If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you already know that I am profoundly troubled by the presidency of Donald J. Trump. On the day he was elected, I made a personal commitment to contribute my time and energy to resisting the Orwellian ideas of this president and his administration.
It has been difficult to know where to start, because a new horror seems to surface every day, and the feeling of powerlessness can be paralyzing. But the stakes are too high to be stagnant, and the Women’s March on Saturday reminded me that there are millions of us who are motivated to do their own part in this resistance.
So I’m going to zero in on two areas where I have confidence in my ability to offer expert-level insight:
- Press and Communications strategy: I’ve been a PR pro for over 20 years, primarily working with tech executives and national business media;
- Mental Illness: I have been very public about my own journey recovering from various mental illnesses (currently depression & complex PTSD), mostly brought on by my father’s narcissistic abuse.
On point #1, I’ll dedicate a future post to the truly bizarre and unprofessional conduct exhibited to the press by POTUS, Kellyanne Conway, Sean Spicer and all of their truth-distorting surrogates, but suffice it to say that I would resign before lying to the press on behalf of anyone.
Point #2 is more urgent, in my view, and needs to be addressed and considered post-haste by every stakeholder in press and government.
When is it too late to stop an untreated mental patient from running our country?
Just to put things in context, let’s review some things POTUS has done in just the last five days:
- Started a three-day war with the press about whether his inauguration crowd was bigger than Obama’s;
- Forced his aids to lie to the press about his inauguration being the “most-viewed of all time”;
- Claimed once again, falsely, that 3.5 million “illegals” committed voter fraud, only in the states where he didn’t win, and that he is truly the popular vote winner;
- Brought a squad of cheerleaders with him to CIA’s most holy space to talk about his TIME Magazine covers and falsely claimed that the media fabricated his war with the Intelligence Community;
- Continues to refuse reports that Russia and Vladimir Putin affected the outcome of the election;
- Has put a gag order on several government agencies;
- Appeared on ABC News to declare, among other things, that his CIA speech was fantastic.
This is not normal.
And with every attack, there’s a 24-to-36-hour news cycle where perfectly smart, well-meaning people go on TV and social media channels to try to make sense of why. “You are the President now! You won! The election is over! Why do you care about this?”
They are all wasting time. Every time he lashes out, this is why he does it:
- His childhood deprived him of love and affection, turning him into a being that is constantly seeking validation and adoration from outside of himself;
- Those who do not love or revere him are the enemy;
- His childhood deprived him of a strong identity and sense of self; he only understands who he is through the eyes of others and the media, and this is why it is so life-giving or soul-sucking for him;
- He believes he is powerful enough to have an outsized level of control over outcomes; if he doesn’t get the outcome he thought he should get, he believes he was cheated;
- He understands logical conclusions, but he doesn’t operate on them;
- Because he has been wealthy and powerful all his life he is surrounded by people who will never tell him the truth about any of this, and even if they do, he will not hear them;
- Truth is less important than power;
- Nothing will ever be enough.
That last point is the most important. Donald Trump has ascended to the highest office in the known universe, and he still questions his own worth. The slippery slope of that “not enough” thinking is gaining momentum toward a very dark conclusion, made even darker by the fact that it is so difficult to identify in timing and detail. As his tentacles reach deeper into government and shut all the windows and doors of transparency, we will be further shielded from the truth.
The messy truth is that Donald Trump will never be satisfied, and now that he is our President, we will be the sacrifice of his downward spiral into our own realization of it. Unless he is stopped.
In just the past five days since he placed his hand on the bible, he has exhibited at least seven instances where the soundness of his mind must be called into serious question. How much more do we need to know before we save ourselves and pull the plug? Will a human being, or several, have to die before it becomes real? Even more importantly, who has the will and the authority to make the call and start that ball rolling?
On an interpersonal basis, it’s hard to know when enough is enough. It took me 40 years to completely extract myself from my father’s abuse, and years of medicine and therapy to climb out of a very surreal head space. At one time, my thinking and behavior was on the spectrum of Donald J. Trump’s, and though that was a long time ago, I still remember what it was like to be able to talk myself into doing things I would never do now, just for the sake of immediate gratification.
In my situation, my father was the only bad seed in my life. I was otherwise surrounded by positivity and love, or I would not have climbed out to become self-aware enough to write these reflections. Our president was not so lucky. He had a tortured, loveless, power-seeking upbringing, and he has created a loveless, power-hungry existence for everyone around him.
What we have is a 70-year old man with a severe degree of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and the inevitable abuse is hitting our country like a tidal wave. That is why I am sounding the alarm bell. Knowing what I know about his headspace, the time is now to start doing what we need to do, because it’s going to take some time, and I have no idea where to start or who can start it.
The future changed drastically for me on November 8, 2016 — it went from eager and optimistic to scared and radicalized. But I’m here with some tools, and I’m ready to help us ride the wave rather than be overcome by it.
If you are part of the #resistance and there is something I can do to help, please hit me up on Twitter (@foxycar).
