President Donald John Trump

[BigV]

One of the many things I find frustrating and disheartening about President Trump is the regular, endless contradiction in his communications.

When he, himself contradicts himself, and just breezes right by it, it erodes my confidence in him. My ability to trust what he says has been ground down. It is compounded when he just makes shit up like the incandescent non-issue of the attendance of his inauguration, and when he gets shit wrong from an obvious absence of critical thinking like his remarks about trouble in Sweden. And there's a special kind of contradiction that I find deeply worrying. It's the thinning, the dilution of meaning.

Today's news gives a perfect example, though hardly unique, hardly even unusual. Trump spoke today about his plans and instructions for deportation:

"We're getting really bad dudes out of this country, and at a rate that nobody's ever seen before," Trump said Thursday. "And they're the bad ones. And it's a military operation."

He added: "You see what's happening at the border. All of a sudden for the first time, we're getting gang members out. We're getting drug lords out."

That, my friends, is news. Hello?! We have a military operation inside the borders of the United States? WTF.

But just wait, here comes the dilution, the smoke and mirrors, the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.

A White House spokesperson said Trump did not misspeak by calling deportations a 'military operation,' but clarified the President meant "military" as an "adjective."

Come on. Just on the face of it when Trump says military and his spokeperson says "military is not military, it's an adjective".... shut up. What does it mean? And from the lips of the people very close to the situation, discussing it in the same room as their counterparts from Mexico, our Secretary of State Tillerson and the Head of Homeland Security Kelley said:

Trump, though, is not using the military to deport undocumented immigrants. Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told reporters in Mexico City Thursday that there would be "no use of military force in immigration operations, none,"

So, *not* war? Ok, good, good.

A lot of the people around this administration *do* think before speaking, like Kelly and Tillerson (so far). Many just ... don't . Spicer, Conway, Bannon, Preibus. And most of all Trump. (Let's not get started about "alternative facts" and the media as the "opposition of the American people", that is huge, deserving of it's own conversation.)

I feel like when I'm tracking what's being said, and the words are ALL OVER THE GODDAMN PLACE, and some are pretty scary--let's face it, the stakes are high, I'm definitely not the only one paying attention--it's overwhelming. I'm getting zapped and stabbed and tagged from every direction. One of my most effective sanity preserving reactions is to turn the volume down on the words and look at the actions. What the fuck is actually going on? What's the vibe here? Where is the center of gravity? Feel it... Like Luke lowering the blast shield of his helmet to better understand what the fuck is going on and (this is key) respond appropriately. By reducing the distracting and contradictory input from the main (visual channel), he understood the situation better.

I'm not encouraged by his actions.

I used to think that the calls for diagnosing his mental health from a distance were just kinda bullshit, but he clearly does not think and communicate like practically everybody I interact with (even at a distance, like I do with him). But I've noticed some similarities in the communication styles of Trump and of other people of my long and close acquaintance that I consider mentally unhealthy. Now I wonder more. It seems clear, he's a privileged, old, white guy that just doesn't connect with the kind of people I know in my life. "A champion of the working man" just.. just makes me laugh. He betrays ZERO knowledge or empathy of anyone who lives paycheck to paycheck. Worse, he thinks he does and sees others through the lens of his own experience. I think his capacity for empathy is near zero.

There's consistency and predictability to Trump, but it doesn't come from just paying attention to what he's saying. That's largely a diversion.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Though apparently intelligent, he appears to be dyslexic, and works with what snippets he's told. Kind of like Charlie McCarthy.
Rhetoric bullshit won the campaign so he's sticking to it. I don't think he realizes many of his voters would accept it during the campaign but now they want concrete results.

[Griff]

I think his core support wants the spectacle of the left getting a thumb in the eye not actual results.

[Flint]

BigV is putting into words so much of the thoughts I've been too overwhelmed to get out, off my chest.

How many people here, and people you know in your life, are completely mentally and emotionally exhausted? I know I am.

Because we've all dealt with unstable people in our lives. This is nothing new.

The worst part of having a person like this in the White House is that WE KNOW what causes a person to act like that, WE'VE SEEN this before. Who hasn't ever been in a bad relationship? Who hasn't ever had a toxic, malignant narcissist in their family or circle of acquaintances? Who hasn't had an older relative whom we've lost respect for as we see them succumb to magical thinking, and/or flat-out dementia?

