March 26, 2018
Donald Trump: Is He Too Dangerous to Be Head
of State?
By Dr. Rodrigue
Tremblay
(Author of the
books “The
Code for Global Ethics”, and “The
New American Empire”)
"We [the United States] spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives. ... Obviously, it was a mistake… George W. Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East…
—They [President George W. Bush and Vice
President Dick Cheney] lied… They said
there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none. And they knew there
were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction." Donald Trump (1946- ), during a CBS News GOP presidential debate, on
Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016.
“Mental impairment and criminal-mindedness
are not mutually exclusive; not only can they happen at the same time, when
combined, these two characteristics become particularly dangerous.” Bandy X Lee (1970- ), an
internationally recognized psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine and editor of the book ‘The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27
Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,’ 2017.
“An autocrat in the making is typically an
elected outsider who disdains norms, questions the legitimacy of political
foes, tolerates violence, and shows a willingness to curtail the free press.” Steven Levitsky (1968- ) and Daniel
Ziblatt (1972- ), (in their book How Democracies Die, 2018, 312 p.)
“...An empire is a despotism, and an emperor is a
despot, bound by no law or limitation but his own will; it is a stretch of
tyranny beyond absolute monarchy. For, although the will of an absolute monarch
is law, yet his edicts must be registered by parliaments. Even this formality
is not necessary in an empire.” John
Adams (1735-1826), 2nd American President, (1797-1801), (in ‘The
Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections’, 2003)
“To know and not to
know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully
constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out,
knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic
against logic, to repudiate
morality while laying claim to it…
To tell
deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has
become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back
from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality…” George Orwell (Eric
Arthur Blair) (1903-1950), English novelist, essayist, and social critic, (in
his book ‘1984’, 1949, chap. 2)
Introduction
US President Donald
Trump (1946-), as a politician, has succeeded in attracting voters who
are dissatisfied or partially dissatisfied with their economic or social
situation, especially working class white voters without college degrees. Income inequality and
wealth inequality is growing in the United States, and the balance
leans toward the winners, even though the losers are more numerous and have not
been compensated through job training or social services. In other words, many
Americans are disillusioned regarding their chance of living the American dream
and about the way the system and public
policies disadvantage them. Trump attracts also single-issue
voters.
All this creates a
fertile ground for a populist politician. This has happened elsewhere and it is
now a political reality in the United States. It is also normal that Donald Trump
is strongly opposed by various establishments and attacked by those to whom his
populism is repugnant.
But beyond the purely
personal considerations people have to support or oppose him, what are the
characteristics of this neophyte in politics that many, and not only in the
United States, consider scary?
For example, some
observers
have drawn a parallel between the current occupant of the White House and
the decadent emperor Caligula
(12-41 CE) of Ancient Rome. Caligula was autocratic, unpredictable, unhinged and a
self-conscious populist who
lacked self-restraint. He was a sociopath who enjoyed
hurting and humiliating people. Moreover, he treated politics like a show. He indulged in pornography and
depravity. He was
disruptive and contemptuous of existing
institutions, and he was a warmonger who courted the military.
A biographer in
the know has also linked Trump’s
outrageous behavior, as a politician, to Adolf
Hitler (1889-1945), the subject of his book ‘Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil’, 1998.
Indeed, author Ron Rosenbaum (1946- ) explains how a constant attack on the media and the courts by
Trump was also a tactic used by Hitler to gain power, in Germany. History has a
way of repeating itself, and no one should think that disastrous past
experiences cannot be repeated.
Whether all this
is the case or not, what can be safely said is that never in its entire history
has the United States faced a president in the White House of the sort that Mr.
Trump represents. Persons
closed to him have warmed us: Donald Trump is “deeply mentally ill” and “no longer connected to reality” and what
is more, he is prone to loose his temper and act in anger, sometimes in pure
madness. These are, we will all agree, very dangerous
character traits for any U.S. President, if they are true.
It has been observed that the White House under Trump’s
direction is often in turmoil, in disarray and
sometimes, in complete chaos,
and that the American president is mentally
unstable and that he is prone to act impulsively, like an unmoored loose
cannon, in most anything he does. It is said that Trump often
acts in a bluffing and vengeful way, firing
people right and left for any motive, sometimes in a
most nefarious way. That should certainly be another reason for alarm and
consternation.
It may be worth recalling
here what the former
Director of the CIA under Barack Obama, John Brennan (1955-), said, referring
to Donald Trump and his mean dismissal of the FBI's No. 2, Andrew McCabe
(1968-), Friday night, March 16, 2018, a few hours before the latter was to
become eligible for a pension:
“When the full extent of your venality, moral
turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful
place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat
Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America...America will triumph over you.”
