How scary is Donald Trump?

[Admin]

Pretty scary..

On Wednesday, following Trump's lunch meeting with Senate Republicans to discuss tax reform and other issues the day prior, former Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said the president "has a personality disorder." "We have a leader who has a personality disorder,” Coburn told The New York Times. "But he's done what he actually told the people he was going to do, and they're not going to abandon him." Coburn, a former medical doctor who served in the Senate from 2005 through 2015, was explaining why he doubts that other GOP senators would speak out against the president like Corker and Flake had.

But conservative columnist David Brooks, in a Times column on Friday, wrote that some GOP senators thought Trump "might be suffering from early Alzheimer's" following their Wednesday lunch meeting. "The Republican senators went to the White House and saw a president so repetitive and rambling, some thought he might be suffering from early Alzheimer’s," Brooks wrote. "But they know which way the wind is blowing. They gave him a standing ovation."

Republicans are starting to more openly question Trump's mental health - Business Insider

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A Yale University psychiatrist is warning that President Donald Trumphas become increasingly mentally unstable in recent days, imperiling the United States and the rest of the word. Dr. Bandy Lee's stark alarm, published Friday in a letter to The New York Times, calls for the public and lawmakers to demand a psychological examination of Trump.

It comes on the heels of Trump retweeting violent videos from a far-right group in the United Kingdom, referring to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., as "Pocohantas" during a White House event honoring Navajo Indian heroes of World War II, and a Times story that said the president has suggested an "Access Hollywood" tape of him talking about groping women may have been fake, despite his prior admission it was real.

"He's losing touch with reality," Lee told CNBC..

Psychiatrists warn Trump becoming more mentally unstable

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Unfit? You decide..

In the extended bipartisan meeting, which was televised and mostly open to the press, Trump appeared to agree to almost everything presented to him — even if it came from Democrats. He said he would “like” to pass a “clean” DACA bill, that would restore protections for upwards of 700,000 undocumented immigrants against deportation, and would “take the heat” politically for comprehensive immigration reform. In the past, that’s meant policy with a path to citizenship — a stark break the views espoused by his immigration hardliner advisers and supporters. “We are going to do DACA, and then we then we can start immediately on the Phase 2 which would be comprehensive immigration — I would like that,” Trump said. “I think a lot of people would like to do DACA first.” At one point in the meeting, Trump seemed so amenable to Democratic demands that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had to jump in and remind Trump of the Republican position on DACA: that any agreement needs to come with substantial border security.

His definition of a “clean DACA bill” is a little difficult to parse. “I think a clean DACA bill, to me, is a DACA bill, but we take care of the 800,000 people ... but I think, to me, a clean bill is a bill of DACA, we take care of them, and we also take care of security,” Trump said.
There are currently five different proposals to enshrine DACA into law, all of which could fit into Trump’s “DACA bill” specification — from the DREAM Act, which Democrats and some Republicans would like to see passed, to the more conservative Succeed Act, which extends the citizenship process and addresses family-based immigration. Depending on whom you talk to, border security could mean anything from funding drones and more boots on the ground to the 30-foot concrete border wall that Trump so famously coined on the campaign trail. Durbin told reporters that Trump described the “wall” in many different ways during the meeting, leaving some in the room confused about what he was actually envisioning. Republicans seemed to come away with varying degrees of specifics.

Trump’s bizarre and confusing DACA meeting with Congress, explained - Vox

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Fasten your seatbelts..

While the exaggerator-in-chief is well known for his habitual lying, the most common psychological diagnosis he’s been given by experts in the field is narcissistic personality disorder. While any diagnosis should require a full mental examination before accepted as clinical truth, the mountains of behavioral evidence for Trump’s narcissism arguably provides more justification for the label than any standard clinical test. At this point, the claim can hardly be debated, and even staunch supporters would admit that Trump thinks he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. It takes a special kind of narcissist to shamelessly compare their book to The Bible in front an audience full of conservatives. His narcissism knows few limits, and it’s hard to imagine even the man himself denying such an obvious fact.