This is tired, worn ground, and WE KNOW WHERE IT LEADS. It doesn't get better. It never gets better because people like that don't ever change, because they don't care. It's not a problem for them. They don't see what everyone else sees.

Here is what I believe: EVERYONE knows this. E V E R Y O N E
The opportunists in congress who want to get their bills signed, of course they know. The Trump voters who like the general shape of his policies, they know. You can't NOT know, you can only overlook it if you think you're getting something you want out of it.

This is completely non-political. Trump is a patently psychologically unstable person, and having someone like that in a big, important job that can affect billions of lives ... is beyond ill-advised.

Many things will be broken that can never be put back the same way, ever again. Even if you like the direction of these changes, the trust and respect in our institutions, our highly vaunted "way of life" --these things cannot change overnight, and they can only take so much pressure before snapping. It's irresponsible.

This is not hyperbole. This is not hysteria.

Everyone who is reading this knows exactly what I mean. I believe that. Even if you're okay with it. You know it's a gamble.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Many things will be broken that can never be put back the same way, ever again. Even if you like the direction of these changes, the trust and respect in our institutions, our highly vaunted "way of life" --these things cannot change overnight, and they can only take so much pressure before snapping. It's irresponsible.

I think you're right, I also think the people who voted for him were unhappy about what the country has become and wanted to shake up the system. They all had their own vision of what they wanted to be the result of that shake up, and I doubt many will be happy with the outcome.

[glatt]

That's the way it is with a loose cannon.

[tw]

Originally Posted by glatt

That's the way it is with a loose cannon.

Destruction can happen in minutes or days. Construction takes years or decades. Example: TPP.

[Flint]

Destruction is easy. Being stupid and hateful is man's DEFAULT state. Appealing to fear-based, "black and white" thinking is the easiest, most effective way of getting the most people to listen to you. Even if you have no ideas, no solutions.

[Undertoad]

To me, the national divide is a much bigger tsunami than Trump, muuuuch bigger problem. Let's put it this way:

Didn't we say Bush was a Fascist? Of course.

So now we're at an unsustainable level of histrionics? Of course!

Wouldn't half of us be absolutely losing our shit almost just as bad if Ted Cruz was our POTUS? Naturally!!

So... isn't Trump's personal style really just an excuse to lose our shit entirely? Because that's what we wanted to do anyway, and how convenient that he makes such a marvelous target?

~

I gotta tell you that the narcissist label is a very interesting one in this case. Having just dealt with a 10 out of 10 narcissist, I find I'm able to spot them easily enough. The answer is yeah, he is. BUT THEY ALL ARE, DID YOU NOT NOTICE? OMG, what do you say, when a very likeable bloke is not only plowing tail with the hot blond on the campaign trail, but making a baby -- while the wife sits at home dying of cancer? Politicians are narcissists, that is in the job description.

But there's this fly in the ointment of the public psychoanalysis that I can't get over, and it is this:

By all accounts, Trump's adult children are bright, well-adjusted, and perhaps nicer than he is, and they want to be a part of his life.

Inasmuch as picking a POTUS is picking the national parent, we should turn out so well. At the least it doesn't appear to have been a disaster.

[Flint]

Royal families used to like each other so much that they interbred until horrible genetic mutations were commonplace.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Ted Cruz would have destroyed the separation of church and state, much as I think Pence would if Trump kicks, but I doubt either would be as unpredictable as Trump.

[Undertoad]

A competent (insert your opposition here) would be more of a threat in many ways.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

A competent (insert your opposition here) would be more of a threat in many ways.

Of course.

OF COURSE.

But, what about the psychological unhinging of vast swaths of people, reeling to reconcile their stable reality with this Godzilla of unpredictability?

It's so destabilizing, to the fabric of society. The REAL fabric of society, such as "can people sleep at night?"


Edit to add:
Your "good dad" analogy is horrible. A "good dad" is STABLE and COMFORTING.

[xoxoxoBruce]

A "good parent" does not teach his children, Fuck others as you think they would fuck you given a chance. Nor does he teach them to stick close or you move from us to them.

[Flint]

Not normal. Not okay.