Is Donald Trump crumbling?
By Ad astra
As you witness the increasingly bizarre behaviour of Donald Trump, the President of the United States, the mightiest nation on earth, do you wonder about his mental state? Do you speculate about his stability, his judgement, his reasoning? Recent events, piled on each other, beg the question; ”Is Donald Trump crumbling”?
Mental deterioration can afflict any of us quite suddenly. On the other hand, it can overcome us in a number of smaller steps. Could this be the case with Donald Trump?
Let’s recount some recent events that are indicative.
Take the devastating fires in Southern California that Vox described ”…as the single most destructive and third-deadliest fire in state history”. In its account of the fires, Reuters reported: ”Donald Trump is known for his fiery comments, but his recent tweet has outraged prominent celebrities who slammed it as ‘demented’.
What did he say? Did he empathise with those who had lost their houses? Did he express horror at the appalling loss of life? No. He reflected on the emergency, in a Tweet of course, with: “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!” A dire threat as a proxy for empathy!
This example alone is sufficient to raise the suspicion of significant mental deterioration, even in someone as bizarre as Trump.
The president of the California Professional Firefighters assailed Trump with “The president’s message attacking California and threatening to withhold aid to the victims of the cataclysmic fires is ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines.” Celebrities lashed out at Trump’s ’ill-judged and out-of-touch’ tweet as an absolutely heartless response…there aren’t even politics involved. As you tweet, there are good American families losing their homes and evacuating into shelters.”
But that’s just the start.
At a recent rally in Texas, Trump, the ‘America First’ man, said: “You know what I am? I’m a nationalist. Ok? I’m a nationalist…Use that word. Use that word”.”.
At the commemorations in Paris on November 11 to mark the Armistice that ended the First World War, French President Emmanuel Macron denounced nationalism with the words: ”Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism…a withdrawal into isolationism “a grave error that future generations would very rightly make us responsible for… the old demons are rising again, ready to wreak chaos and death. History threatens to take its sinister course again”. Appealing for global unity in the fight against global warming, poverty, hunger, inequality and ignorance, Macron added: “Let us add our hopes together instead of seeing our fears oppose each other”.
Trump was unresponsive, one of the last to applaud. Macron’s words did not match his own. Did he not know the difference between nationalism and patriotism? Trump has his own view of the world, which is not amenable to change, even when that solemn occasion demanded that the tragedies of past conflicts be remembered.
Image from abc.net.au
Incongruously, in contrast to his lukewarm response to other leaders, Trump gave a thumbs-up and a warm pat to Putin, a demagogue who murders journalists and opponents, uses a nerve agent to assassinate a dissident on British soil, annexes Crimea, shoots down commercial flights, facilitates war crimes, and attacks American democracy. How can we account for such aberrant behaviour? Only by invoking mental instability as a plausible explanation.
Even before he reached Europe, Trump had managed to upset Macron who had said in an interview that Europe needed to protect itself against cyber threats and the ‘interference in our democracies’ from ‘China, Russia and even the United States’. Misinterpreting Macron’s words, Trump tweeted angrily: ”President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the US, China and Russia. Very insulting, but perhaps Europe should first pay its fair share of NATO, which the U.S. subsidizes greatly!”
Once in France, he had been scheduled to lay a wreath at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial, 100 kilometres northeast of Paris, to honour Americans who has lost their lives in the Battle of Belleau Wood, a critical conflict in the war and a pivotal encounter in Marine Corps history. He cancelled because of rain!
The cancellation drew sharp criticism from those who said the president should have found a way to travel to Aisne-Marne regardless of the weather. Trump was criticised in harsh terms by Winston Churchill’s grandson, Nicholas Soames, who tweeted: “They died with their face to the foe and that pathetic, inadequate @realDonaldTrump couldn’t even defy the weather to pay his respects to The Fallen #hesnotfittorepresenthisgreatcountry.” Nicholas Burns, an American diplomat who served both Republican and Democratic presidents, called that choice ‘astonishing’.
Trump was also scheduled to join dozens of world leaders at a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe and was to deliver remarks at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial, located five miles west of Paris, before returning to Washington. Instead, he spent most of the day at the US ambassador’s residence.
Trump lives in his own bubble with his finger twitching to tweet, isolated from the reality of the past, and alarmingly oblivious to future threats, a sign of dislocation from truth and reason.
