A hundred and fifty million ballots tallied and Joe‘s presidency secure, I determined to stop writing about America’s 2020 presidential election.  I shouldn’t be surprised that Donald’s shenanigans seduce me back to the keyboard.

Our President’s refusal to except the Will of the People has millions worldwide baffled.  For me, turning back the calendar three years demystifies this intransigence.

In The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, three dozen mental health professionals and others with firsthand experience agree that our Man in the Oval Office exhibits clear symptoms of a “Malignant Narcissistic Personality Disorder.”  Niece and Clinical Psychologist Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough How My Family Crated the World’s Most Dangerous Man backs this diagnosis from firsthand experience.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM5) defines Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) as, “a persistent manner of grandiosity, a continuous desire for admiration, along with a lack of empathy. It starts in early adulthood and occurs in a range of situations, as signified by the existence of any 5 of the next 9 standards,”

• A grandiose logic of self-importance
• A fixation with fantasies of infinite success, control, brilliance, beauty or idyllic love
• A credence that he or she is extraordinary and exceptional and can only be understood by, or should connect with, other extraordinary or important people or institutions
• A desire for unwarranted admiration
• A sense of entitlement
• Interpersonal oppressive behavior
• No form of empathy
• Resentment of others or a conviction that others are resentful of him or her
• A display of egotistical and conceited behavior or attitudes”

After three years of Trump, we don’t need the President of the America Psychiatric Association or Sigmund Freud to make this call. Self-importance, fixation on fantasies of greatness, feeling extraordinary and exceptional, desire for admiration, sense of entitlement, oppressive behavior, no empathy, resentment, egotistical and conceited, that’s 9 for 9 folks! Narcissistic Personality Disorder! A slam-dunk! 

DSM5 does not use “Malignant.” Campbell’s Psychiatric Dictionary describes Malignant Narcissism as combining characteristics of Narcissistic and Antisocial Personality Disorders with aggression and paranoia, making the patient not only delusional but potentially dangerous!

Identifying their roots and nature demystifies and points to the serious hazards—such complete failure to lead against COVID-19—which have arisen and continue to arise from Donald J. Trump’s behavior.  Now we see frivolous litigations leaving judges fed up.  Bullheaded refusal to cooperate with Biden’s team frustrating and complicating an orderly Presidential transition.  Holding back of essential information and intelligence leaving America, indeed the World, at serious hazard.