Recently, for example, he
was reported to want to launch an international trade
war for the childish reason that he did not want to be “laughed at”. This is unsettling, because
all this is based on faulty economic
thinking and wrong
facts. A protectionist U.S.
President can do great harm to the world economy. —Trump’s top economic adviser Gary Cohn had enough of
that craziness, and he resigned. Trump only wants "sycophants" around him.
In the coming
months, I fear that American consumers and the world stock markets will give
their own assessment of Trump’s economic folly, and it won’t be pretty.
Consequently,
many people have concluded that the current occupant of the White House is not
mature enough and not competent enough to be president of the United States. In
his book, ‘Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House’, author Michael Wolff writes that “Trump
lived… as a real-life fictional character”, that he is a man detached and
mostly cut off from reality, being comfortable in relying on so-called false
and subjective “alternative
facts”. For
such a person, only appearances matter,
not reality.
People who know him well
have labeled him unpredictable
and inconsistent. Trump is the flip-flopper
par excellence. Indeed,
Trump’s intellectual inconsistency is beyond comprehension. He can adopt,
almost simultaneously, two opposite positions without flinching... and without
apology.
And, as if this is not
enough, Donald Trump is also besieged by huge conflicts
of interest, not the
least is a level of nepotism not seen in the White House in modern
times.
Let us try to get
a more complete picture of the political situation in the United States:
1. The American electoral system favors Republicans
First of all, let
us say that it is one of the peculiarities of the American democratic system
that it happens quite often that the winning candidate in a presidential
election becomes president while receiving fewer votes than the losing
candidate. It sometimes happens that the losing candidate receives even a
majority of votes, but is still not elected. This happened in the 1876
election.
In fact, American
presidential elections are not necessarily decided by the popular vote.
According to the rules of the Electoral
College, a few hundred “grand electors”, chosen in each of the 50
states, are the ones who elect the U.S. President.
Such a system
tends to advantage the Republican candidates and it disadvantages the
Democratic candidates, because it gives less weight to the votes in the most
populated states than to those cast in the less populated states.
For example,
according to the official results of the 2016 election,
the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton received 48.5% of the
popular votes (65,953,516 votes) but received the support of only 232 “grand
electors” out of a total of 538, or 43.12% of these. However, the Republican
presidential candidate Donald Trump only collected 46.09% of the national votes
(62,984 825 votes), but received 306 or 56.9% of the “grand electors” votes.
Consequently, it was Donald Trump who became U.S. president and not Hillary
Clinton.
Note that in
2000, Republican candidate George W. Bush also received half a million fewer
votes than Democratic candidate Al Gore, but the Electoral College system
resulted in electing George W. Bush president. — In 1876 and in 1888, similar
results ensued, when a Republican candidate was elected U.S. President, while
receiving fewer votes than his Democratic opponent. — It can be said that the system
of the American Electoral College tends to favor Republican candidates, who are
generally more conservative.
2- Trump is egocentric and authoritarian
The current
sitting American president, Donald Trump, does not seem to have deep-seated
personal principles. He seems to be egocentric and he is always on the lookout
to profit personally from any event: if someone or something gives him
pleasure, prestige or money, he is all for it. No American president before him
has dared to express openly his feelings or his insults
of others, and even state his policies, on a social medium like Twitter, so
much so that Donald Trump has been called the “toddler-in-chief”.
That is why
Donald Trump is not your normal American president, even for the United States
where money plays a larger role than
elsewhere in electing public officials. Being a real estate oligarch
who owns hotels and casinos, among other properties, he has brought to the
White House the authoritarian and plutocratic ethics found in some wheeler-dealer corners of that
industry, an ethics of ruthlessness.
Accustomed to
running his real estate empire by himself, he was badly prepared to lead a
democratic government, which is, by definition, decentralized. However, his
authoritarian approach seems to appeal to his supporters. In fact, Trump acts
as if he were the representative of rednecks
in the White House.
In a new book, with the ominous title of “How Democracies Die”, two
political scientists (Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt of Harvard University)
compiled four warning signs to determine if a political leader is a dangerous
authoritarian:
1. The leader shows only a weak commitment to
democratic rules;
2. He or she denies the legitimacy of opponents;
3. He or she tolerates violence;
4. He or she shows some willingness to curb civil
liberties or the media. According to the authors, “a politician who meets even one of these criteria is cause for concern.”
Unfortunately, in their eyes, “Donald
Trump meets them all!”
Regarding violence, Trump did not hesitate to name a torturer
to lead the C.I.A. Torture is an immoral practice that he has personally espoused
in the past.