Trump’s confused state of mind is not new. It was evident when the leaders of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia visited the White House in April. At the resultant press conference, Trump praised his visitors and their countries for being good members of NATO and for not producing ‘fake news’! At a private meeting, Trump opened by attributing to the Baltic leaders the responsibility for the war in Yugoslavia. They took a moment to realise that ‘Baltics’ and ‘Balkan’ were getting mixed up in the mind of the American president”.
How many more things are being mixed up in his mind? How disconnected from reality is he becoming?
Following the mid-term elections at which he lost control of Congress to the Democrats, but did better in the Senate, he declared the result ‘a great victory’, although every commentator acknowledged that the Democrats could cause him a mountain of grief as they now control the legislative agenda. At his White House press conference, at which he famously crossed swords with CNN reporter Jim Acosta, and insultingly expelled him, Trump declared; “I think it was a great victory. I’ll be honest: I think it was a great victory.” If you missed it you can relive the whole horrible hour and a half of the press conference here: Then, as if he didn’t have enough disagreement swirling around him, he forced his Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign and controversially replaced him with Mat Whitaker, which may be unconstitutional. Whitaker is sceptical about the Mueller probe; Democrats fear he may abort it.
An article yesterday in CNN politics: Trump’s mood takes a foul turn: ‘He’s pissed at damn near everyone’ sums up Trump’s crumbling mental state. The whole article is worth a read, but this paragraph serves to illustrate:
In the last week, the President’s frayed and fraught relationships have been laid bare for all to see: He’s furious at Kelly for a Paris trip that ended in a public relations debacle. He’s blaming his political advisers for losing the winning narrative of the midterms. And he was caught off guard by his wife’s shot across the bow at one of the top advisers in the West Wing – a sign that their private conversations clearly aren’t functional.
So there you have it. Event after event that call into question Donald Trump’s mental state. Episode after episode of bizarre behaviour. Countless instances of forgetfulness. Account after account of absurd statements and incongruous actions. Tweet after astonishing tweet from the most powerful man in the world, who believes that tweeting is the way to conduct global diplomacy, initiate trade wars, address worldwide conflicts, threaten adversaries, and carry out international negotiations. He even sees tweeting as a mechanism for conducting global business, in which he believes he is the ‘master of the deal.’
It is difficult to draw any other conclusion than Trump is indeed crumbling.
This article was originally published on The Political Sword
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May Hem
Return to home pageTrump has gotten to the stage where he is barely holding onto what little sanity he has left and I expect he will retreat more and more (and become increasingly childishly agressive) as his absurd, and dangerous, tenure as President comes crashing down on him.
The photo at the top of this article reminded me of a kind young bloke holding the hand of, and consoling, an obviously demented old man who is completely lost and out of his depth –
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/14/trumps-angry-tweets-on-paris-terror-attacks-anniversary-lack-common-decency
President Trump is not losing his mind is the democrats and the loonies within the republican party that are trying to make him look bad and I wouldn’t certainly feel sorry for the plastified cretins hollywood celebrities as they can afford to rebuild the only one I feel sorry for is Del Bigtree who lost the home he is a good man that speaks against the poisonous vaccines. I only feel sorry for all the people who lost their homes and lives.
I would rather suggest that instead of crumbling, he is simply a narcissistic egoist who cares for no other person, country, creed or race. If he were mentally unstable it would be much easier to remove him from office.
The USA will continue to suffer from the rants and actions of a man who is the most unworthy in my living memory to hold that high office. Richard Nixon had some measure of decency to resign before impeachment. He would be preferable in my opinion to the current incumbent.
I doubt that Trump is losing his mind – I question his sanity from the beginning. What we are witnessing, I think, is an excuse for a man who has lived in a bubble most of his life. In that bubble, he is all powerful, because everyone is, more or less, a paid sycophant dependant on Trump and remaining in his “good books”. In that bubble, fiction becomes truth; losses become victories; failure becomes triumph; error doesn’t exist; the insane becomes normal; a weak bully-boy becomes all powerful; the irrational becomes rational; the dumb becomes clever and everyone exists to massage Trump’s ego. More recently, he has been dragged out of his narcissistic bubble and is confronted by his own failings and he is now forced to deal with leaders who he thinks are subservient to him but who increasingly deride him. That is something that he can’t deal with, so he has to try and create another reality to shore up his self-delusion and for a bully, that means attack – however ill-considered. We all do it to some degree, but he is a gold medallist at the self-delusion Olympics. This crap will continue for a while yet until some other invented homeland crisis allows him to try and project his genius.
