Trump is in a slump. Someone who really cares about him should at least try to advise him that he is looking out of control and unwell. He was sweating and screaming the other night at his rally, looking more like a circus-barker under the BIG Top instead of the U.S. President. The lies he told about the coronavirus resurgence and his lack of attention and compassion for the protests about racial injustice reform was appalling to watch. He is unable to accept that the pandemic he was warned would happen by President Barack Obama has trashed the economy and slowed down his #1 priority as President, which is to get re-elected. COVID-19 has exposed the complete abdication of his constitutional duty to make the protection of America, and it’s citizens his #1 priority.By holding the rally and making masks optional and social distancing impossible, he chose his addiction to campaigning over the health of his supporters and those they might infect from attending the event. During the rally, he wrongly blamed testing as the reason for the increase in the number of new COVID cases. His reasoning was so convoluted he sounded ignorant of understanding any of the science the medical and scientific community has been teaching us for the past three months. Does it make any sense to trust the judgment of a President who gets the basic facts about a pandemic wrong? What if he is aware of the virus’s threat to Americans’ health but is choosing his own political and personal interests over managing the spread? Both options are frightening.He is taking the same minimizing approach to the surge of infections as he did in January to the initial appearance of the coronavirus. With the number of deaths reaching over 120,000 deaths, there was no moment of silence or words of empathy at this rally to honor those who have died and the grieving families left behind. Those of us who are mental health professionals are always struck by how his rally performances are diagnostic moments that validate the disorders we suspect he suffers from. The incessant talking about himself, the need to denigrate others, the agitated, divisive manner in which he speaks of those he sees as threats or enemies, and the conspiracy theory beliefs indicate issues with mood regulation, reality testing, self-esteem, and narcissism.Additionally, the President made a racially-tinted joke saying, “the virus has more names than any other disease like I’m hearing the ‘Kung-flu virus.” He then went on to mourn the loss of “our beautiful statues, our heritage,” referring to the statues which commemorate the Confederacy and slavery. Will he suggest to Germany and Italy to publicly re-erect their statues of Hitler and Mussolini to join in his nostalgia about the darkest hour of every country?Hopefully, in 2020 American voters will consider a Presidential candidate’s social, emotional, intellectual, and characterological functioning when they go to vote. Speaking of voting, Trump is so insecure about his re-election prospects, he is spreading false information about mail-in ballot voter fraud. Even Twitter, who has allowed Trump to violate their operational policies, recently put a fact check on misleading tweets he made about the incidence of voter fraud. Trump was re-running his 2016 predictions of voter fraud when he feared he would lose to Hillary Clinton. He continued to claim fraud after he was elected in an attempt to prove he won the popular vote. He had a bogus investigation on the issue, which yielded no evidence of his claims. He predicts fraud when he fears he will lose an election as a strategy to protect his ego of being seen as a loser, which many say is one of his greatest fears. This rally had nothing to do with committing to an agenda, an ideology, or policies that will shape his next term if re-elected. He is not presidential, so he must rely on joking, lying, and attacking people to fill two hours of performance.The failure of the rally, the parting from his views on racial injustice by white-dominated organizations, John Bolton’s account of him asking China’s President Xi to help him get re-elected in the 2020 presidential race, his recent losses in the Supreme Court, and the ongoing corrupt acts he is instructing William Barr to take on his behalf are indications of a than Nixon-like fall from power is imminent. It is a sad time for America that so many Republicans have allowed Trump’s defiance of the rule of law and continue to do nothing. Hopefully, they all fall together, whether that means getting voted out of the office or suffer legal consequences. Let’s hope most Americans are not buying Trump’s lies about COVID-19 because enough innocent people have died because of his power-hungry, damaged ego.