Basically, Donald Trump is an unscrupulous demagogue,
being both populist and authoritarian, of the type that has become dictator in
other countries. This should be a source of preoccupation because for some time
now, American presidents have been stretching the law to govern through executing
edicts and to keep the United States on a permanent
war footing. Donald Trump has expanded that practice and brought it to
a new level. In his first year in office, indeed, Trump has issued no less than
58
executive orders and some 30 so-called “proclamations”, without any input
from Congress.
Some business leaders can be expected to line up
behind the Trump administration, especially if they expect to draw financial benefits
from it, when they are at the receiving end of some money largesse (such as
huge tax breaks financed with more public debt). The same applies to ambitious
politicians who are willing to dance with the devil, if this can advance their
career. However, it is another
matter when the Trump White House extends its authoritarian cult of personality
to American career civil
servants, supposedly sworn
in to work for the nation and uphold the Constitution, not to hold allegiance
to the person temporarily sitting in the White House.
Also, it could be
considered odd when Donald Trump applauds
himself, but when he requests, in a dictator-like way, to be applauded
when he speaks, whether he tells the truth or not, and pretends that it is
even ‘un-American’ not to applaud
him, this should raise alarm.
It is not at all
surprising that there is a widespread distaste
in the United States for Trump’s personality and for his obnoxious
character. A majority
of Americans who cherish their democracy simply cannot stand him. He is an embarrassment even for his
supporters.
3- Trump acts and speaks like a sociopath who enjoys
making other people miserable
It would be comical if it were not potentially so tragic.
Trump is in a permanent state of self-admiration, constantly relying on exaggerations,
on overstatements and on illogical statements. No previous American
president could have matched him as an adept of self-congratulation. He shows himself as a self-aggrandizing individual. He
seems to be suffering from an advanced case of megalomania.
In fact, Trump is an
expert in erroneously declaring himself an expert
in about everything. And, he does not hesitate to qualify himself a “genius”!
Trump has also
confessed that he likes to “make the life
of people miserable”, i.e. the life of journalists, authors, competitors
and anyone who opposes him. An example, among hundreds if not thousands
of frivolous and gagging lawsuits, is his meritless but expensive
litigations, in time and money, against author Timothy
O'Brien for writing the book “TrumpNation”.
After his suit was dismissed in court, because it was a direct attack on the
First Amendment, Trump stated to the Washington Post,
“I did it to make O’Brien’s life miserable, which I am happy about.”
Such is the modus operandi of a very
sadistic and malicious
person who does not hesitate to attack the free press and the right to
free speech in a democracy.
4- Trump is a compulsive liar
Numerous public allegations
have also made the public aware that Trump is obsessed with sex
and sex,
sex,
and sex
again. He is also an
alleged sex
harasser who continually disparages women.
On Tuesday March
20, former Vice-President Joe Biden (1942- ) did not mince his words, while speaking
at an anti-sexual assault rally, telling students at the University of Miami
what he thought of Donald Trump and the way the latter talks about women:
“If we were in
high school, I’d take him [Donald Trump] behind the gym and beat the hell out of him”, for disrespecting
women.
It is well known
now that Donald Trump is a pathological liar who seems to fear
the truth like the pest. That is because Donald Trump is fundamentally intellectually
dishonest. That is probably the main reason Trump’s lawyers are adamant in not
wanting their client to testify alone and under oath, in the special
counsel Robert Mueller’s
investigation about his alleged electoral collusion with Russia.
Publicly, Trump pretends
to be willing to be questioned under oath by special counsel
Robert Mueller, declaring: “I’m looking forward to it, actually”; “I would do it under oath.” This could be
another example of a ‘good cop-bad cop’
charade by Trump, because he would never accept to be interviewed alone,
without his lawyers, under oath, and he would likely blame his lawyers for
another flip-flop of his own.
This is also the reason why Trump has held only one
formal press
conference since taking office—unlike its predecessors, who held
one each month—in order to avoid being questioned by experienced journalists.
He prefers partisan political rallies where no one can contradict him or steal
his show.
5- Trump is a dangerous man to have control over
nuclear arms
Even if it were
possible to disprove half of what has been written about Trump’s
eccentricities, his laughable theatrics, his twisted logic, and his lies, Donald Trump would
still be a monster of a human being. We will never repeat often enough that he
is a dangerous person to hold power,
especially in a country like the United States, which is loaded with nuclear arms. Trump is indeed an unstable and irresponsible person; he is a
person with poor judgment, besides being erratic, reckless and trigger-happy. He also employs
constantly a bellicose tone in his relations with foreign leaders. This is a
very bad combination for a head of state in today’s complex world.
