Why Greater Awareness is Necessary in the U.S.

While there is an abundance of information available now for most people to study topics of interest to them, one of my chief sources of cognitive dissonance these days is that politicians, corporations and the news media have increasingly channeled public discussion into narrow channels that collectively tend to block out conceptually challenging topics. Although I am completely sick of thinking about Donald Trump, viewing images of him, hearing him speak, and having to read and see inadequate discussions about him, the Trump phenomenon in public life is the best example of what is wrong in the U.S at this moment. I've already written about how the internet and social media have stirred up a lot of confusion, but I think that, additionally, it is necessary to discuss in detail some of Trump's specific shortcomings. What I find unsettling is that Trump is never confronted directly about his enormous deficiencies and weaknesses as a person, which are particularly important now that he is the de facto most powerful person in the world.

First, it has to be said that Trump is deeply ignorant. He doesn't read, and most of his ideas are ones that he adopted by habituation while he was growing up. In those days, women and minorities did not have equal rights, gay people were generally in the closet, there was little evidence of impending global warming, and businessmen in New York City often operated in a cutthroat manner. Trump displayed dishonesty at an early age by hiring a person to take the SAT for him. Most of Trump's "ideas" are longstanding formulations that he has been using to get his way throughout his life. As far as I've been able to determine, what little curiosity he has tends to focus on ways to manipulate people to meet his objectives. This seems to be the same pattern followed by his father and his father's father. Some of his grandfather's wealth came from prostitution, and this may have influenced Trump's attitude toward women.

During his second term as president, it is easier to identify his thinking processes than it was during his first term. In the first term he was battling his own appointees and faced with impeachment twice, and the pandemic added to the confusion. In his second term, he has concentrated on consolidating his power and is consciously copying Viktor Orbán of Hungary. It is already apparent that he has no understanding of world economics, and it seems that his advisors are generally unwilling to take the risk of enlightening him if they know better. Trump's primary transactional methodology seems to be to inflict pain of one kind or another and then switch plans if the first one doesn't achieve the desired results. I think that this is one of the best examples of how deeply ignorant Trump really is. It is obvious that he has no understanding of global economics, and he is simply operating on his old business model from his real estate background, which also failed. When he first rolled out his tariff plan, he had not anticipated the extent to which it would roil world financial markets, and he was essentially forced to cancel it immediately. I also find it instructive to examine him as an arbiter of conflict resolution between world leaders. He has already given up on creating a Ukraine-Russia resolution, and he even seems to have encouraged Benjamin Netanyahu to escalate the genocide in Gaza. In both instances, since there was nothing in it for him, he had a hard time staying focused. Following his instincts, he prefers to spend his time soliciting bribes from Arab states and bilking people with new cryptocurrency schemes. Traditionally, Trump and his family have been grifters, and that is still their default model.

The other main deficiencies in Trump, I think, are psychiatric in nature. It seems that, within a political context, bringing up psychiatric issues is a taboo. There is currently a slight drift toward an easing, at least with respect to senility, but technically that isn't a psychiatric issue. Age was brought up for Ronald Reagan in his second term, so there is a historical precedent. A lot has already been written about Trump's psychiatric state, even by a niece and nephew. More significantly, "200 mental health professionals" warned "that Donald Trump is dangerous because of 'his symptoms of severe, untreatable personality disorder – malignant narcissism.'" Although psychiatry does not get much attention in America, I think that this description of Trump is reasonably accurate. I think that anyone who has paid attention to him for several years can pick this up easily, without much convincing. At this point, Trump's psychological makeup is far more dangerous than Joe Biden's senility would have been if he had been reelected. I have yet to see any full-scale discussion of this problem in the news media. 

What can readily be observed now is that Trump has been unable to resolve any significant issues within his purview, ranging from the federal budget deficit to appropriate taxation to international conflicts. Rather, Trump is simply continuing his cycle of bullying, intimidation and empty proposals. It is readily apparent that, not only is he distracting from the resolution of issues that are of public importance, but that he may actually just prefer to punish people unfairly for his personal enjoyment. To him, minorities, immigrants, women and non-binary people are fair game. Also, because he was an academic dunce, he seems to derive a sadistic pleasure from punishing Ivy League universities. 

I am getting tired of hearing the word "democracy" being used as a panacea for issues such as the Trump phenomenon. Since Trump was duly elected in an accepted democratic process, I think that the focus should shift toward greater public awareness. We should now be barraged with news, videos, podcasts and articles regarding the dangers of the Trump presidency. This may be absent because we are living in an increasingly corporate-controlled country, where the calculated costs of challenging Trump are often outweighing the benefits.