Millions, if not billions of words, have been written and published since (and even before) Election Day 2016 about the criminal enterprise of Donald J. Trump and his often-questionable behavior.
Like me, readers with any experience at all with a family member, friend, or partner with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) knows for certain that Trump is afflicted. His gaslighting and subversion of healthy human behavior has been playing out on a national and international stage for over two years now, in glaring contrast to the behavior of his recent predecessors in the White House. Even the incompetency of George W. Bush pales in comparison to the ongoing destructive shenanigans of the illegitimate 45th President of the United States.
In a blog post that I began on Election Night 2016 while enjoying a writing residency in Finland (morning there, a jellyfish day of epic proportions to awaken and find that Trump had inexplicably won the election), I spoke strongly about NPD and the effects it would have on our nation and the world. Both the pain of the early days of this administration and the ongoing chaos and suffering rendered since then have not proven me wrong, despite the propensity of presidential supporters to gloss over any of his wrongdoing with faux news "facts." Even now, as the indictments and guilty pleas mount, his codependent, enabling supporters - his flying monkeys - state there is "no evidence" of wrongdoing, that everything reported by mainstream media is nothing more than "fake news." The cognitive dissonance is stunning.
We are now entering a period in which the "Bottomless Pinocchio" (a new rating for lying politicians introduced by Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler early this morning, a perfect nickname for the great pretender) is at his most dangerous. We can rightly and judiciously assume that so much political and legal pressure is being brought to bear upon Trump that he is likely entering a state of narcissistic collapse. Once the inner and outer worlds of the narcissist no longer support his or her distorted worldview, their ever-present self-hatred, and hatred of anything "normal" or good, may grow to explosive capacity.
While the average narcissist trudges unhappily on with his or her life in a collapsed state, the privileged and powerful extreme of a life such as Donald J. Trump's may launch him into ever-degrading and violent behavior. The massive blows to this monumental Trumpian ego could easily result in a "going postal" on a national and international scale. We see evidence of that in his ongoing, angry and delusional tweets and in the mirroring behavior by his most disturbed supporters, such as abuse of journalists and abuse and even murders of people of color, or in explosive mass shootings in public spaces.
As some political pundits and legal experts point out, DJT is unlikely to be indicted for criminal violations while in office, and it makes sense that he would not have the dignity displayed by Nixon in resigning from office when confronted by the facts of his criminal behavior under threat of impeachment. Still, indict or impeach we must.
Comey, former director of the FBI, stated on Sunday, December 9 in an interview with Nicole Wallace that the best course of action is to "defeat Donald Trump in a landslide election in 2020." But do we really want to deal with a collapsed narcissist in the White House for two more years, even with a House of Representatives controlled by Democrats and a more savvy (and weary) public than existed in 2016?
As someone whose life has been mangled by more than one narcissist, beginning in childhood by a covert narcissist parent, and later by more than one relationship with malignant narcissist males (before I understood my propensity to attract them and went low or no contact), my firm answer is no!
Once the pudding is made and tasted, once the diagnosis is understood, the proof is beyond denial. We have seen enough evidence that DJT is both an illegitimate president and a criminal one. The report that will soon be released by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller will substantiate this. Even the indictments and guilty pleas offered so far by other players and co-conspirators in the Trump campaign go a long way to substantiate this.
There is no path possible except to remove the 45th President of the United States from office, and as quickly as possible. To do anything else is risky beyond belief. Trump is no Nixon. Rather, he is on par with the dangerous psychopaths he admires so much: Russia's Vladimir Putin, North Korea's Kim Jong Un, and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The world has only survived such evil men by offering massive resistance and when necessary, by excising the source of malignancy.
There is no room in American democracy for a monumentally malignant narcissist. We must act to excise the toxicity of Donald J. Trump's legacy as quickly as is legally possible or stand to lose what shreds of mental health, self-respect, and democratic credibility that we have left. Do the world a favor: send the man packing, whether by impeachment or indictment, even if only to sulk darkly in his tower or at one of his golf courses. Even letting him languish without consequences as a "last resort" is far more palatable than allowing the Bottomless Pinocchio to remain in office, sucking the last bit of patience and sanity from the marrow of a weary public.