And to add to
that image, Trump would like to return to a bygone era, when well-known totalitarian leaders favored big shows of force. Trump made it known to “his generals” that he wants a large-scale, multi million
dollar “beautiful” and pompous military
parade, in his honor, in
Washington D.C., on Veterans
Day, with thousands of soldiers in tight formation, marching down
Pennsylvania Avenue, with planes and helicopters buzzing by
the Washington Monument and with 70-ton Abrams tanks and Patriot missiles
systems rolling down before the President’s stand. Trump seems to have had this
idea after attending the French military deployment of July 14th,
last summer. It’s a bit as if a childish Trump had seen a toy in the neighbor’s
yard and said, “I want one too!”
Such a powwow
show would gratify Trump’s infatuation with military toys he would like to play
with. It would be quite an irony if the United States, which fought fascist
Germany during World War II, itself adopted
fascist trappings,
three quarters of a century later.
Regarding nuclear
arms, Tom Collina, policy
director of the anti-nuclear Ploughshares Fund, has noted that a recent poll indicates that 60
percent of Americans do not trust Trump with nuclear weapons. Consequently, he
concluded: “the public is right to distrust
Trump with nuclear weapons, and we all need to speak up and oppose these new,
dangerous policies.” — I totally agree.
Trump has not only sociopathic tendencies, being insensitive and having
no empathy for anybody else but himself; he could also be considered a would-be
genocidal
psychopath when he talks freely saying this is the “calm before the storm”,
that it (North Korea) “will be met with fire, fury and
frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before”, even going as far as threatening to “totally
destroy North Korea”,
a country of more than 25 million people! This is even more scandalous,
considering that Donald Trump uttered that insane threat during a speech at the
United Nations, an organization specifically created to avoid war.
Therefore, one
cannot completely exclude some foul acts of savagery coming
from the Trump administration in the coming months and years. The current
disorganization in the Trump White House could lead to inhuman disasters,
considering the instability of Trump’s character and the lack of moral
fortitude and vision on the part of the current Republican leadership in both
the House and the U.S. Senate.
6- Trump can be expected to rely on “wag the dog” tricks to get out of
trouble
It is indeed common practice for some American presidents to “wag the dog”, i.e. distract from
domestic or personal domestic problems by provoking some conflicts abroad. On
this score, since Trump’s domestic problems are presently piling up, with
multiple lawsuits launched by women with whom he had sexual affairs in the
past, with serious allegations that foreign
governments were involved in his election, and with the looming
Special Prosecutor’s report possibly raising an accusation of obstruction of
justice against him, he could be expected to want to distract attention from
his problems and to make dangerous, possibly catastrophic, policy decisions.
Indeed, it is a modus operandi for
him to attempt to deflect
attention from his personal problems by creating problems elsewhere.
Note that Donald Trump is the first person to be
elected president of the United States without any political or military experience. Recently, he has
surrounded himself with sycophants who are immoral torturers and belligerent advocates
of regime change in other countries. The summum of cynicism on his
part—considering that he campaigned by repeating constantly that the
Bush-Cheney 2003 war of aggression against Iraq was a disaster and a dumb
decision—occurred on Thursday March 22, when he named one of the very
architects of the Iraq War, in the person of the extremely bellicose John
Bolton, as his national security adviser. I think the United States of
America has a big problem in having such a person as its president.
Conclusion
Keeping in mind
what I wrote in the introduction and the rational motives that motivate his
supporters to be behind him, it nevertheless remains that Donald Trump is an
emperor with no clothes, and a reliance on cognitive
dissonance on the part of his partisans cannot hide that simple fact.
Indeed, when all
things are said and considered, it is impossible not to conclude that there is
something fundamentally wrong with Donald Trump. Many experts
and observers
have warned the world that his state of mind is a danger to public safety. The
Republicans, in particular, who happen to control the U.S. Congress,
have a great responsibility to reflect on and to act upon that information
before some irreparable damage is done. If Trump were to do something
catastrophic in the coming weeks or months, economically or militarily, those Republicans
in Congress will have to share personal and collective responsibility in
the disaster.
More than one
year ago, because of Trump’s lack of seriousness and preparation, I warned
that he was going to be
“a threat to American democracy
and an agent of chaos in the world”. Unfortunately, every
day seems to bring forth new proofs of that assessment.
Therefore, as
time goes on, the case for Trump’s impeachment is going to get stronger and
stronger. His removal from office will become increasingly urgent and
increasingly compelling. It’s a safe bet that credible steps for his impeachment as U.S. President will
be taken rapidly, if the Democratic Party regains control of the House of
Representatives during this fall election—and possibly faster, if enough Republicans see the light
before then.
To read COMMENTS on this article, please go to top
right, under “Pages”,
and click on COMMENTS._______________________________
International economist Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book “The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles” and of “The New American Empire”.
Posted, Monday, March
26, 2018, at 8:30 am
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© 2018 by
Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay: The New American Empire Blog.