THE NEW "S" WORD

 

Sociopathic: of, relating to, or characterized by asocial or antisocial behavior or exhibiting antisocial personality disorder

There are many words that can be used to describe Donald Trump:  liar, bigot, misogynist, egotist, narcissist. immature.  Another that really needs to be added is sociopath.   I don't put that word out there lightly, but I definitely feel that, time and time again, Trump has showed that he is lacking in the most basic human emotions other than anger and rage.

We've all seen the picture by now:  President Trump, visiting families in El Paso Texas, grieving from a mass shooting, took a picture with a baby, orphaned from the shooting.  And how did our president mark this somber, sad moment.  By grinning like an idiot and giving a thumbs up.  It's no surprise at all, really.  I'm sure in Trump's mind, this baby is lucky to be in a picture with him, the most important and god like person who has ever lived.  As conservative columnist David Brooks put it on NPR: 

…”I look at that photo and I think, well, he’s a sociopath.  He’s incapable of experiencing or showing empathy.”  And the context of that photo gets even worse when you realize that that baby was orphaned by a shooter who targeted hispanics and posted an online white supremacist manifesto that echoed many of the words that Trump himself has used in his speeches shortly before he began his killing spree.   Other presidents have dealt with moments like this with the right kinds of emotions: Barack Obama teared up while talking about children being gunned down in Sandy Hook, George W Bush (despite being a terrible president in my opinion) was resolute after 9/11.  But Trump cannot publicly express any emotion other swaggering pride and insulting exasperation.  And from all accounts, his lack of empathy for any living being other than himself publicly is exactly how he also acts privately.  Look at how his media coverage over the years has been filled with his constant womanizing and bragging about it to the press, with little to no regard for the women themselves as anything other as something to conquer and then disregard.  It's no surprise that twenty different women have accused him of sexual assault, or that he can blithely dismiss them all as liars.  Even his own son, Donald Jr., according to a 1990 article in Vanity Fair magazine, is quoted as having once yelled at him at the age of twelve “You don’t love us! You don’t even love yourself. You just love your money!” after his ugly and very public divorce with his first wife Ivana.  Although Donald Jr may have since returned to the fold, he really hit upon a truth back then; his father cannot express the tiniest bit of emotion of sympathy for anyone else.  From his constant bragging about the size of the crowds at his speeches to his complete willingness to embrace any conspiracy theory, (saying millions of undocumented immigrants voted in 2016, or that the Clintons may have had  Jeffrey Epstein killed), Trump is a human bulldozer who shoves aside anyone that does not adore him as much as he so obviously adores himself.  And the fact that his tax cut and trade war has hurt the very voters who propelled him to the presidency in the first place obviously doesn't matter at all to him.  In his mind, those voters are just stepping stones for him to reach his own greatness.So if Trump is an unfeeling sociopath, how could he have possibly reached the  White House?  Sadly, his sociopathic tendencies have actually helped him out enormously: his unfeeling nature allowed him to channel his lack of caring onto undocumented immigrants, which sadly tapped into the loathing and anger that drives the modern Republican party.  Now, there is undeniable proof that Trump himself has often employed undocumented immigrants at his own properties, and he probably couldn't really care less about them either way as anything other than a source of cheap labor. (Even his infamous "build that wall" rhetoric was something devised by his handlers as an easy to remember phrase for him to repeat in speeches.)  But before he announced his presidential candidacy he immersed himself in conservative media and found that "illegals" were seen as an easy shorthand for everything wrong with this country, hitting that conservative sweet spot of racism and xenophobia.  And he, of course, wasted no time in attacking Mexican immigrants in his opening campaign speech, branding them as "rapists" and saying that they were bringing "drugs and crime".  And now years into his presidency, whipping up hatred  hatred of immigrants, using words like "invasion" when talking about them, is still his signature move, because he knows that his adoring crowds will cheer him for it, which is all he really cares about.Naturally, there is nothing that the country can do but try to ride out this national embarrassment and hope that the hate filled rage that he has tapped into will not lead him into a second term in the White House.  If so, our nation, and indeed the world, will be greatly diminished both environmentally and economically.  

RAGING BIGOT OR SCHEMING TACTICIAN?

     
        It's been over two weeks since President Donald Trump launched one of his more overtly racist attacks by tweeting out against House Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna S. Pressley, all women of color,  telling them that they should go back to where they came from.  This a despicable taunt that bigots have directed at non white people (and even white immigrants) for decades.  It appears that Trump based his hateful statements on a broadcast from Fox News  that had deeply criticized the four House members that he had seen that morning, and, in typical fashion, he vented the rage it created in him out onto twitter with any reflection or insight.
         There are contradictory reports as to how his advisors in the White House reacted to his statement, with some of them realizing that this attack was over the top, even for him, as he plead ignorance of the racist nature of what he had said and tried to shrug it off. But there are other reports that his tweets were made with full knowledge of just how the public would react.  Sadly, Trump seems to realize that the more offensive and racist his comments are, the more it fires up his base of almost entirely white voters.  It also distracts the  media from covering things like Bob Mueller's recent testimony to congress or his administration's mostly failed attempt to round up undocumented immigrants.   In any event, in later statements to the press, he refused to apologize for the tweets (just like he has never apologized for anything in his life) and instead lashed out Ilhan Omar specifically, attempting to turn the argument over to her alleged anti semitism.
          A few days later, Trump again ranted over twitter after watching another Fox News broadcast.  Another House Member, John Lewis, was the target this time, with Trump assailing Lewis's district in the state of Baltimore as a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess" adding that "No human being would want to live there."   While this may be another example of our childishly impulsive president posting on twitter without thinking, it also may be yet another calculated attempt to speak to his voters.  Quite simply, Picking a fight with an African American civil rights hero like Lewis is just what a lot of people who voted for Trump want to see.  Some of his advisors have freely admitted that that is what is going on here, that turning out the same white blue collar voters that voted for Trump in 2016 means running the same kind of campaign tinged with the same kind of race baiting statements that he did before.  Why shouldn't he repeat the formula when it somehow worked once already?
         The message from President Trump to his base is simple, horrible and resounding: sure, I may have not built the wall that I promised (blame congress!), my tax cut to the rich didn't benefit blue collar workers, and my trade war with China is hurting states that voted for me the most, but I can still channel your hatred about non white people (especially immigrants) and boldly state it to the world.  It's a raw, emotional argument in which the reality of America's rapidly changing demographics no longer exist, in which some wondrous past image of  America as a place created by and for white people to rule alone is somehow still here.  It's depressing to consider that this message may work again, and that Trump may very well win reelection.  But how much of this does Trump really mean?  Is he really a bigot, or is just someone who has tapped into a line of bigotry that makes him popular, so he's decided to just go with it?  It's hard to say, since, with his massive ego and enormous desire to be worshipped, he clearly would say or do almost anything that would gain him the kind of applause he gets at his rallies. (Notice how he's gone from being "very pro choice" to anti choice in the space of a few years).
        As disheartening as this all is, there may be a silver lining: even though Trump may manage to win reelection, the Republican party will never be able to wash off the stench of their support for him, and those changing demographics I mentioned before won't help them.  Yes, the Republican party can cling to the lie of voter fraud, the immorality of gerrymandering and the absurdity of the Electoral College for a while, but at some point their appeal to only white voters will come back to haunt them.  With America becoming more diverse, and with younger voters being more progressive than their elders, the clock is ticking on their party's continued relevance nationally.  Trump may win two terms in the White House, but he just may destroy the Republican party while doing it.  And it's hard for me to sympathize.