states will be voting against trump and for the VP. Remember there are only 6or 7 states that have any real bearing on the presidential election. It doesn’t matter how much our shitgibbons love trump. 

[I_M4_AU 7,789]

14 minutes ago, alexava said:

Yes and yes.  I don’t think Biden will get out of the first term. So those swing states will be voting against trump and for the VP. Remember there are only 6or 7 states that have any real bearing on the presidential election. It doesn’t matter how much our shitgibbons love trump. 

What is your term for someone who votes for an unqualified Presidential candidate that will not live out his term or be declared mentally incompetent within those 4 years?  

[alexava 6,973]

Just now, I_M4_AU said:

What is your term for someone who votes for an unqualified Presidential candidate that will not live out his term or be declared mentally incompetent within those 4 years?  

A trump fan. 

[I_M4_AU 7,789]

1 minute ago, alexava said:

A trump fan. 

I doubt a Trump fan would vote for someone like that, but you knew who I was talking about.

[alexava 6,973]

4 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

I doubt a Trump fan would vote for someone like that, but you knew who I was talking about.

Trump showed mental and social incompetence for years and certainly was and is unqualified. I don’t think he has slid back any but he’s nearly as old as Joe. I wouldn’t argue Joe is slipping. Hence, people are voting for Amy,or whoever gets the nod as vp. My vote won’t matter. I’m in Alabama. I don’t know where you live but it’s likely yours won’t either. A very small peace of the country is where it all hinges. 

[I_M4_AU 7,789]

25 minutes ago, alexava said:

Trump showed mental and social incompetence for years and certainly was and is unqualified. I don’t think he has slid back any but he’s nearly as old as Joe. I wouldn’t argue Joe is slipping. Hence, people are voting for Amy,or whoever gets the nod as vp. My vote won’t matter. I’m in Alabama. I don’t know where you live but it’s likely yours won’t either. A very small peace of the country is where it all hinges. 

This election will parallel the last election where one candidate is hated and the other is the one people will *settle on*. If you are a shitgibbons for voting for Trump in 2016, what will be your label for voting for Biden this time around?

We have slipped into voting for the lesser of two evils.  I’m not sure when we will break this trend.

[homersapien 11,362]

7 hours ago, Grumps said:

Critical thinkers don't start articles that way.

Why not?

Perhaps you are not familiar with "The Atlantic"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic

[alexava 6,973]

8 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

This election will parallel the last election where one candidate is hated and the other is the one people will *settle on*. If you are a shitgibbons for voting for Trump in 2016, what will be your label for voting for Biden this time around?

We have slipped into voting for the lesser of two evils.  I’m not sure when we will break this trend.

Agreed 

[homersapien 11,362]

21 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

This election will parallel the last election where one candidate is hated and the other is the one people will *settle on*. If you are a shitgibbons for voting for Trump in 2016, what will be your label for voting for Biden this time around?

We have slipped into voting for the lesser of two evils.  I’m not sure when we will break this trend.

Biden with all his faults, is not in the same class as the incompetent, narcisistic psychopath that is Trump.  Not even close.

Trump’s narcissism has never been more dangerous

No one could make up a character as narcissistic and lacking in human empathy as President Trump. Trump’s own words make the point better than any analysis or commentary:

“President Trump is a ratings hit. Since reviving the daily White House briefing Mr. Trump and his coronavirus updates have attracted an average audience of 8.5 million on cable news, roughly the viewership of the season finale of ‘The Bachelor.’ Numbers are continuing to rise...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2020

More than 2,400 Americans had died by Sunday. Governors around the country are screaming for more assistance from the federal government. Trump? He obsesses over ratings. It is hard to comprehend how indifferent he is to human suffering.

His inanities did not stop. Later on Sunday, this is what he was worrying about:

I am a great friend and admirer of the Queen & the United Kingdom. It was reported that Harry and Meghan, who left the Kingdom, would reside permanently in Canada. Now they have left Canada for the U.S. however, the U.S. will not pay for their security protection. They must pay!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2020

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hit the nail on the head. “Well, first of all, let me just say how sad it is that, even since the President’s signing of the bill, the number of deaths reported has doubled from 1,000 to 2,000 in our country,” she said in a CNN “State of the Union” interview (before Trump’s tweet). “This is such a very, very sad time for us. So, we should be taking every precaution. What the president — his denial at the beginning was deadly. His delaying of getting equipment to where — it continues — his delay in getting equipment to where it’s needed is deadly.” She added that "as the president fiddles, people are dying. And we have to — we just have to take every precaution.” Trump’s sloth prevents proactive planning, and his utterances send everyone into a tizzy (e.g., a “quarantine” for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut), distracting the public and state and local officials.

