In an excellent article titled “The Seven Broken Guardrails of Democracy,” David Frum begins with this:
The first guardrail to go missing was the old set of expectations about how a candidate for president of the United States should speak and act. Here’s Adlai Stevenson accepting the Democratic nomination for president in 1952:
That I have not sought this nomination, that I could not seek it in good conscience, that I would not seek it in honest self-appraisal, is not to say that I value it the less.
There was a certain quantum of malarkey here—but it wasn’t all malarkey. From the founding of the republic, Americans have looked to qualities of personal restraint as one of the first checks on the power of office. “The aim of every political Constitution is or ought to be first to obtain for rulers, men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous, whilst they continue to hold their public trust.” So argued James Madison in Federalist 57. In Federalist 68, Alexander Hamilton promised more specifically: “Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.”
(http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-seven-broken-guardrails-of-democracy/484829/)
Okay, so nobody talks like that any more; but Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other leaders speak and act in ways that evidence their knowledge and intelligence in the best 21st-century form. Do I need to point out the contrast with one of Trump’s classic lines, “I’m speaking with myself [on foreign policy] because I have a very good brain”? I rest my case.
Then there are his words from his first televised sit-down interview after the election. Interviewer Lesley Stahl asked for his response to the supporters demonstrating in his name. Here’s what he said:
“I am so saddened to hear that,” Trump [said] when she said Latinos and Muslims are facing harassment. “And I say, ‘Stop it.’ If it — if it helps, I will say this, and I will say right to the cameras: ‘Stop it.'”
Wow, Donald! That’s it? “Stop it”? A five-year-old would say that. You can’t reason intelligently with these people—your own supporters—and express to them that what they’re doing is wrong and you refuse to tolerate or condone that kind of behavior in your name or in our country? Just “stop it”? That’s all you’ve got? And you wonder what we’re scared of? Throughout his campaign, Trump told us how he would fix problems by simply speaking solutions; he would command bad people such as ISIS to cease, and the problem would be solved.
Smart people can see two problems here: First, he sees his position as that of a dictator. He speaks, and people follow his commands. Second, the dark forces have been unleashed and empowered, so they no longer need Trump and have no reason to listen to him except when he is further advancing their causes. There will be a nasty divorce between the demagogue and his adoring fans because they no longer need each other. They helped him get elected; he has no further incentive to keep his promises or live up to their hope that he would be their champion. They’ve been given power and legitimacy to carry on their bigotry and violence with or without his support. Are you scared yet?
The guardrail metaphor resonates with me since I had a few hair-raising moments during my 1996 trip to Israel. On one of our daily excursions, our bus driver took us on a narrow, winding road up a hillside—not one of the roads usually available to tourists. I believe it was called the Old Roman Road, so for obvious reasons, there was no guardrail or any kind of barrier between our bus and the sheer drop-off into the valley below and the road was not engineered to support modern tour buses. We were riding in a large modern tour bus, however; and it seems the distance between its tires and the edge of the road could probably have been measured in inches. Our president is our representative on the world stage; our national security is partly dependent on our representative’s ability to command the respect and cooperation of other world leaders. His mental and emotional stability and his personal restraint are among the guardrails that prevent our plummet into oblivion. So far, the most common caricature of our newly elected top official in publications around the world is a diaper-clad, tantrum-throwing toddler. I was scared on that bus ride, and I’m even more scared now.
Next, I fear the fact that we have elected an extreme narcissist as our president. It didn’t take anyone long to recognize the symptoms once we started hearing from Trump in large doses; his narcissism was the first thing to be noticed and analyzed among anyone with even a Psych 101 class on their transcript. Professional shrinks have said there’s a little narcissism in every leader, that it takes a bit of self-importance to motivate a person to seek high office and extreme power. No one, however, has ever thought Donald Trump’s ego and self-importance are within the normal, healthy range.
Amy Ellis Nutt quotes experts who define narcissism thus:
“Narcissism is a trait all human beings have to one extent or another, so it’s not inherently negative,” said psychologist Margaret Jordan, an expert in personality disorders at Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine. “It’s a part of self-esteem and is important to mental health.”
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/22/is-donald-trump-a-textbook-narcissist/)
Ms. Nutt goes on to ask when self-regard becomes pathological. Her answer:
The most recent edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders describes narcissistic personality disorder as being “characterized by the presence of both grandiosity and attention seeking” and lists nine criteria, of which five are necessary for diagnosis. Among them: a need for excessive admiration; preoccupation with fantasies of brilliance, power and success; and a sense of being special.
Those traits can lead to arrogance and haughtiness, and a single-minded pursuit of status that make close relationships difficult and devoid of true intimacy.
About six clinicians were consulted in the preparation of Ms. Nutt’s article, all of whom refused to specifically evaluate Trump, citing what’s called the Goldwater Rule, which discourages psychiatric professionals from evaluating people with whom they’ve not personally met. A few of them did, however, agree to speak on the process by which they would identify possible signs of narcissistic personality disorder. They shared these examples:
Trump has said that his “IQ is one of the highest,” that he has “the world’s greatest memory,” and that he is “dazzled” by his own creations.