So, the question becomes, what happens when a narcissist is being threatened with the loss of power and control? The answer is something psychologists call “narcissistic injury.” The phrase was coined by none other than Sigmund Freud in the 1920s, and it occurs when a narcissist feels that they have been disrespected, belittled, or their true self revealed. This often happens when they are experiencing a “fall from grace,” which is why understanding the phenomenon is so important at present..

Trump's Downfall: A Neuroscientist Explains What Happens When a Narcissist Starts to Lose Power | Alternet

• It starts with blaming others and lashing out..
  

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Scary enough for his own people to hide things from him..

President Donald Trump nearly pulled the US out of two major trade deals in 2017, according to the veteran journalist Bob Woodward's new book, excerpts of which were published by The Washington Post on Tuesday. According to The Post, Woodward reports that Gary Cohn, Trump's former top economic adviser, prevented withdrawals from the North American Free Trade Agreement and a deal with South Korea by stealing documents authorizing the moves from Trump's desk. Cohn and Trump clashed on trade policy and the president's response to the violence last year in Charlottesville, Virginia. Cohn left the White House in March.

Bob Woodward Trump book: Gary Cohn stole docs to keep NAFTA, KORUS trade deals - Business Insider

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Officials from the Trump administration reportedly contacted a Yale University psychiatrist last year because  President Trump was "scaring" them. Dr. Bandy Lee told Salon and The New York Daily News on Thursday that two White House officials flagged Trump's behavior last October. "[They] said that Trump was 'scaring' them, that he was 'unraveling," Lee, who wrote the book, "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” told Salon. 

"Not wishing to confuse the role I chose, as an educator of the public, and a potential treatment role, I referred them to the local emergency room without inquiring much further," Lee added to Salon. Lee also wrote an op-ed declaring that Trump is a "dangerous leader.""

Psychiatrist: Trump admin officials contacted me because president was ‘scaring’ them | TheHill

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Difficult to argue this, from Robert Reich (October 16 2018)

TRUMP IS AMERICA’S MOST DANGEROUS EXPORT

Donald Trump is not only undermining democracy here at home, but he’s also emboldening dangerous authoritarian movements around the world. Trump’s presidency has become America’s most dangerous export.  

FIRST: Trump has provided cover for authoritarian leaders around the world who are actively attacking the media and suppressing the truth to entrench their power. 

• He congratulated Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on his electoral victory, despite Orban’s efforts to undermine democracy and stifle freedom of the press.  
  
• On Twitter, Trump vowed to join with Polish president Andrzej Duda to “fight the fake news”. Duda has placed media outlets under strict government control.  
  
• Trump welcomed to the White House the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who has locked up tens of thousands of his political opponents and decimated the human-rights community there.
  
• Trump reached out to Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte, who has invoked Hitler’s mass extermination of Jews as a model for how he would like to dispose of drug dealers and addicts.
  
• He has courted Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has imprisoned critics and human-rights activists, caused thousands of civilian deaths in Yemen, and – evidence increasingly suggests – is responsible for the gruesome death of Washington Post journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi.  
  
• And, of course, Trump infamously made excuses for Vladimir Putin when asked about the murder of Russian journalists. 
  

SECOND: Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric have lent legitimacy to racist and xenophobic political parties across Europe. His success playing on racial fears and stoking nationalist sentiment has been a model for their efforts. 

• Look at Italy’s new deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, who campaigned on mass deportations and has evoked the language of Benito Mussolini. 
  
• And Austria’s far-right Freedom Party has demanded tighter border security, expedited deportations, and financial “sanctions” on immigrants. 
  
• Close behind them, although not yet in power, are France’s Marine Le Pen and Britain’s Nigel Farage, who Trump has complimented on Twitter.  
  

THIRD:  Trump has undermined the international institutions committed to protecting human rights and defending democracy. 

• Unlike former U.S. presidents, Trump doesn’t publicly mention human rights. 
  