As they have from the beginning, governors are laser-focused on solving equipment shortages and building up hospital capacity. Appearing together on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the Michigan and Louisiana governors made their plea:

GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER: Our numbers are climbing exponentially. We knew it was a matter of time, not if COVID-19 would come to Michigan. We took aggressive measures. We’ve been on the front end of aggressive measures that states have been taking, but we see this astronomical rise. We’ve got hospitals that are already at capacity. We’re running out of PPE as well. I’m grateful we got a shipment from FEMA yesterday for 112,000 N95 masks, but, you know, we’re going to be in dire straits again in a matter of days. And so we’re keeping up the pressure and working 24/7 at the state level. . . .

GOV. JOHN BEL EDWARDS: Well, we have the coronavirus now in cases in 56 of our 64 parishes. So while the hot spot is down around New Orleans, it is statewide. We know that if we don’t flatten the curve, we’re on a trajectory currently to exceed our capacity in the New Orleans area for ventilators by about April the 4th, and all beds available in hospitals by about April the 10th. So we’re doing everything we can to surge capacity. It is very difficult. We did get some PPE yesterday, like Governor Whitmer said. We’ve already allocated about 100,000 masks just yesterday to the hospitals. Ventilators are the short-term really big pressing issue that we’re trying to solve for — very difficult because every state is looking for these. There are only so many to be had. And so we’re trying to get the, the public to slow the spread by following the mitigation measures while we ramp up our medical capacity. This is a very challenging public health emergency.

Whitmer in particular sounded on CNN as though she is juggling multiple balls, all the while trying not to crash into Trump:

You know, I don’t have energy to respond to every slight. I — what I’m trying to do is work well with the federal government. And I will tell you this. There are people from the White House on down who are working 24/7, just like we are at the states. We’re all stressed, because we have people that are dying right now. I need assistance and I need partnership. And so that’s what we’re starting to see out of the feds. We’re grateful for it. But there’s so much more work to.

There is a growing consensus that the country will need a fourth relief package. Pelosi on CNN argued Sunday that money to the states was “just a down payment.” She added that a new bill would need to address the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, pension protection, “more on family medical leave,” coverage of the cost of covid-19 treatment and “address what happened to the District of Columbia, which was really cruel, that they called it a territory, and, hence, they got several hundred million dollars less in funding.” Republicans are already grumbling about the cost. In any other presidency, the chief executive would call Congress back to work, propose a follow-on package and address the concerns governors raise repeatedly. Not this president. He’s obsessed with ratings. Congress likely will not return to Washington for several weeks. The death toll will rise, the economic hardship will deepen, and the governors’ logistical problems will become insoluble.

Increasingly, the country seems to operate on two tracks. On one, groveling courtiers flatter Trump, try to soften his impulsive pronouncements and scramble to catch up after months of delay. As they cater to the president, exploring patently absurd ideas, they have less attention to devote to real issues that only the federal government can address. On the other track, governors have no time for bowing and scraping; they are dealing hands-on with hundreds of logistical challenges, made worse by the absence of coordinated purchasing and by lack of a comprehensive testing program. Thank goodness governors are actually doing their jobs, which increasingly entail navigating around Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/30/trumps-narcissism-has-never-been-more-dangerous/

[I_M4_AU 7,789]

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

22 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

 

Biden with all his faults, is not in the same class as the incompetent, narcisistic psychopath that is Trump.  Not even close.

How do you know?  Biden has never been the President and he is not the same he has been earlier in his career.  I understand you will vote for him (or whoever he pick as the VP), but we will not know until he is put in charge.

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

22 hours ago, homersapien said:

Why not?

Perhaps you are not familiar with "The Atlantic"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic

I know this is irrelevant, but I must say that I appreciate The Atlantic. I do not always agree with the opinions espoused; however, the literary competence of its contributors is second to none. Lawyers are known for their lack of an appealing prose style. One obvious way to remedy that problem - according to a former SCOTUS justice - is to start reading good prose. The Atlantic was highly recommended.   