Now which part of the Nazi regime do you think is represented in the present behaviour of Trumpery??
The world would like to think late 1945,however, i reality it may be more like 1939 ….
Stop drinking the Kool-Aid folks, you are beLIEving the conventional media. Russia is NOT the Soviet Union. Trump IS draining the swamp in USA, which is why the Democrat controlled media omit the details of many stories. Both Trump and Putin know how to use power and avoid the WW III that Hillary was tasked with starting. Her mission in Libya resulted in the death of the US Ambassador!
I don’t trust Merkel, Macron nor May as world leaders; their close links with the banking establishments indicate to me that their policies favour world population reduction. The UN 2030 Agenda says it all! Check the inscriptions on the Georgia Guide Stones for more details. Maybe Australia is the only country destined for a population increase! (To 35 million as Kevin Rudd announced?)
He is increasingly panicking after the mid terms. He is unable to connect his performance to the loss of the House. Unfortunately, this will trigger increasingly racist, fascist and irrational behavior in order to please and/or mobilize his base.
The man will become more dangerous and less predictable (if this is possible) by the day. Combined with this daemon Bolton, the USA is indeed quite capable to start yet another war, displace many more millions of people, increase misery for the few and trash migrants, who try and flee from demented people like him.
The man is narcissistic, dumb with a sidekick into the street wise and devious.
One day, when he is gone, the Americans will wake up, dawning on them, that this was one of the darkest chapters in USA’s illustrious history.
David Bruce, wrong on so many levels. Since when does Merkel reduce world population, having taken in 1 Million plus refugees? Note, I didn’t call them Caravans.
What swamp is Trump draining? He substitutes the existing swamp for a far bigger and more dangerous one. His base is on the verge of getting into a deeper and deeper frenzy of racism. The man is a fascist and dangerous idiot.
I am not sure where you are coming from?
He is a mad, barking dog. And Morrison would like nothing better than hug him. What a pathetic pair they would make.
Klaus Petrat,
A few days ago on another thread, David Bruce chose to authoritatively cite the ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ .
Today Mr Bruce has spoken strongly in defense of the virtues of Donald Trump as an anti-corruption campaigner.
I do not know if David is trolling or ‘truthing’, but even if his contributions add little valid information to the subject of discussion, ay least they appeal to my sense of the ridiculous.
It certainly has been a horrible fortnight for the violet crumble, and he has responded woefully.
There is no doubt that he is totally inadequate.
California gets about $13billion annually less back from the US Federal Government than it pays into their coffers – an inconvenient fact that was lost in the noise.
Trump is worried about potential personal disclosures he may be forced to make under the new regime – things like his tax records, which may either reveal he’s not as wealthy as he makes out or perhaps show where his loans are coming from as well as his corporate interests. Let’s see how his repeated assertions of not having any financial interests (or debts) with the Russians are backed up.
He may not accountable for the lies he tweets but may have to make some uncomfortable disclosures.
Morrison told Indonesia that Australia doesn’t have it’s decisions influenced by other countries. He forgot to say “except the USA, who we still slavishly follow”.
The office of POTUS has always been held in high regard around the world and generally the incumbents have lived up to this standard and world leaders have paid due respect to that office.
What we have seen in recent days is world leaders including the likes of Merkel and Macron have seen through this man and all respect has dissipated with Trump now seen as irrelevant, a figure of fun with no substance or credibility.
This is a great shame for America but we must not forget that this emperor with no clothes still wields significant global power and is potentially very dangerous.
Re:
That’s the money shot as it were. Building golf courses in the middle of a financial crisis. Which US bank would lend to anyone who’s been bankrupted multiple times? As for Russian oligarchs with money to launder …
Blessed with a very stupid son as well. It’s in the genes.
…be fair to Trump, it’s so easy you mix Baltics with Balcans, and as he has not yet met our latest PM , he most likely thinks that Austria is shorthand for Australia, India short for Indonesia….
“Who can keep up with all those brown people, I’m busy with keeping those Caravans away….”
Trump is a self serving narcissist who appears to have low intelligence and behaves like a spoilt child sulking and having tantrums.
And now for the new (acting) AG. Now he’s someone who can really do stupid. And does so religiously.
Whether or not Trump crumbles, he is just the symptom of the ills of the system that put him where he is. The system can easily replace him (Mike Pence anyone?) and carry on. Only when the shortcomings of the entire system are understood and acted upon will there be any significant change. Don’t hold your breath.
