The Enemy Within

Donald Trump vows, if reelected, to use the “Army“—i.e. Martial Law!—to roundup his “enemy within”: Adam Schiff, Nacy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, et. al.  What then?

Am I an “enemy within”?  Will you? Will we be sent to a Concentration Camp, or worse?

His pal Vladimir jails and murders opponents.

Donald’s National Sales Tax

CNN Business reports, September 24, in an open letter “More than 400 economists and former high-ranking US policy makers are endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris and her version of the American economy.”  The centerpiece of this consensus is, former President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs would deal a staggering blow to America’s economy.  

Econ. 101: Producers do not pay tariffsConsumers pay tariffs!  Donald’s National Sales Tax would cost middle-class American households from $2000 to $6000 a year. 

The folly in Trumps scheme is no-brainer but, considering its source, not surprising.

I’m Puzzled

I’m puzzled and, frankly, alarmed!  Donald Trump appears to enjoy widespread support among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

Would someone please explain how ethically scrupulous Mormons, of all people, can respect a morally bankrupt, misogynistic, xenophobic, convicted rapist/felon, and pathological liar; ol’ “grab ‘em by the pussy” Donald?

What am I missing?  Please enlighten me.

A Clear and Present Danger

For America’s Democracy, the potentially devastating impact of Donald J. Trump’s “Malignant Personality Disorder” (NPD) cannot be enough repeated or overstated. 

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM5) defines (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”

Nine for nine folks!  A slam-dunk!

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

For America’s Democracy, Donald J. Trump must never again be within gunshot range of the Oval Office.

Self-evident Truths

Age 87, a few truths seem self-evident.  None is mine.  All are rooted in others’ wisdom. 

  1. Now, this instant, is the only “time” there is.
  2. I control my thoughts, muscles, and impulses.
  3. Worry and regret waste time and energy.
  4. Do what needs to be done.
  5. I act out of ignorance, fear, and anger, or wisdom, courage, and love.
  6. Happiness is our default.  Suffering is our choice.
  7. Don’t concoct suffering.
  8. I’m only here to help.
  9. Eliminate self-cherishing.

Trump’s Slander

Donald Trump’s slanderous observation that Congressional Medal of Honor recipients are “in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or their dead” is a slap-in-the-face of, not only of an elite few who exhibited exceptional valor defending America, but all who served or serve in our Armed Forces! 

This man must never again be Commander in Chief!

Somebody Had to Pay

In Cold Blood Truman Capote recounts thirty-three-year-old Richard Hickock and thirty-six-year-old Perry Smith’s, November 15, 1959, slaughter of Kansas farmer Herbert “Herb” Clutter, his wife Bonnie, daughter Nancy, and son Kenyon.  Comments Capote attributes to the killers suggest why some young men murder total strangers.  Smith called, “(Mr. Clutter) a very nice gentleman.  Soft spoken.  I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat.”  One of the pair explained, “Somebody had to pay.”

Pay for what?

In a Dalas, Texas, motorcade, November 22, 1963, twenty-four-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

On a balcony of Memphis, Tennessee’s Lorayne Motel, April 4, 1968, forty-year-old James Earl Ray assassinated the Reverand Martin Luther King Jr.

In the kitchen of Las Angeles’s Ambassador Hotel, June 5, 1968, twenty-

four-year-old Sarhan Sarhan assassinated Robert F. Kennedy.

At Colorado’s Columbine High School, April 20, 1999, eighteen-year-old Eric Harris and seventeen-year-old Dylan Klebold massacred12 students and 1 teacher.

At Newtown, Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary, December 14, 2012, twenty-year-old Adam Lanze shot to death twenty, six- and seven-year-olds and six adults.

Shooting from the 37th floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, October 1, 2017, sixty-four-year-old Steven Paddock killed 60 and wounded over 400 at the Route 91 Harvest music festival.

At Parkland Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Valentine’s Day, 2018, nineteen-year-old Nickolas Cruz murdered 17 and injured 17 students.

At a Buffalo, New York, Tops Market, May 14,2022, eighteen-year-old Payton Gendron murdered 10 and wounded 3 African Americans.

At Uvalde, Texas’s, Robb Elementary School, May 24, 2022, eighteen-year- old Salvador Ramos murdered nineteen students and two teachers, and wounded 17 others.

At a Highland Park, Illinois, 2022 Independence Day parade twenty-one-year-old Robert Eugene Cremo III killed 7 and wounded 47.

At Buttler Pennsylvania’s Farm Show Grounds, July 13, 2024, a round from twenty-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks’s AR-15-style rifle snipped the top from former President Donald J. Trump’s right ear. 

It is natural to look for the roots of these men’s acts in ethics and philosophy, in Democrat/Republican, Liberal/Conservative politics.  I believe their motive is far more gut-level!  These men are Losers!  And they know it!

In Fate’s game of Monopoly, Richard Hickock, Perry Smith and the rest will never own a hotel on Boardwalk or penthouse above Park Place; not even a shack on Baltic Avenue.  These men are condemned to humanity’s dustbin.  And they know, hate, and resent it!

A High School Annual never labeled Richard Hickock or Perry Smith, “Most likely to succeed.”  Erik Harris and Dylan Klebold had not hope of being voted “Most Popular.”  Adam Lanza or Nikolas Cruz would never be elected Student Body President.  Payton Gendron or Salvador Ramos never dreamed of being Homecoming King.  Robert E. Crimo III may have fantasized seducing a High School Princess, but he knew it was out of the question.  Friendless and “bullied, Thomas Matthew Crooks felt fated to empty bedpans, wipe asses, and change diapers in a nursing home.

Today, the faces of these friendless, fearful, furious young men eclipse all others in the Yearbooks.  They are Mass Murderers!

Age and the magnitude of his massacre seem to make Paddock an outlier.  Did his act derive from the same irrational Rage as the younger shooters?

I’ll wrap this up by citing Erich Fromm.  In The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness this renowned social psychologist, psychoanalyst, and philosopher argues that men need to “make a dent.”  If nowhere else, they  sometimes make it “in someone’s head.“