[homersapien 11,362]

1 hour ago, NolaAuTiger said:

I know this is irrelevant, but I must say that I appreciate The Atlantic. I do not always agree with the opinions espoused; however, the literary competence of its contributors is second to none. Lawyers are known for their lack of an appealing prose style. One obvious way to remedy that problem - according to a former SCOTUS justice - is to start reading good prose. The Atlantic was highly recommended.   

I also suggest you get a copy of "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White. 

It's a small volume, easy to digest and it will most definitely improve your writing. (I used to give a copy to everyone I hired.  And trust me, as a generalized statement, scientists and engineers are far worse writers than lawyers.)

I took "Business and Professional Writing" at Auburn which helped, but internalizing the guidelines in Strunk and White probably had more impact. 

[homersapien 11,362]

3 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

How do you know?  Biden has never been the President and he is not the same he has been earlier in his career.  I understand you will vote for him (or whoever he pick as the VP), but we will not know until he is put in charge.

Anyone who has studied Trump's history - not to mention his psychology - would know.

Trump is a narcissistic con man with no empathy (i.e.: a psychopath).  Biden is not.

 

[Grumps 3,704]

On 3/29/2020 at 3:25 PM, homersapien said:

Why not?

Perhaps you are not familiar with "The Atlantic"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic

"For his entire adult life, and for his entire presidency, Donald Trump has created his own alternate reality, complete with his own alternate set of facts. He has shown himself to be erratic, impulsive, narcissistic, vindictive, cruel, mendacious, and devoid of empathy. None of that is new."

So Trump really created his own alternate reality? Do you have any evidence of it? Has everyone you disagree with created their own alternate reality as well? Even if the opening paragraph is true, there is NOTHING in this that suggests anything but a hit piece. A well-written article should make people want to read the author's opinion. I try to avoid hate. It is not good for most people.

[homersapien 11,362]

14 hours ago, Grumps said:

"For his entire adult life, and for his entire presidency, Donald Trump has created his own alternate reality, complete with his own alternate set of facts. He has shown himself to be erratic, impulsive, narcissistic, vindictive, cruel, mendacious, and devoid of empathy. None of that is new."

1) So Trump really created his own alternate reality?  Yes.  Trump has always lived in his own reality - just like everyone else, including psychopaths.

2) Do you have any evidence of it?  Research his life (history).

3)Has everyone you disagree with created their own alternate reality as well?  That's an interesting question. Logically,  I would say "yes". Of course, the real question would be how far that reality is from actual reality.

Even if the opening paragraph is true, there is NOTHING in this that suggests anything but a hit piece. A well-written article should make people want to read the author's opinion. I try to avoid hate. It is not good for most people. Don't confuse objective - or even opinionated - analysis of reality with "hate".  You don't want to "avoid" information or opinion.

 

[McLoofus 35,182]

11 hours ago, Grumps said:

"For his entire adult life, and for his entire presidency, Donald Trump has created his own alternate reality, complete with his own alternate set of facts. He has shown himself to be erratic, impulsive, narcissistic, vindictive, cruel, mendacious, and devoid of empathy. None of that is new."

So Trump really created his own alternate reality? Do you have any evidence of it? Has everyone you disagree with created their own alternate reality as well? Even if the opening paragraph is true, there is NOTHING in this that suggests anything but a hit piece. A well-written article should make people want to read the author's opinion. I try to avoid hate. It is not good for most people.

Trump's pathological lying is not a construct of opinion or political leaning. Even the "what he really meant was" industry that has spun up in his wake doesn't try to argue that the things he says are factually accurate. 

[AUFAN78 3,894]

On 3/29/2020 at 12:06 PM, alexava said:

It doesn’t matter how much our shitgibbons love trump. 

The only shitgibbons I know here are Joe Biden supporters. How about you Alex?

[alexava 6,973]

4 hours ago, AUFAN78 said:

The only shitgibbons I know here are Joe Biden supporters. How about you Alex?

I like Joe Biden in the same sense as I like Alabama’s opponents for one Saturday in the fall. Don’t deny your identity. You are a shitgibbon. Be proud.