I was disappointed by the interview with Dr. Justin Frank in Salon. It makes good points, but I strongly disagreed with some of his conclusions.
First off, it was definitely too “psychiatric” for my taste, with the: “Mommy didn’t really love me,” focus.
I’ve known the son of a powerful New York Mafia don. He told me that there was some huge number, in the hundreds, of black Mercedes limousines in his father’s funeral procession. There was a significance in that to them. We were best friends. He died in Vietnam.
He told me this: (and I will never forget it). “They started telling me when I was a brat kid that everyone is just as crooked as everyone else. That no one is any “smahta,” that that’s just the smartasses talking out their asses.” And they hate experts and smartass know-it-all assholes above all things (except, maybe, boredom). They adore swearing.
The reason that Donald Trump lies is because it is his code, and he wants to be, and brag about being, the very best at what he does. But they all do that:
They brag about how many wives, and how many Illegitimate children, they have; and in how many places. And they brag about who they know, and how many people they killed.
They are, for the most part, not mama’s boys. They hang out on the street corners, stealing first grader’s lunches – when they are fourth graders. Getting in fights. There’s no shame in that; there’s tremendous pride. Papa might say: “Yeah, so the Kid got popped, at least he’s showing some friggin initiatives.” It’s a lifestyle, a culture; and like religion, you make a decision about the same time that you reach puberty, to go that way. And if you do, that is your life from that moment on. Until death.
But Donald has had his reality shattered – taken away: He learned the most awful thing: he learned that there are honest people still in this old world. He learned that the “social injustice thing,” is about something real and that there are some who would lay down their lives for justice; and many who have. He has learned that there are people, like Hillary Clinton, for instance, who aren’t the least bit afraid of him.
That shook his world. And it angered and insulted him more than he could have imagined would ever be. Everyone and everything that he had ever believed in was being insulted, by his way of thinking. They say that it’s difficult to look the bastard in the eye, but she had, the “First Lady,” and it stirred the fires of hatred in him like nothing else ever had.
Now, Hallelujah, President Obama has thrown down the gauntlet.
Want to get down to the nitty-gritty for a mo’? I mean deep down inside the nightmare that is Donald Trump’s brain?
Trump is a libertine, he gets his jollies seeing people suffer. For instance: You can’t make a dead man cry, but you can his wife. That’s libertinism. His followers too. They don’t even have to do actual harm; they get their rocks off just imagining harming a helpless young mother and her child. And don Don (he wishes) gave his soul entirely to a world of brutality and animalistic disregard for life. He made the decision when he was a teen. He doesn’t know anything about any other way of living.
Trump is extraordinarily limited: he doesn’t understand why anyone should disapprove of anything that he’s done.
He can’t remake himself. That’s one thing that I agree with Dr. Frank on. In one sense or another, he must be destroyed or locked away for life.
There are two things that I’d like to mention, that are usually studiously avoided:
One is that we have no idea how bad Trump actually is. Think of Trump in the lawless world he oozed out of, “unfettered.” I hate to think that he’s been restrained to this point. I think that he’s capable now of anything. If he is unfettered in our everyday world, then many will die.
And second is that Trump is far from the worst of the kind. Even the people close to him: like his father, and Roy Cohn; may have been predators and confidence artists extraordinaire; and Trump is just a poseur. They are, collectively, actually, and in fact a far more dangerous virus than COVID-19.
Our problem is that we find it difficult to conceive of the level of malevolence and malice Donald Trump is capable of.
It doesn’t matter how many die to him.
I don’t really think that whether or not Donald’s mother was demonstrative is all that important, considering that he was raised by a pack of vicious wild dogs. For some reason, the pack gets my attention. And a simple learned behavior. Compounded by a complete culture of violence, criminality, and vulgarity.
Or maybe, Mom just had better taste.
http://static.phxfeeds.com/commonShare?originUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.salon.com%2F2020%2F07%2F31%2Fdr-justin-frank-it-is-terrifying-to-have-a-president-who-is-psychotic%2F
I don’t know WHY trump does and says what he does, but we all see and hear what he does and says, and words and deeds have consequences. Especially words and deeds from a position of power. Trump and his cohorts have been extremely destructive, and for the survival of the majority, this minority must be placed in a minority position. I don’t think we want to silence them. We would prefer they grew to the place where they would raise their level of consciousness, and not be so destructive.