Folks
I thank you all for your thoughtful contributions to this piece. There is a strong consensus about Trump’s mental state.
Trump’s disintegration is gathering pace. This morning on news.com.au there is a piece: ‘Absolutely nuts’: Donald Trump unleashes at Democrats over Mueller probe
https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/absolutely-nuts-trump-unleashes-over-probe/news-story/2b3a52c36136e39aba4375b630a41957?utm_source=news.com.au%20—%20Australia’s%20
It’s worth a read, but here’s a foretaste: “The billionaire businessman is in a much more precarious position than he was a week ago. His party performed worse in the midterms than was originally thought. His replacement of Attorney-General Jeff Sessions shows he is panicking about the Russia investigation and how far the Democrats will take it. And economists are forecasting a recession could hit the US just in time for 2020, damaging his prospects.”
There will be more.
Victims of Alzheimers seem to just exhibit erratic behaviour, but are not diagnosed until quite a while later. This can be years, meanwhile those impacted by it continue to suffer.iin this case the rest of the planet suffers!
Folks
Trump’s crumbling continues by the day.
If you have the stomach for it, you may care to read a piece on Vox by Matthew Yglesias
https://www.vox.com/2018/11/15/18096700/donald-trump-daily-caller-interview titled: Trump’s latest interview shows a president who’s in way over his head – He has no idea what he’s doing, but what else is new?
The article reports an interview between Trump and a news outlet that promotes him: The Daily Caller. Its journalists feed him friendly questions.
If you imagined this might make it easy for Trump to respond with well-reasoned, fact-laden responses, you will be astonished, dismayed, even frightened by Trump’s incoherence. His mind is dangerously unsound.
Here’s some of Yglesias’ frightening conclusions:
“There’s no clear line between Trump’s dishonesty and his sincere lack of information, or between his tendency to engage in vain but pointless boasting and his alarming efforts to overturn legitimate election results.
“The main throughline is that even though Trump makes no sense, tramples on basic values routinely, and has no grasp of the actual substance of his job, he does have a large, well-financed, and fairly relentless conservative propaganda apparatus at his back that tries to obscure his failings from their audience while trusting that keeping him in power is broadly beneficial for the goals of the conservative movement – even if he is only dimly aware of what those goals are.
So we’re left with a president who is both relatively likely to blunder us into some catastrophe and likely to respond to catastrophe in inappropriate or illegal ways.”
Often in the past we have mused at Trump’s behaviour, laughed at his words, ridiculed his ideas, and dismissed his ramblings. The latest turn of events should instead have us deeply worried that this mentally deranged man is in charge of the mightiest nation on earth, empowered to make decisions that could wreak havoc on the entire planet.
Politicians the world over should be contemplating how they might curtail this dangerously unstable man. Are they?
Yes Ad Astra he is delusional and should be the ex-President via the 25th Amendment but it’s not going to happen any time soon. US politics at the moment is a reality TV show – an intellectual Gurning Competition where the biggest intellectual freak not only wins – but gets to take all. In days of yore, gurning competitions allowed even the most disfigured to get a prize so that they could feel part of the community (best at something) but they were never meant to lead that community.
Just imagine what Mueller will do if he gets to cross examine. But then again his rusted on supporters will always be there for him.
It’s a mad, mad world we live in … master
Trump is crumbling, Scomo is bumbling; one is tweeting and sacking his staff, the other is moving Embassies and ‘listening and doing’…
Neither of them is HUMBLE.
What ‘s happening , where have the Obamas, Whitlams gone, Angela is still hanging in there…maybe we need more Jacindas as our leaders…?
IMHO he needs to be voted out otherwise you get Pence, a really dangerous vile man. As long as the rest of the world ignore him and his minders keep him away from the football for another two years it will be ok.
““The main throughline is that even though Trump makes no sense, tramples on basic values routinely, and has no grasp of the actual substance of his job, he does have a large, well-financed, and fairly relentless conservative propaganda apparatus at his back that tries to obscure his failings from their audience while trusting that keeping him in power is broadly beneficial for the goals of the conservative movement – even if he is only dimly aware of what those goals are.”
That is exactly what I meant, and someone else has said it in greater detail.
trump is irrelevant. merely a distraction. he does not rule the USA but is a puppet for the string-pullers. when he no longer dances to their tune, they will replace him with another puppet.