• In a break with decades of U.S. foreign policy, Trump has attacked NATO, weakening the alliance as Putin threatens to undermine democracies in Western Europe. 
  
• He has also called the European Union a “foe,” playing into nationalist movements.   
  
• As in the 1930s, economic strains are fueling the rise of demagogues who direct anger and resentment toward scapegoats such as immigrants and minorities – lying about them with impunity. 
  
• But the truth is still getting through to most people, and democracy is still alive. Yet in sharp contrast to the 1930s when the president of the United States defended our democratic ideals, Trump is now helping lead the charge against them. 
  

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Here is what he is unleashing:

Self-appointed militia groups are planning to head to the Mexican border to help halt the caravan of Central American migrants heading to the US. Border Patrol officials have already warned landowners in Texas that it expects “possible armed civilians” to go onto their properties because of the caravan. The activists, who are raising money for their plan, are planning to arm themselves with guns and bulletproof vests in an effort to secure America’s border against the caravan of about 4,000 people.

Armed US militia groups prepare to see off migrant caravan at the Mexico border | The Independent

When there is right-wing terrorism at home, pipe bombs through the mail, anti-semites shooting up synagoges, a bunch of desperate Hondurians fleeing dire poverty and violence is supposed to be a national crisis ("paid for by the Democrats and George Soros, with Arab terrorists in their middle," etc. etc.)

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Read all the idiotic claims by Trump and his right-wing echo chamber about the caravan of (mostly) Hondurian people in the following article, then consider the sobering facts:

In reality, the caravan was thousands of miles and weeks away from the U.S. border, shrinking in size, and unlikely to reach the U.S. before the election. If the migrants reach the U.S., they have the right under U.S. law to apply for asylum at a port of entry. If their claims are not accepted, they will be turned away. There is no national emergency; there is no ominous threat. There is only a group of desperate people looking for a better life, who have a right to request asylum in the United States and have no right to stay if their claims are rejected. Trump is reportedly aware that his claims about the caravan are false. An administration official told the Daily Beast simply, “It doesn’t matter if it’s 100 percent accurate … this is the play.” The “play” was to demonize vulnerable people with falsehoods in order to frighten Trump’s base to the polls.

Before committing the Tree of Life massacre, the shooter, who blamed Jews for the caravan of “invaders” and who raged about it on social media, made it clear that he was furious at hias, founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a Jewish group that helps resettle refugees in the United States. He shared posts on Gab, a social-media site popular with the alt-right, expressing alarm at the sight of “massive human caravans of young men from Honduras and El Salvador invading America thru our unsecured southern border.” And then he wrote, “hias likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

Trump's Caravan Hysteria Sparked a Massacre - The Atlantic

And what happens if you demonize vulnerable people.... ??!

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President Trump's supporters chanted “lock her up” ahead of his arrival at a rally in Mosinee, Wis., on Wednesday evening, just hours after the Secret Service said it found "potential explosive devices" in mail sent to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at her home in Chappaqua, New York.

Trump rally chants 'lock her up' after bomb threats made to Clinton | TheHill

Later that morning, President Donald Trump responded. “Something has to be done,” he told reporters as he boarded Air Force One on his way to Indiana. The president denied that America’s gun laws had anything to do with this act of gun violence. He suggested that the victims would have averted disaster by arming themselves. “If they had protection inside, the results would have been far better,” Trump said. With that, he expressed a position common in his responses to violence over the past two years: that the only way to combat terror is to yield to it.
Read: After Pittsburgh, all eyes are on Trump once more.

Trump continues to argue that his casual bigotry and xenophobia, his exhortations of extralegal measures against political opponents, and his delegitimization of the media are inconsequential to the violence. Instead, Trumpism demands that violence be solved by local militarization: increased security at schools, the arming of teachers, and now, the adoption of guns in places intended quite literally to be sanctuaries from the scourges of the world. Taken altogether, what Trumpism seems to intend is the creation—or perhaps the expansion—of the machinery of a police state.

Trump's Telling Response to the Pittsburgh Shooting - The Atlantic