Psychologists are not typically supposed to clinically evaluate people from afar, but Donald Trump has toxically injected himself so deeply into America’s daily consciousness with ludicrous egomania that it’s impossible even for amateur psychologists to inaccurately evaluate Trump’s lead-soaked, dumb, little brain based on his public, sociopathic behavior:
When he drew on the hurricane map with a Sharpie: Like all narcissistic authoritarians, his sense of worth is intrinsically dependent on an exhaustively manufactured façade of never being wrong about anything, which leads to an omnipresent fury to lash back at anyone, anywhere, who points out his flubs and mistakes. This was the smallest thing on which to just admit a mistake and then let it go, forever, but he couldn’t.
The constant lying about crowd sizes: His narcissism requires delusions of adorational grandeur. Any hint that he’s not a supernaturally talented genius at everything is an existential wound to his ego for which disproportionate vengeance is the only remedy.
The Obama birth certificate conspiracy peddling: He’s racist, and there’s really no reason to pretend otherwise. He was sued by the government for racist housing practices in the 70s, he bought a whole page ad demanding the death penalty for innocent Black kids in the 80s, he fucked over Native American casinos in the 90s, he has a history of never hiring Black people in his businesses and not wanting Black winners on The Apprentice in the 00’s, and he went all in on Birtherism in the 2010s. And then he became president, and administered one of the most belligerently racist presidencies in US history, which has some strong competition. His entire adult life has been dogged by credible accusations of racism. At the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner that so infamously enraged Trump, Seth Meyers told the joke, “Donald Trump said recently he has a great relationship with the blacks, but unless the Blacks are a family of white people, I bet he is mistaken,” which is funny because everyone knows he’s racist. Self-identifying racists often admit that’s why they like him. So don’t take it from me, an amateur psychologist evaluating Donald Trump unprofessionally from afar, take it from the racists! They believe 100% that Trump is with them.
His obsession with his hand size: The guy is clearly worked up about the appearance of his penis, and is self-conscious about sexual impotence. There’s no other reason for him to get so upset when people make accurate observations of his somewhat short, stubby fingers. This has been going on at least since Spy called him a short-fingered vulgarian. He has also referenced his penis and made implications about its size many times, once even on a nationally televised GOP debate.
When he said “Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated”: Everyone knew. It was famously complicated. Throughout the entirety of Obamacare’s legislative journey, every media pundit and journalist referenced daily how healthcare reform had been an elusive white whale for Democratic presidents going back to Harry Truman. Trump is the antithesis of a renaissance man. He quite literally has (ghost)written more books than he has read. He knows almost nothing about nearly everything. He is a poster boy for the Dunning-Kruger chapter in psychology books. National security staffers had to keep their briefings to one page for him to look at them, and include his name in every paragraph with exaggerated compliments for him to read to the end.
When he said injecting light or disinfectants would cure COVID: He’s a sociopath incapable of empathy. He knows nothing of science, and only wanted a quick fix to COVID because he was worried more about stock market prices and his poll numbers than human safety and plague precautions. He refused to listen to scientists and public health experts, hijacked their White House press conferences, and promoted fake cures and snake oils. And this is after first trying to ignore his federal responsibility to stop COVID’s spread because it was primarily infecting liberal, coastal cities. Ultimately, his administration lazily chose a states’ rights approach, sowing confusion and unnecessary chaos throughout the health and hospital economies. He eschewed all responsibility while dishonorably refusing to model COVID-conscious behavior like wearing a mask or avoiding public gatherings, and he caused several super-spreader events at the White House. He gave it to Chris Christie and almost killed him, and then called Christie in the hospital and asked him not to tattle to the media. He gave it to Secret Service agents in, quite possibly, America’s dumbest Presidential photo-op in history of riding around in a car to give a thumbs-up gesture to pretend he wasn’t on death’s door. Trump has no regard for other people’s health and safety. I’m calling it: he’s a sociopath. Going off the existential idea that we are not what we say but what we do, Trump does nonstop sociopathic things.
When he lost badly in E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit: Donald Trump lost a defamation trial, decided by a jury of 12 of his peers who believed he credibly was accused of sexual assault, and is lying when he denies it and attacks Carroll’s character. It was decided he had to pay $5 million. And then immediately after he again repeated the character-assassinations, earning a fresh new lawsuit from Carroll. Trump cannot hold back his militant belligerence, even when $5 million is on the line, to shut up. He is too emotionally unregulated and, again, sociopathic to apologize for a horrible crime all but objectively proven he committed.
His inability to fulfill the most basic ceremonial aspects of being president: On every holiday and sacred occasion, his tweets and thoughts are about himself. He hated going to memorials for fallen soldiers, and called the dead and captured troops “losers.” He personally attacked a gold star family. He calls women “dogs.” He calls the media “enemies of the people.” He picks fights constantly with actors, singers, and TV personalities. He doesn’t even ever mention his wife, Melania on Mother’s Day, or her birthday. He can’t even pretend to care about the sacrifice of fallen soldiers. Or his wife.
His hints that he’s lying including “a lot of people are saying,” “in two weeks,” and the “Sir” stories: He knows he’s lying. We know he’s lying. He knows we know he’s lying. We know he knows he’s lying. But he just won’t stop lying. And always, like an Ur-Monorail Man, he promises preposterous things to anyone about anything. His obsessive desire to be liked compels him to tell people what he thinks they want to hear. It’s one of Trump’s great political fortunes that it worked for so many conservative constituency groups. Evangelicals convinced themselves this Jesus-antithesis might actually be capable of spirituality or humility. The GOP establishment convinced themselves he might actually be good at business and dealmaking, and repeal Obamacare, pass an infrastructure plan, rewrite the Iran nuclear deal, pacify North Korea, build a wall and fix our immigration problems, beat China in a trade war, and exhaust us from winning. His phobic aversion to telling the truth or even learning the truth accompanies a spectacularly superficial base of knowledge, an utter dearth of intellectual curiosity, and the fake confidence of a dumb 5th grader giving a report on a book he didn’t read.
VERDICT: SOCIOPATHIC IMBECILE
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