The author describes himself as follows: I am someone with deep concerns about Trump's suitability for the office of the presidency. My credentials matter not. My concerns are rather for our fellow citizens who deserve a mature, responsible and stable leader of our Nation. Trump's erratic behavior and poorly focused attention and priorities raise serious questions. Does he behave in that fashion to maintain a connection with his base? Is he aware that he is creating much consternation in his partners and supporters with his self centered focus and erratic conduct? There are troublesome aspects of his behavior that suggest underlying vulnerability. From the perspective of a mental health professional those vulnerabilities are deeply concerning and make his suitability for the office of President of the United States of America doubtful.
I think we share a common concern for the well being of all our fellow Americans including those who voted for Donald Trump hoping that he would indeed drain the swamp.
They did not realize that he is fundamentally a con man who is so self involved that all that matters to him is adulation by as many as possible.
Trump is devoid of any real commitments to the well being of our Nation. He does not care about the women whom he has systematically exploited as show pieces and as promoters of his brand. He is a selfish and self centered predator and exploitive parasite. That he had little to do with the raising and emotional and relational nurturance of Ivanka is abundantly clear. Looking at her with his predatory interests is more than disgusting. It is to her great benefit that she had a talented and determined mother who saved her. Ivanka is testimony to her mother's stability but not her exploitive and self centered father.
Moreover, Ivanka has a stabilizing impact on him as though a parent; but perhaps not enough to make a sufficient difference. Her father's essential instability and vulnerability to provocations and the withdrawal of affirmation cannot be remediated by anyone.
Trump’s narcissistic vulnerabilities are profound and overwhelming and no matter how much affirmation he receives it is never enough and has no lasting impact on remediating his endless and insatiable hunger to be adored. To use the office of the Presidency of the United States (to satisfy narcissistic needs) is a catastrophic reality that could lead to nuclear war. He wants to amp up endlessly our military prowess to buttress his fragile self esteem.
No power is enough and no dominance is enough.
He is voracious and insatiable and is willing to sacrifice our Nation to serve his whim, fancy, and vanity.
The most childish emperors of the Roman Empire were no match for his destructive greed and envy. Those who have integrity shame him. He hates them. He seeks to destroy them to moderate his rageful envy.
Read Melanie Klein (the pioneering Austrian-British psychoanalyst who devised novel therapeutic techniques for children that influenced child psychology and contemporary psychoanalysis. She was a leading innovator in object relations theory (Wikipedia) would grasp the utter depravity of Trump’s internal world. It is an inner world that knows no compassion and experiences no enduring equilibrium.
Melanie Klein focused on the lifelong oscillation from the paranoid/schizoid position and the depressive position. She knew that it was challenging to remain in a position of loving concern and respect for the other while feeling guilt and responsibility for attacks on the other motivated by envy and destructive fantasies arising from envy.
She made clear that the paranoid/schizoid position ( as we see manifest in Trump) is a primitive state of mind.
Trump exemplifies this psychologically primitive state in everything he says and does.
Trump is driven by envy and consumed with rage that someone else has what he wants.
He feels entitled to take whatever he wants so that he will not be tormented by envy and inferiority and vulnerability. Like little Lord Fauntleroy, he thinks everything belongs to him and he can take it when he wants.*
In effect, Trump is still a baby at age 70+ emotionally and behaviorally that is and is beyond remedy and restraint by anyone, and is thus like the childish dictator of North Korea. They are emotional twins.
* Thanks to a reader who noted that Little Lord Fauntleroy was noting like Donald Trump: “Little Lord Fauntleroy (1885, 1886) by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a beloved children's novel that made a huge impact on the 19th century public, shaping everything from boys' clothing fashions to copyright law. Cedric Errol is a generous, kind, and exemplary middle-class American boy who is suddenly found to be the heir of the Earl of Dorincourt. Saying loving goodbyes to his working-class friends, Cedric goes to England together with his mother to embrace his new fortune. His grandfather, the old earl, is a bitter old man ridden with gout and a foul temper, trusting no one. However the angelic boy elicits a profound transformation in the grandfather, which not only benefits the castle household but the whole populace of the earldom. If only the old man's heart would soften toward Cedric's estranged mother, the family would be healed at last. And when another potential heir to the earldom makes a claim, it seems that everything is lost.... But all things are possible through a child's innocent trust, true friendship, and unconditional love.” From Goodreads
Hal Brown, Editor