Many people have pointed out that President Donald
Trump is afflicted with serious mental disorders,
ranging from what psychiatrists call Narcissistic
Personality Disorder to Antisocial Personality
Disorder. Within the miasma of his sociopathy, he is
brutishly macho, an imperious bully, and (perhaps most
dangerous) chronically impulsive.
With Donald Trump brandishing this spectrum of
mental illnesses, we could well imagine (even predict)
any of the following scenarios:
At a public speech before cheering supporters, he
might say something like, “Every wife deserves at least
one good beating a week.” Not until days later, after
much damage has been done, i.e., many women abused,
does he get around to retracting his words, i.e.,
pretending that what he said was a joke. Or, at a
public speech before the NRA he might say, “Anyone who
shoots a Muslim gets a Presidential pardon!” A week
later, when he finally recants his “little joke,” the
consequences have proved not little but lethal. Or,
what is worse, with all the alacrity of a carefree
schoolboy, Trump might lob a nuclear missile into North
Korea, reasoning that their fixation with becoming a
nuclear power makes them everyone’s enemy, and even Red
China has no affection for that tiny, isolated country.
So here would be an opportunity for making North Korea
stop acting uppity toward the nations they believe are
their enemies.
After that missile gets launched into North Korea,
all of Red China, even if exercising forbearance about
a nuclear retaliation, would then be on high alert. But
then a few days later, even though last week he was
chums with Putin, one morning Putin says something that
arouses Trump’s reflexive ire, and in a temper he
thinks that he should give Putin a warning by throwing
“just one” nuclear missile into the northern Ukraine,
unaware that the response would inevitably be more than
“just one.” Thus he brings us to the brink, and within
seconds to the actuality, of nuclear war. Those who do
not perish in the fiery exchange would then die an
agonizing death—either within a month by nuclear
poisoning, or within a year during the subsequent
“nuclear winter.”
These concerns about possible perils are neither
idle speculation nor self-indulgent drama. Virtually
anyone, whether they be anti-Trump or pro-Trump, can
not but agree that any of the above scenarios are
possible should circumstance, arrogance, and impulse
all coalesce at the same moment. Some people may be
less worried about these scenarios than others are.
Many Trump supporters may manage to not worry about
them at all. But there is a rare person who, giving
this matter but one minute’s thought, would not
consider all of these scenarios entirely within the
realm of what is disturbingly possible. In other words,
these scenarios are not vague fantasies, they are reluctant
and fearful concerns—almost amounting to
predictions—about the possible terminal consequences of
Donald Trump’s mental and moral illness.I have long thought
that I would go to my grave believing that George W. Bush was
the worst President in American history. That belief now seems almost like
a self-indulgent luxury. What I am now beginning to
believe is that with Donald Trump as our President, we
may soon witness the terminus of American history. Or,to put it
more accurately, there will be no human beings left
to witness the terminus of American history
… or the terminus of human history.