And during his speech Thursday night at the Republican convention, he faulted the government’s “broken system,” then declared: “I alone can fix it.”
Although they declined to say whether these statements qualify as pathological, I’m going to draw my own conclusion, which is that no matter what we call it, that level of grandiosity is dangerous in a president. The professionals did go so far as to say it is unprecedented.
Our new president-elect sees every situation only as if affects him; the rest of the world exists as his supporting cast, and we are useful only as we enhance his ego. Chanting, adoring crowds yield many votes; having the biggest crowds means he’s the best candidate and his message is obviously right. The system is rigged unless it serves his purpose; now he’s no longer whining about a rigged system. The vote would be fair and he’d accept the results if he won, but if he didn’t win it would obviously mean his opponent had cheated and he wouldn’t commit to accepting the results. When crowds of protesters began to throng the streets in protest of his election, he didn’t express concern for anyone’s safety or talk to the protesters and address their concerns—going back to his childish communication ability. Instead, he tweeted some of his favorite words: “very unfair.” Unfair to him, of course, the only effect that matters.
Dan P. McAdams says of Trump’s personality:
More than even Ronald Reagan, Trump seems supremely cognizant of the fact that he is always acting. He moves through life like a man who knows he is always being observed. If all human beings are, by their very nature, social actors, then Donald Trump seems to be more so—superhuman, in this one primal sense.
(http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/the-mind-of-donald-trump/480771/)
What does all of this mean to citizens of our country, and why should any of us be frightened by it? A man who thinks he alone can solve problems is delusional, autocratic, uneducated, and unlikely to work within the checks-and-balances structure of our government. As President Obama recently said, “A man who can be baited with a tweet has no business with the nuclear codes.”
A president who has threatened to jail his opponent, to “open up the libel laws” to silence and prosecute journalists, whose first response to every problem is to file or at least threaten to file a lawsuit, who shows no capacity for empathy or compassion, who lies and then lies about his lies—all for one purpose: to defend and protect his enormous but fragile ego—is dangerous. When he is president, SNL actors will continue to impersonate him, every journalist in the world will continue to write about him, every scholar will continue to study and analyze him. If he continues his penchant for vengeance and focusing on protecting his ego against every minute affront, he’ll have little time left over for tending to the duties of his office. And we will all be the losers for that: not just the Democrats but ALL Americans.
The overriding fear is that Trump’s election, and the events and movements which made his election possible, have established a new normal, which can’t be accepted if we’re not only to survive but to progress and innovate as Americans have always done.
C. J. Polychroniou prefaces his interview with Noam Chomsky with these words:
On Nov. 8, Donald Trump managed to pull the biggest upset in U.S. politics by tapping successfully into the anger of white voters and appealing to the lowest inclinations of people in a manner that would have probably impressed Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels himself.
But what exactly does Trump’s victory mean and what can one expect from this megalomaniac when he takes over the reins of power on Jan. 20, 2017? What is Trump’s political ideology, if any, and is “Trumpism” a movement? Will U.S. foreign policy be any different under a Trump administration? Some years ago, public intellectual Noam Chomsky warned that the political climate in the U.S. was ripe for the rise of an authoritarian figure. Now, he shares his thoughts on the aftermath of this election, the moribund state of the U.S. political system and why Trump is a real threat to the world and the planet in general.
Mr. Polychroniou goes on to quote Mr. Chomsky:
On Nov. 8, the most powerful country in world history, which will set its stamp on what comes next, had an election. The outcome placed total control of the government—executive, Congress, the Supreme Court—in the hands of the Republican Party, which has become the most dangerous organization in world history.
(http://www.ecowatch.com/noam-chomsky-trump-2093271018.html)
Brilliant minds like Mr. Polychroniou and Mr. Chomsky are not given to speaking in hyperbole; they are cautious and measured and don’t venture outside what they can document with fact. When such writers do indulge in hyperbole, it is a loud signal that we should all take notice. And we should be very afraid.
In the face of such dire predictions, our human tendency is to feel overwhelmed and to calm our fears by accepting the new normal and telling ourselves it won’t be so bad. The sun will rise tomorrow, and we’ll be okay. It’s exhausting to be always trying to swim against the current, so we tell ourselves it won’t do any good to try. But that leads to mediocrity and satisfaction with the status quo, and that’s not the America I know. We’ve already lowered our standards to a frightening level; how much lower are we willing to go?
Americans have always been innovators, strivers toward excellence. When our road was too old or inadequately engineered to support our bus, we didn’t shrug our shoulders and sigh “Oh, well!” We brought our creativity and genius to bear and built a new road or re-engineered the old road, because just getting by was not enough. Is our new standard for success going to be just staying on the road without falling off and plunging into the abyss? Will a good day be one on which nobody dies? Will a good day be one on which our president doesn’t do anything stupid or dangerous? Will we no longer even expect excellence or progress? It seems that’s where we’re headed, and that scares a few of us.
To be continued.