I spent my childhood in the white suburbs of New Orleans. When I was 9 we moved into a house across the street from a kid’s playground and ballpark. I first thought that was very cool, but I soon changed my mind. One day, before I had really met anyone, I was in the playground area, riding on the merry-go-round, while a crowd of kids were playing some sort of game in the ballpark section. The only other kid there was a little tyke, about 3 or 4. For no reason at all (we weren’t having a conversation), he was hurling obscenities at me, nastier stuff than I had ever heard out loud before. I was more shocked than angry, and maybe I touched him or maybe I didn’t. But the next thing I knew, the little kid had fallen off the merry-go-round a distance of only a few inches. And he was bawling his head off, making a huge racket, as only an obnoxious PITA little kid will do. I didn’t rush to his aid even though I was right there because a) I didn’t know him and b) he disgusted me the foulmouthed little brat. At that moment, all of the kids in the playground stopped what they were doing, turned and looked in the direction of the noise, which was right next to me. like a swarm, they all began walking in the same direction, towards me and the little kid. That is the first time in my life that I ever felt terror. I began walking toward my house which was directly across from the street. by the time reached my driveway, all the kids were there, a swarm of between 20 to 30 thug-like children roughly my age and slightly older. My father saved the day when he burst out the front door hollering at them to break it up and go home. I didn’t get in trouble because I hadn’t done anything wrong, and it was far to bizarre of a scene, nothing to comp[are it to outside of a horror flick. Anyway, I spent the next 5 years putting up with intimidation and bullying from the local greaser kids. Back then we called them hoods. It didn’t end until one day in ninth grade when I got into a big bloody fight with one of the meaner ones, and I gave back as good as I got. The intimidation ended abruptly, which I think was partly due to rumor going around that I was in a local teen rock band (I was). But I also made a decision that day, that I would never allow myself to be bullied or intimidated by anyone, no matter who, no matter why.
The point is, I was raised around bullies, I’m very familiar with the type. And I had Trump’s number early on. Obnoxious billionaire brat living in a gold-plated penthouse, aznd a regular guest on the Howard Stern show, bragging about how wonderful his life is.
Then Barack Obama is elected president and Trump has a problem with it. It’s not enough that Trump is rich and has a wonderful life of his own. Trump has to make sure that everyone else’s life is horrible. So he starts the “birther” movement, calling into question Barack’s citizenship status and right to be president, making arguments that had already been proven false hundreds of times already.
What he was really showing the world is that Trump is a liar and a bully, a thug in a three-piece suit. The only way Trump himself was able to become POTUS after ten years as a reality show host. Trump wasn’t a great businessman, but he played one on TV.
After four years as POTUS, Trump has stacked government posts with other incompetents and wrecked the systems that provide justice and keep us safe from poison and disease. Now, in order to stay in power another 4 years Trump will have to destroy our systems for voting and elections. The GOP have already done a lot of that job for him.
Please vote in November, and vote Democrat. the USA can no longer afford to have Republicans in office.
I am continuously amazed by how ignorant trump and his supporters are. And because he gets rave reviews from his supporters, he apparently thinks that most people are as ignorant as his supporters are. The hits just keep on coming.
So, he thinks that “universal” vote by mail is ripe for fraud, BUT it is perfectly okay for him to vote by mail, AND he encourages his supporters to vote by mail. Yes, that is grossly hypocritical, but it is also grossly ignorant to think that sane people won’t see the hypocrisy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K9o00fSrN8
What you have said sounds so familiar. My antagonist was named Pete. He was the biggest biggest bully for the school. One day he insisted that we “trade licks.” He chose a different career.
Maybe there’s something important in this. Maybe no one ever made Trump stand to and, “take as good as he gives.” Some time back, Trump was assisted (dragged) off stage by Security when someone charged the stage. I saw physical fear in Trump. He reminds me of a schoolyard bully who has mean, dangerous older brothers. The kind who don’t play football, or belong to any clubs. They aren’t “popular,” and they don’t get invited to parties because they only talk about themselves.
They miss a lot, and they don’t miss it: they spend most of their time around older males. They don’t dress in style. They don’t learn kids games. In other words – they are severely stunted socially. They never learn compassion, or to pity. They see power as advantage. They mistake advantage as mandate. They really believe in their cruel, vicious lives.
They quickly learn about hating women. And persons of Color. They are sadistic to animals, and don’t have pets. They don’t believe in good, or God, or service, or even commitment – they look no further ahead than the next deal, the next scam, con, lay, racket, dodge or RIP-off. They don’t believe in heroes. Their role models are murderers and thieves. A good man, to them, is a “sucker,” a worthy man is a loser who should be thinking about his own.
Nothing matters except the take. Not even yous mudda. And the bling. At first I pitied them. But when they hurt people who couldn’t fight back, I hurt them, if I could. And I gave as good as I got.
Then came the Revolution. We thought we would change the world. We were fools. It changed us. And never budged, not even an inch.